First snow of the season

We received some much needed moisture in the way of a rain snow mix yesterday and last night.  There was about an inch of snow on the ground when we arrived this morning and .9" of an inch of rain and melted snow in the rain gauge from the last 24 hours.  The course is closed for the day but are expecting good weather for the last two days of the season this weekend and hope to be able to open by mid-day tomorrow so you can get a couple more rounds in before closing for the season Sunday.

Audubon International Re-Certification

Native area between 5 green and 6 tee

Native area behind 11 green

 This summer The Vail Golf Club earned our re-certification with Audubon International which began for us in 1998.  The Audubon helps golf courses to protect and enhance the natural environment that exist on golf courses. Some of the things we are incorporating now are additions of more native rough that is out of play to reduce mowing and water use.  With this we have turned off 8 irrigation heads and reduced the coverage of 4 more. Look for more areas like this to pop up as we continue to assess other possible areas. We also have added two wildflower beds and plan seeding more into native areas to help honey bee population and aesthetics of the areas. Certification helps us continue to improve on our standard environmental practices.  Making the golf course a great place to play and enjoy nature.

Turnaround at 17 green 

Wild  flowers starting to bloom in turnaround

Solid Tine Aeration

This week we aerated the greens with an X-tine.  In the past we've used a 1/8' solid needle tine but have changed it up this week.  The X-tine creates a larger hole but doesn't cause any more disturbance in the putting surface.  The holes created helps relieve compaction, allow water to percolate down into the soil, and provide better air movement around the roots.  All which helps the turf remain healthy and maintain a good putting surface.  We will be following up with a light topdressing on Thursday.  By Friday the holes should be non-existent.

May weather

This May was the wettest in at least the last 15 years with 3.55 inches of rain and snow melt. The next closest was 2010 but still .41 of an inch less than this year.  We even received one more inch of snow on the course in May as we did in April. While it may have seemed a lot cooler the high temperature was only about 2 degrees cooler than the past 10 year average.  All the cloud cover and moisture in the air definitely made it feel cooler.

While we needed the moisture to make up for the dry March and April it has slowed down the recovery of some of the winter damage in the fairways and rough.  Now the last week has been warm and sunny, this should help raise soil temperatures and get the course healing quickly. Next Tuesday we will be applying our first application of fertilizer to the course which will also help in the healing process.


With the GoPro games coming up this weekend it usually times well with Gore creek flows getting higher and this year is no different.  You will start to see high water on the course most notably right now in #1 fairway and around the cart path on #7.  Some years are worse than others as we all know so we'll see how much run off and ground water coming up affects us this year. 

Leveling Tees

We have started working on tees this spring.  Again we are continuing to level and shape tees and continue to make improvements.  The blue tee on #17 has already been leveled this year.  On number #5 blue / Black tee the rock wall has been removed and the gold tee has been slightly elevated and leveled.  The construction crew is now on 2 yellow tee and should have it leveled and re-sodded by the end of the day.  Other tees that will have work done on them are #9 black, #13 green, gold, blue, and #17 black. Once a tee is re-sodded it will be out of play for two to three weeks while it begins to root and recover.  The tees in the meantime the tees will be moved to the nearest playable tee. Please be patient while the sod recovers it will make for a much better tee once they are opened back up.

Opening weekend

It's opening weekend here at The Vail Golf Club! The weather has held up and the course is in great shape.  Thanks to the warm weather and lack of snow this spring the course is at least a couple weeks ahead of schedule.  

Just a reminder we are cart paths only until we the fairways fully recover and we get into a full growing season.  On Monday May 4th we will be dry-jecting the greens.  The back nine will be open but the front nine will be closed.  Dry-jecting is a fairly non-evasive form of aeration and should have very little impact on the playability of the greens.  Enjoy the weekend and get out and play!