Hello,

The golf season is near…I think. Wow, this has been one long winter and we haven’t even gone through our typical April/May weather. The course has basically been covered with the same snow we received in November and is still hanging on as long as it possibly can. I know many of you are suffering from cabin fever as we are but the snow cover has been a blessing. We didn’t have the horrible wind that is normally blowing off our snow cover and the greens are very thankful for that.

We’ve spent the off-season working on budgets, equipment, and attending educational conferences. The board and staff members had to make some hard decisions with budgets this year due to economic status of the club. There were several cuts made to ensure that the budget was more fiscally stable and realistic. With that said we have had to improvise some of our maintenance practices to accommodate these changes and hopefully they’ll make ends meet. The costs associated with golf course maintenance are continually rising and we are doing our best from having to pass all of these on to our customers.

The club was recently granted funds from the Lander District Recreation Board and this year they will be used mainly for offsetting these recent budget cuts. We also plan on using some of the monies to improve fairway conditions and installing some sod on bare areas around the facility.  The club is very fortunate to have received this assistance as we would not be able to function without the grant(s) awarded.

The cart path project on #15 and #16 hasn’t been completed due to the ability to get the concrete trucks out to the jobsite. Our foundation work is done however in process of getting this established our haul route collapsed and never dried out before the snow set in. We have an alternate plan in place with shuttling the material out to the potential cart path but we will have to wait until the property is accessible. Please cross your fingers as once this path is completed, we’ll have checked off one of the engineering nightmares from the never-ending list.

We have several little projects to take on this year. The board has decided that it cannot afford to take anymore on until the financial situation allows us to maintain the current layout that we already have. This will also allow us to get the course in the best possible shape for the upcoming tournament schedule. The WSGA tournament in September will require plenty of volunteers and I will have a signup sheet that will be posted at a later date.

Well our time will be focused on getting the course ready for the opening date weather permitting. This involves sweeping the sand off the greens, mowing, establishing tee areas, cleaning up debris and watching the snow melt. I can’t wait to see all of you in a couple of weeks and my staff is ready for a great year.

Thanks for your continued support,

Jason D. Aanestad

Golf Course Superintendent

Posted: March 16th, 2010 under Newsletter.
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