What's Wrong with the Greens!?

 If you've noticed a handful of greens at Swope Memorial that seem to have some off-color or yellow patches, you're not alone. Coming out of winter dormancy this year, we have battled a few slow-to-recover winter exposure spots on select greens. During bitter temperatures like we experienced in mid-January, any part of exposed turf is susceptible to cold damage and in extreme cases of prolonged exposure can lead to winter desiccation. If you remember the unbearable cold during that week and a half, you can probably understand why bentgrass grown at 1/8th of an inch does not enjoy it much. We believe these areas are pushing through it and the majority of the areas should be just fine. If by chance any areas decide to head back the other direction, we will address it with some interseeding, but as of now, we do not anticipate needing to do this.

New Course Marking

 

You may notice while playing Swope the new paint on all of the cart paths. Along with many other course improvements we've been working on, this has been added to help golfers while they enjoy their round. Many patrons will already know, but for those that don't, the different colored stripes on the cart paths signify yardages the golfer is from the green. The important distinction that should be made here is that the paint line marks the distance from the middle of the fairway strait out from the line. Not necessarily the distance from that spot on the cart path. Red indicates you are 100 yards from the middle of the green, white 150 yards, blue 200 yards, and yellow 250 yards. The goal with this is to improve the golfers perfection of distances by giving them a reference point before they ever leave the cart. This is especially helpful when we are cart path only, because you will be able to estimate a club or two before walking out to your ball.