Skeena Valley GC Maintenance

It may be a holiday but it is still a Monday. We are trying to squeeze a small drainage project in this week before club championship. Unfortunately the lack of as-built irrigation maps lets us have little wet surprises. Good training opportunities for Finn 😁

Battling rocks and rain we managed to get all the greens double verticut, sanded and cleaned up. 60 work hours later we managed to get them cleaned up and ready for play.

Why we put so many hours into doing this you ask? Look at the first picture and see the black algae filling in under the thin canopy. That and long grass blades will continue to degrade our putting quality.

Thank you to the crew for braving the rain to get this done. It was a lot of walking as every square inch of our greens needed shovelling off by hand. This will keep our greens the best in the North!!!

If anyone is around today or this week make sure you congratulate Andrew Bennett for putting up with us for 1 year already. Looking forward to seeing what his talent will bring us this up coming year. Happy 1 yr anniversary Andrew!!

Let the games begin!!!

If you remember this game you will have an idea what tomorrow’s men’s night will be like. Some landing areas will help (ladders) and some will be chutes. Great idea Finn, thanks. As well we will have some long holes, interesting pins and general chaos. Please listen to the pro shop staff as they fill every group in on what the game is all about and/or read the posted sheet or Mens night list on the page. Sorry morning golfers, you will get to enjoy the madness!!!

Final day of the Seniors Open. Good luck to all the men and ladies that are playing. The weather held up perfectly and the crew is in tournament mode. Enjoy our course, we love showing it off.

Summer is here and the last rain made your lawn perk up. How do you get your place looking a step better than it is? Well you could give your grass more nitrogen, but that will mean you are watering and mowing at least twice a week.
You should spray a light application of iron if you want that nice dark colour. It will darken your grass without causing a surge of growth.
On the course we spray our greens and green surrounds with iron. You can see the transition between sprayed (front part) and not sprayed (back half of the photo) in this picture of #6 apron.

Riverboat days are here again. The Skeena Valley Golf Course is happy to help Mr Mikes by lending our trap rake for the beach volleyball tournament again. I think what Mr Mikes does for riverboat days and the community is just great. I know it is a lot of time and money that they put into this and we are happy to help out. Good luck to all the competitors this year.

Thank you to Scott and the team at Mr Mikes and every business, association and volunteer that takes the time to make Terrace and Riverboat Days so incredible. Have fun and be safe everyone.

Here comes the heat!!!
As the days heat up your grass is about to go into a stressed protective state. What does that mean to you? First thing to know is water is lazy and will take the path of least resistance. As the soil dries out it will become hydrophobic. That means it will start to repel the water in spots. To prevent this, keep up with your watering to help prevent these spots from forming. Once dry, your soil will need a wetting agent or a ton of water to recover.
Raise your mowing height to 2.5” or higher. Fertilize your grass with nitrogen and potassium. Potassium (the 3rd number on your fertilizer bag with symbol K) provides your lawn with stress resistance. Water your fertilizer in well as fertilizers are salts that can burn your grass especially during sunny hot days.

What does this mean for golf. Sadly with our old system (until we computerize it this year 👍) it means watering in mornings and sometimes through the day. If you see us watering all day that means we are watering our fertilizer in or most likely means something went wrong. We apologize for our system limits.
Enjoy the heat and the extra ball roll for the next couple months as we will most likely stop watering landing areas soon.