Thursday, September 17, 2009

Another Beautiful Day

As the summer comes to an end, the golf course begins to look very needy. It's spent the last few months struggling to survive heat, traffic, drought, and salty irrigation water. Basically, the plant is spent and needs some tender loving care to get back into shape.

Unfortunately, that means it is time to punch some holes. Aerification is one of the most important practices for maintaining good turf, but is totally despised by the majority of golfers. I assure you, if we did not have to do this, we would not. Nobody on my staff is really excited about aerifying the greens because they are going to wake up the next day with worn out legs and a sore back. The greens, on the other hand, will feel like they've been reborn.

A few of us on the staff pulled two 14 hour days in row. Normally we would limit this to one long day after finishing 6 greens the night before. This time, our aerifier went down and we were forced to stretch the work into another day. Now I like my job and I'm willing to put in some long hours, but it does wear on you a little bit. Getting 'burned out' is very common among Superintendents and I think I was pretty close over the last couple of weeks.

Lucky for me, I work at a golf course which can be a very beautiful place to come to work and it is pretty difficult to be burned out when you start your day looking at this.


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