Ian!

Hello and welcome to The Greenkeeper!  Today is Thursday, September 29th and our region awaits the arrival of Ian. Ian made landfall yesterday afternoon on the southwest coast of Florida as a strong Category 4 Hurricane. My thoughts and prayers go out to so many friends and peers in Ian's path!

As of 11:00 pm last night Ian's remnants are expected to make their way across Florida then turn back inland and head for the Queen City as if running a post corner route. The good news is local meteorologists expect Ian, or what is left of Ian by the time it arrives to be mostly a rain event in our area. 

Courtesy Brad Panovich, WCNC

Now, we have seen more than our fair share of tropical induced systems pass across our region in recent years. In 2018 we endured Florence just before the U.S. Mid-Am and Michael a few weeks later just prior to Fall Member-Guest. And it was just two years ago we had four named storms (Sally, Beta, Delta, and Eta) with varying impacts to the golf course. 

I stated earlier the forecast is mostly rain and I'm hearing we can expect a total somewhere between three and five inches (75-125 mm). That is a lot of rain, but we are currently in our longest dry spell since late April into early May as the last recorded rainfall at CGC was sixteen days ago. The other aspect is this rain is expected over several days so the golf course should absorb a great deal of needed moisture before the ground becomes saturated and runoff begins to refill our irrigation reservoir. If you haven't noticed we remain about five feet below full pond dating back to our driest June in ten years. 

Rain Expected Next Few Days

I guess you could say if a tropical system was going to visit we are about as ready as one could be. Let's all be good scouts and get prepared. I hope the power and communication lines remain intact for everyone and Good Lord willing the cleanup afterwards won't be too daunting. 

In other news, we have several course improvement projects in the queue. I hinted at these in my last post and I've detailed them in the soon to be released Ross Report. What I can tell you is one of these projects will start next week! 

That's right, the bunker renovation will commence Tuesday, October 4 as the team from Golf Course Services, Inc. will be back on site as we make our way through the remaining 71 bunkers on property. Here's a link Click Here from last year highlighting the process for those needing a refresher.

Stay warm, stay dry and stay safe!

Matthew Wharton, CGCS, MG