The Wyndgate Golf Club Maintenance Department: The Wyndgate Plant and Wildlife Sanctuary

It's Berry Season!

Like the calendar seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter, Golf Course Superintendents have their seasons as well. After being cooped up most of the winter, we have a tendency to get "cabin fever" and we become rearing to go, especially when the days are starting to get longer and Mother Nature gives us a brief look into the upcoming season with some kind of unseasonable warm up. However, before you know it, you are fully staffed with your regular employees and you even take on a few fresh faces from the local colleges. Summer is in full swing and the heat continues to increase with each passing day. The "dog days" are upon us and the once eager and energetic crew are now just trying to make it to the end of the growing season!

Speaking of making it - August is here and your pumps seem to be getting louder and louder and your irrigation pond is showing parts of its shoreline that you haven't seen in, well since this time last year. Ahh, fall is here and things are starting to quiet down - oh wait, you have a frost delay and there is an 8:00am shotgun. You don't have enough "skeletons" for the weekend "skeleton crew" and you're hearing complaints from golfers about ballmarks on greens. Aerification holes are by now filled and grown over and next on the list is your snow mold application. Mid-week lunches with your favorite salesman are taking place while you discuss tweaking your programs for next year. The conferences have now all concluded and the new season is about to begin with fresh ideas and new faces.

Lost in all of the hustle during a typical growing season at The Wyndgate is the annual renewing of the bountiful wildberries and raspberries that are found all throughout the property. There's plenty here for everyone to enjoy, as you can hardly drive along side a section of woods without seeing the tasty fruit. Mid-July seems to be the peak time for maturity and it's also one of mine and Phil's favorite time of the year - along with apple season!

So as our day's continue with the same monotony as raking leaves in a maple grove, remember the other seasons that take place on the golf course. Sure, not every golf course has edible fruits or a healthy variety of animals at our exposure but all of us have something that nature gives us and its important to keep those things healthy and vibrant. It's nature's beauty that keeps our minds from scrambling to the point of no return, whether we are responsible for maintaining it or not, we should still try and be good stewards for the environment.

Remember that mid-July brings us one step closer to the end of a successful growing season, remember it brings us to Berry Season!

* I am NOT a "tree hugger" and I am an avid hunter but this blog was created to help alleviate some of the pressure that is put on golf courses, just because they are golf courses.

The job of a Golf Course Superintendent is a gratifying profession to have. We have the luxury of seeing the sun rise on a daily basis and it's on our shoulders throughout our workday most of the time during the summer. Most Superintendents are lucky enough to experience all 4 seasons and be able to take on all that they have to offer - recreationally or as a profession. Like every profession though, there are day's or situations that being a Superintendent is not the greatest job to have, but rather just the opposite.

Golf courses throughout the years have been given a "bad rap" for NOT being environmentally friendly - this narrative has really picked up steam over the last decade or so - the thought being that because we apply chemicals and pump water for irrigation, we must be bad stewards to our profession and out of touch with the environment. That statement couldn't be any more ludicrous and is completely based on assumption. Clearly our job isn't to just kill everything that moves, and the majority don't do things that way, but rather it's to create a healthy environment that starts with turf grass and also covers trees, flowers, shrubs and ponds. The role we play chemically is to keep the balance between a healthy vascular plant and to rid our established and maintained areas of unwanted pests or pathogens. We say balance because eliminating one particular pest can also eliminate something that is beneficial to the environment - that's why we use terms like threshold, because we don't always need to eliminate.

If people were to look around while they are golfing and take in all that is around them, they would be shocked. As you can see in the pictures, we have a wide variety of animals, reptiles, birds, insects, flowers fish and even weeds - all of these pictures were taken while driving around checking on the golf course.