Allister MacKenzie

“A golf course should be made interesting and a good test of golf by the tilt of the greens and the character of the undulations.”

Monday, December 15, 2014

Water Restrictions

Water Restrictions have been postponed due to excessive rainfall.  We just received our year end report detailing our water usage.  Our staff tracked weather data daily and did a great job utilizing every drop allocated to us the past 6 months.  The graph below shows our allotment in red and our actual usage in blue.


Sunday, December 14, 2014

Rain!

We are off to a great start with rain totals now approaching 17.5"!  Significant rainfall is forecasted for most of the week and the long term forecast looks to be more of the same.  We could easily reach 20" within the next ten days.  The City of Santa Cruz is calling for 35"- 40" of rain for us to not be under restrictions next year.

Most of the seed we planted in the fairways germinated and will continue to mature and grow as long as the temperatures continue to be moderate.  A fertilizer application on the fairways is scheduled as soon as we get a break in the weather and are able to get some equipment on the turf.

The drought has consequences beyond loss of turf.  Turf has more competition from broadleaf weeds due to lack of coverage.  Weeds are very opportunistic and will fill voids where turf is absent.  New seedlings are vulnerable to damage from herbicide applications until they mature.  The new seedlings in the fairways are now mature enough for an application.  We will make a herbicide application during our next break in the weather.

It is important to recognize how far we have come the past 30 days.  We will continue to do everything we can to improve course conditions as we distance ourselves from one of the worst droughts this area has experienced over the last 50 years.  Thank you for your support during a challenging time.


December 14th 2014

September 13th 2014