Monday, August 22, 2011

Why are the Lakes Green?

Every year at this time, many members ask why are the lakes green?  Mike Ogorek wrote up a report for me for the blog.
This is a natural fall time happening on lakes with a good weed population.  As temperatures drop at night, the top water of the lake cools.  Since cold water is heavier than warm water, at some point the heavier cold water falls to the bottom.  This is what happens when a "Lake Turns Over".  The shock of the cold water kills a lot of the weeds which turns the water green.  The water should clear up within the next 2 to 3 weeks.

Mike also gave me some information on the weeds in our pond.  He spoke with PHD from Central Michigan University about our ponds several years ago.  He reported that we have mostly Pond Weed.  We have the type that has a short like cycle(3-6 weeks).  He recommended that we leave it as is because the habitat is good for fishing.  The cloudy green in the Spring is a type of algae and not dying weeds.  It aids in controlling weed growth.  The weed bed we have is great for fish spawning.

Work continues on the natural pipeline inspection.  Monday, they drained the line of any gas.  Wednesday, they plan on cutting into the pipe and use a scope to check the line all the way back to Torrence.  If all is OK, they will back fill and dig up the other pipe that runs parallel.

The tee shot from #14 men's may change next year.  This group of cotton woods died this summer.  The crew will cut them down in early November on a frost morning.  We've been loosing a couple of cotton woods in the ditch line each year.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011


Work is being done to test the 2 natural gas pipelines that run parallel with the power lines that cut across the golf course.  This is done every 6 or 7 years.  The pipeline is about 70 years old.  Hopefully, the pipe is in good shape so no repairs will be needed.
Except for a little rain on Sunday, the club championship was completed.  Congratulations to Mike Kotich and Melissa Kerr.  We got green speeds back to normal since the hot spell.  Cool weather is in the forecast for the next 10 days.  We held up much better than most courses in the area.  We missed most of the rain the decimated much of Chicago.  August is actually very dry.  We have received only .85 inches of rain with the average being about 4 for the month.  We could use some rain to keep the course looking nice.

Remember, September is aerification time.  We plan on doing it the last 2 weeks of September.  We will do the back first and then the front.  We need to finish before October because I start losing workers.  The sooner we finish, the sooner they heal up.

If you haven't noticed, the days are getting shorter.  We are having a hard time getting the course ready for 8:00 shot guns.  The sun rises at 6:00, and it takes a minimum of 2.5 hours to do the basics ahead of play.  It would be a great help it you could have 8:30 shot guns in August and 9:00 in September.