If it feels like you've been receiving a good number of "No Carts" text messages this month, you would be correct. While any golfing weather in January should be considered a bonus, this January's warm weather still didn't allow much cart activity.
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| Gray skies and puddles have been a common sight in January. |
In fact, from January 19-January 25, we had three separate rain events, totaling 2.75". However, as the saying goes: At least it wasn't snow.
While we were hit with some bitterly cold weather pre-Christmas, thus far, January has been quite mild. Because of this, the covers on the putting greens have not been a "set it and forget it" for the bulk of the winter. In fact, most weeks, the team has pulled the covers at least one time, whether it's for mowing and rolling the green at the range, or applying a fertilizer or fungicide to the seeded Clubhouse putting green.
When we have forecast low temperatures remaining at 40 degrees or above, we will typically leave the covers off for the night. As you can see, the sodded putting green has been enjoying the warmth that the blanket provides.
The Turf Blog will be taking a brief winter break during January. However, if anything newsworthy takes place, we will be certain to communicate that to you, and look forward to sharing new course information with you in 2023!
This past Saturday, December 31, we had the unusual situation of making a "No Carts" call when we hadn't received any measurable precipitation in a full week. To be certain, there was plenty of cart activity on the day prior to this, Friday, December 30:
So why would we need to go from carts, to no carts when there wasn't any rain or snow? Well, the simple answer is, to protect the golf course. With practically no turf growth this time of year, any damage done by carts will remain for several months to come. The deeper (both literal and figurative) answer is how this damage can occur.
If you remember back to the nasty storm a few days before Christmas, we received 1.2" of rain, taking us to a well above average 4.65" for the month. Immediately following this storm, temperatures took a nosedive. Before that water had a chance to runoff or infiltrate the soil profile, it became frozen near the surface. Over the next several days we experienced some extremely frigid weather, locking that water in place.
As temperatures slowly began to rise in the week following Christmas, the soil too began to thaw. But in the same way that the soil freezes from the top down, it also melts that way. Thus we find a soft melted layer at the surface, with a frozen layer beneath it, so for over a week, the majority of that pre-Christmas precipitation hadn't moved at all.
Allowing traffic under these conditions can cause damaging root shear, as described in this brief USGA video:
To summarize, fully frozen soil is typically alright to drive on, as is fully thawed soil, once it's had a chance to drain. However, traffic on partially thawed soil can lead to a very unappetizing turf stew.
