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Supersized wake-up call
Golf course management is a daunting task on the heels of a Rocky Mountain winter.
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| The second hole on the Beaver Nine at Breckenridge (Colo. ) CC. Photo by Jim Mandeville/The Nicklaus Co. |
There’s spring prep, and then there’s SPRING PREP!
The latter deserves the emphasis. It’s reserved for a distinct minority of golf courses — those in far northern climes, those at altitude or both.
In either case, preparing the course for the golf season ahead is not unlike arousing a groggy, cranky bear from hibernation. It’s a lot of hard work, done very carefully. From a superintendent’s point of view, bringing his or her venue out of a long winter’s slumber requires a special dedication to the profession in general and to one’s course in particular.
Typical of that breed of me/n and women in golf course management is Fred “Derf” Soller, superintendent at Breckenridge Golf Club, nestled in the midst of Colorado’s central Rockies. Soller knows more than a little about hibernation — of turf, that is. He hasn’t aroused any bears as yet, but after several years of digging a golf course out from under a winter at more than 9,000 feet elevation to provide a quality place to play the game for only 4 months, how hard can it be?
“Well, you’ve got to like what you do, that’s for sure,” says Soller, an 18-year GCSAA member who has spent a 20-year career as a greenkeeper in demanding and heavily scrutinized conditions, and liking it.
Winning track record
Soller, a past president (2003) of the Rocky Mountain GCSA, a member of GCSAA’s environmental program committee and chairman of its wildlife and habitat management task group, has the pedigree to prove his mettle in air rarefied in more ways than one. He learned his craft as a young assistant in the mid-1980s in the company of Jack Nicklaus, who designed and built the 18-hole layout in a high valley north of the town of Breckenridge in the heart of Colorado’s ski country, which runs along the I-70 corridor from the Denver foothills to the imposing mesas on the Western Slope.
Several years later, the up-and-coming superintendent and Nicklaus, both Ohio natives, teamed up again during the creation of the environmentally acclaimed Old Works Golf Club on a former mining site near Anaconda, Mont. Soller won a couple of GCSAA’s regional Environmental Steward Awards there, but was back in the place he knows best by the spring of 1998 as the town’s on-site coordinator with Nicklaus Design in the construction of an additional nine holes at Breckenridge GC.
The relatively brief hiatus at The Old Works — which won the national public ESA in 1999 under Soller’s successor, Rick Hathaway — was invaluable experience for Soller during the new development at Breckenridge, as well as afterward.
The original 18-hole layout, one of Colorado’s first Audubon Cooperative Sanctuaries, and the new nine, which opened about five years ago, feature several wetlands areas that are part of the Swan River’s drainage into the Blue River, which in turn runs into Dillon Reservoir, one of the prime sources of drinking water for Denver’s near-insatiable thirst.
“The Old Works gave me a good appreciation of the rules and regulations that are in play, especially some that weren’t 20 years ago,” Soller says. “When it came time for us to get our permitting and to work with the Army Corps of Engineers and local officials, it was just a natural progression.”
The climate of southwest Montana also helped steel Soller for the realities of Colorado’s ongoing drought of the last several years and its effect on the quality of golf: “In this business here, you’ve got to get over that green is good. I brought that back with me,” he says. “We worked with the town on water conservation and explained that there would be off-color areas and that firm is good.”
Spanning the solstice
The golf season at Breckenridge GC runs basically from mid- to late May to early October. That leaves room for a lot of down time, and at 9,400 feet and with an average annual snowfall that’s likewise measured in feet, any examination of spring prep must first be prefaced by a review of the winter prep under such circumstances.
“It’s directly related to how successful the course turns out in the spring and on into the season,” Soller says of his program to assure that the layout’s long sleep is a sound one followed by a healthy, refreshed awakening.
The golf property entails about 350 acres, but the 27 holes comprise just 102 acres of maintained turf, which includes Penncross bentgrass greens and tees, and bluegrass fairways, rough and surrounds. The fall-to-spring regimen, however, takes a substantial bite out of Soller’s $1 million-plus budget and demands a considerable work ethic — the superintendent and less than a handful of others virtually babysit their snoozing charge.
Ironically, like most mountain venues, Breckenridge is in its prime during September. The turf and the playability are never better, the customer-enticing scenery never more emblematic of “Colorful Colorado.” Then, in butterfly fashion, it’s suddenly over.
The work of a few
Sometime in the first week or so of October, the course closes, and Soller begins to pare his seasonal staff of 35 down to himself; his top assistants, GCSAA members Tim Walsh and Jim Byers; mechanic Terry Cochran; and veteran staffer Neal Burton.
Fall aerification actually begins before closing and everything is punched except the greens. “We make an effort to continue the quality of play through September,” Soller explains.
Later there is wall-to-wall verticutting, and clearing and cleaning of drainage areas to facilitate the off-and-on runoff of snowmelt that will come. Soller applies limited pre-winter fertility, preferring to slow the turf down to enhance dormancy and reduce the chances of injury.
His major cultural concern is snow mold, and preventive fungicides are applied on all the maintained turf by the end of October. Soller opts for liquid spraying for ease of application and better coverage. His current products of choice are Andersons’ Penstar for the greens and tees and a combination of Syngenta’s Banner MAXX, Medallion and Daconil for the rest of the place.
Soller also treats areas that don’t hold snow well, such as mounds, with an anti-transpirant to combat sun and wind desiccation. By the same token, he doesn’t use turf covers, relying on snow cover, which averages three to four feet. However, sometimes it’s more than that, sometimes it’s less and sometimes it’s not enough.
“That’s one of my biggest fears,” Soller says of inadequate snowfall. “We’ll go out with snowblowers in the fall and relocate snow onto the bentgrass, at least.”
