It may be sunny California, but it sure has been cold and both golfers and the Maintenance staff here are tired of it. Everything was cozy through Thanksgiving with average lows in the low 40's and on December 4th, the temperature dropped to a low of 26 degrees. It hasn't warmed up since then... Excuse me, it did warm up to 29 degrees on the 7th, but it then went down to 19 degrees two days later.
We have had one fire pipe break, numerous outdoor fire sprinklers go off, and multiple valves have started leaking due to the rubber seal cracking. Aside from fixing the breaks, we are also out checking for ice on the cart paths and applying sand where needed. One of the other jobs we are doing is moving full sprinklers that are near the edge of cart paths to the edge and replacing them with part circle sprinklers. The ground is so hard that the guys are using the jackhammer to get the soil removed.
With this latest string of weather, we are changing cups every 2 or 3 days and we have only mowed the greens once since the 4th. We attempted to yesterday in the afternoon, but there were multiple greens still frozen at 1130 a.m and we gave up on the idea.
Fortunately it looks as if we will catch a break for an extended period of time with tomorrow's forecast in the upper 30's. There is no rain in the forecast which is extremely unfortunate. All I need is 0.17 inches and I'll have 3 inches for the calendar year!
