Hello from the Illinois Valley,
Spring weather is finally here! Yesterday we had so much play that the Sunday afternoon skins guys only had a scant few carts to use, a great problem to have!
In last weeks news, Rex and Joe came up from McKinleyville and Jason came over from Lakeview and me and Todd filled out the rest of the team and played Grants Pass and Rogue Valley Country Clubs’ pro-ams over Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Cave Junction was also represented by D’Lynn, Troy, Poke, Tyler and Scottie. They played really well and put them in the money. Poke won a $160 skin on Saturday and Scott won one on Sunday. D’Lynn played like a pro and finished in the pro money both days and their team also finished in the top six for extra money as well. A special shout-out to Roger Hults, who cut his teeth at I.V. golf—he won overall best score for everyone at the tournament, combined with all four days. His Dad, Huey made sure that everyone knew about his performance.
Our Friday night skins had John, Jason S, Chris, Mikey, Colby, Emily (and Grey and Ash), Scottie, Sue, Eugene, Danny, Jakob and I in attendance. I won a skin on #2, Chris looked professional with skins on #4 and #9, Eugene got one on #7 and Jason broke into the skins world with his first one on #6.
Todd got his greens crew together during the week and punched all of the greens and spread the nicest sand we have had in years. The greens look like green velvet right now and Todd will mow them today for the start of Men’s Twilight League. We actually had eight volunteers out there for two days, kudos to all the guys who brought blowers and shovels and made the punching a success.
The Thursday night ladies have gotten off to a great start and had three groups out, in spite of it being cold and windy. Sherrie is going to start helping out in the pro shop and will be a fantastic addition to the staff, welcome aboard, Sherrie.
The Chamomile plants are finally starting to wilt where Troy and Scott sprayed them, those little flowers are so annoying when trying to find a white ball against their white petals, but it looks as if we have a weapon against them finally. Just a little story about their origin: In about 1998, the Kerby Ditch association decided to stop running water. At the same time, the city of Cave Junction stopped supplying effluent to the course. This left the course with only spring water that is stored in the fresh water pond and a couple wells. In the summer, the fresh water pond went dry and the two small wells were only able to keep up with watering the greens and tee boxes so the entire course turned light tan, almost white. In the following winter, the chamomile took advantage of the weak grasses and made a pretty good stand. It wasn’t bad to play on, so long as it remained cool, preventing the flowers from blooming. By the time warm weather came along, the chamomile went dormant. This scenario happened for two years, until the guys put in the pipeline to the river. In the following years, the course came onto tough financial times and the volunteers running it chose not to spend funds on experimenting with sprays to help alleviate the chamomile. The chamomile then set its feet in and became a regular spring annoyance, but this year we may get a leg up on it, maybe by 2030 we will have it under control!
I spread some fertilizer Tuesday in the most barren places and will spread on the entire course a little later in spring, once we get a few good mows in, so we don’t have to fight the rapid growth response to the extra nitrogen. We had every mower running Sunday with about seven volunteers out there, cutting the thick grass and the course looks like a giant emerald carpet today.
*Men’s league starts this week on Mondays and Wednesdays.
*Kids league starts June 14—and remember that kids under 18 play for free.