The timing of winter prep is always critical, and none more so than the irrigation blowout. Breckenridge can have frost year-round, and it doesn’t take long in the fall for it to be well on its way to its ultimate ground depth. Somewhere around mid-October the deed must be done.
“We have a date, yet we kind of play it by ear every fall,” Soller says. “The frost here goes down very deep, five to six feet. We have to be very systematic and very thorough. We’ve become experts at it, I guess.”
In the heart of winter, Cochran, of course, is busy whipping the machinery into shape and the others have the usual winter golf course chores like sprucing up and painting course amenities. But golf course management at Breckenridge GC swerves sharply away from the norm once the snow settles in for good. The town’s increasingly popular Nordic ski center takes over where the golf left off for Soller and his skeleton crew (see sidebar, p. 64).
Early rising
Surprisingly, the springtime alarm goes off very early at Breckenridge, so much so that Ol’ Man Winter is still a looming presence. Soller nevertheless sets his regimen in motion at the outset of March, despite the fact that it’s traditionally the state’s snowiest month.
But experience has taught him a couple of key factors: First, after about five months the snow mold preventives have lost their pizzazz. And, if the bentgrass is cleared while it’s still dormant, it promotes a desired slower warm-up.
“We have learned, basically through bad experiences, that we have to get real aggressive in removing snow early, especially off the greens,” Soller says. “Our goal is to have the greens and the tees cleaned off by St. Patrick’s Day.”
The determination of the off-season crew to bring air and sunlight to 6 acres of bentgrass heretofore buried under a couple of feet or so of snow is riveting stuff.
The greens, which had been roped off in the fall so they could now be found, are first tackled by one of Soller’s favorite machines, a 65-hp skid steer outfitted with a 70-inch snowblower. That removes the snow down to about 3 to 4 inches from the turf. The rest is cleared more carefully by walk-behind snowblowers and by hand with shovels. Humates are then spread on the putting surfaces. The same process is repeated on the tees.
It’s a nonstop, practically never-ending operation for nearly two months. It’s spring prep in its most rugged form.
“We have to get rid of the disease-growing medium,” Soller says. “Once we get down to the turf, we do reapply fungicide for the spring snows. Then it basically becomes a babysitting job. The snow we get in March will melt and go away. We have to keep the greens open to decrease disease pressure. We use squeegees to remove puddles from the thawing before they refreeze at night because we’ve learned that the bentgrass has already warmed up enough to begin growth.”
Sense of humor
Eventually, big snowcats are used to knock down the really deep areas and large drifts on the fairways, and humates are applied. The bluegrass green-up is much slower in Breckenridge’s heavy clay soil, and often the turf is spotty far into June.
“You just kind of have to have blinders on and live with it,” Soller says. “Fortunately, it bugs me and my staff more than it bugs the golfers.”
In April, route boxes are located, uncovered and cleaned up and the irrigation system is prepared for action. Once exposed, the bentgrass is fragile and susceptible to desiccation without water. In early May, the seasonal help arrives, there is a general cleanup, the course is verticut again and spot fertility applications are done.
Wildlife is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by then, too, notably elk and voles (a small burrowing rodent), both of which wreak havoc on soggy turf. Geese are abundant, as well.
The course usually opens for play around May 20. “Yeah, right,” laughs Soller. “The running joke around here in May is, ‘We’re open, but we’re not,’ because usually it’s still snowing.”
The superintendent’s real goal is having the layout the best it can be by mid-June, when it hosts the Summit Foundation’s annual fund-raiser.
Lessons learned
Over the years, Soller has been taught much by Mother Nature regarding spring prep, among other things. Don’t be discouraged, be persistent, be committed, he says, pointing out that the wearisome and frustrating “babysitting,” for instance, makes tangible sense both agronomically and economically and leads to a successful summer.
The more-physical lessons have included some changes in the configuration of the three nines to better accommodate the microclimates around the property. Some trees have been removed to promote turf growth and alleviate frost. Much of the bluegrass around the tees has been converted to native areas.
Culturally, contending with the differences between 20-year-old greens and nine that are barely 5 years old is an ongoing challenge. Soller notes that the original putting surfaces are more prone to ice damage and come out of winter spongier and have thatch issues. The combination of drought stress and the harsh winter-to-spring cycle also intensifies a common problem for mountain courses — Poa annua. Soller’s reaction to that is a refrain heard from superintendents throughout the country.
“Poa is a tough adversary at 9,000 feet, but quite honestly the big picture here — a very popular golf course at high altitude — is that the local golfers are glad to have grass on the greens considering the bad years early in the life of the place. Poa to the people here isn’t a big issue.
“Thus, we’ve looked at our strategy — can we realistically keep Poa out of the new greens when it’s everywhere, in our bluegrass fairways and the original greens, and we have golfers traipsing from one nine to the other? Plus the geese have become major carriers and have advanced the Poa encroachment. We used to strip and resod selected greens and we’ve tried all the latest products and still can’t keep up with the battle. Financially I just don’t think we could ever afford to eradicate Poa. The prudent thing to do is manage the grass we have.”
The dotted line
So, then, like at a lot of other golf courses in similar locales, spring prep at Breckenridge GC is on the extreme side and tests one’s professional resolve. To paraphrase Soller, you gotta like it or you gotta get out.
“It’s tough; you’ve got four guys working 50 to 60 hours a week from March to mid-April trying to keep the greens clear in the biggest snow month of the year,” he says. “It’s even more hectic because of the Nordic center. One or two of us groom trails while the others are on the greens with snowblowers. Once we’re done grooming trails, we grab a snowblower and join ‘em. By the time the full crew comes on the first of May, the four of us are exhausted and we’ve still got to get open in two weeks. But, I guess that’s what we sign up for in this business.”
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