Happy New Year!

Good Morning and Happy New Year,

On behalf of the entire maintenance crew I would like to thank all of you for your support and patience over the past year. 2011 was full of excitement, challenge, and change for both of our courses. The ongoing drought and the North greens renovation certainly made things interesting. However, we can now look back and take pride that as a club we were able to make the most of a tough summer and ultimately improve playing conditions on both courses. Your support combined with the hard work and dedication of our staff made this past year a success. We welcome the New Year and look forward to continually improving both courses in 2012.

Course Update 12/31/11

Brush Clearing on #2 North

Despite the cooler temperatures we have managed to stay quite busy the last few weeks. We have several goals for this winter:

• Work on bunker liner removal on North
• GPS mark and re-program the North irrigation system
• Brush and tree removal on both courses
• Clean up, organize, and improve our maintenance facility
• Clean up other areas on the course - such as sand piles, mulch, etc

The list could on for several pages. However, these are 5 areas that we are going to make progress on over the next couple of months. Much of the work has already started: We are almost finshed clearing the brush in front of #2 Tee North and several dead trees have been removed on both courses. In addition, we have started mapping the irrigation system and cleaning up our maintenance yard. We have also recieved 4 loads (100 tons) of sand for the North bunkers. This is a white sand that we will add to the bunkers as the liners are removed.

A  screen shot showing how we are using a hand held GPS and Google Earth to map our irrigaton system

The crew begins work cleaning up the maintenance yard.

Course Update 12/9

It's Good! I hope everyone enjoyed the Alamo Bowl Golf Tournament that was played yesterday afternoon. We had a great turn out and had a nice afternoon for golf. Two goal posts were erected on 13 North, and 17 South as part of the tournament. We will be tearing down the goal posts this morning.

Irrigation Tech, Mike Lang puts the finishing touches on the goal post

Rainfall from last weekend totaled just over an inch. We still desperately need rain in order to ease drought restrictions. Currently, it appears that we will begin 2011 already in Stage II drought restrictions. If we are to stay in Stage II for all of 2011 then we will experience a 30% decrease in our allocated water.

We also experienced our first hard freezes of the year on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Low temperatures dipped into the mid to upper twenties and both courses had heavy frost. This is normal for this time of year, and we expect the bermuda grass to begin entering full dormancy soon.

All of our overseeding is now complete. The 19th hole was seeded on Wednesday and should be looking good in the few weeks.

We have roped off the front part of the South putting green. This area typically is weak and thin due to the high amount of traffic. Please help us minimize the damage by avoiding this area.

Course Update 12/3



Mike McCarthy applying the pre/post application to 17 Fwy
on the South with the new sprayer

It looks like a wet weekend in store for San Antonio. We have received just under .5" inches of rain so far this morning and both courses are very wet. Unfortunately we will be cart path only for at least the rest of today. However, the slow steady rain is certainly a welcome sight. We spent all week applying our pre/post emergence herbicides to both courses. All of the tees, fairways, and a majority of the roughs were treated. Pre-emergence herbicides work by killing annual weeds as they germinate from seed, however have little or no effect on weeds that are already established. Post-emergence herbicides work in a variety of ways, however they have no effect on weeds that are not already established. This year we used a combination two products to provide a balanced attack against the weeds that we can already see, and those that have yet to germinate. The pre-emergent herbicide used must be sufficiently watered into the soil in order for to be activated - this rain is exactly what we were hoping for.

Foam marker is used as a guide during applications
to prevent overlap or skips.

We purchased a new spray rig earlier this year that is a huge help in making large chemical and fertilizer applications. This sprayer holds 300 gallons, is diesel powered, has precise computer controlled booms and nozzles, and is equipped with drift prevention covers. Not to mention the fact that its price tag is comparable to that of a new full-size luxury pick up truck. We take our chemical applications very seriously. All equipment and chemicals are precisely calibrated. All label instructions are clearly followed to ensure the safety of our golfers, workers, turfgrass, and the environment. If you ever have any questions about our applications or calibration procedures for your own lawn please do not hesitate to contact me at tmoore@clubatsonterra.com