How do Minnesota golf courses prepare for winter?
MAPLE GROVE, Minn. — We know Minnesotans love their golf. In fact, some golfers might be out there this week, even in this weather.
But the courses need to close before the real snow comes, and crews need a week or two of above-freezing temperatures to close up shop.
At Target Field, grounds crews don't put blankets over the field until mid-November. They first have to first aerate, spray nutrients, test their underground heating system, add some sand, and spray to prevent snow mold.
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It's a slightly different story at Maple Grove's Rush Creek Golf Club. Last Saturday's 34-degree high pushed superintendent Betsy O'Donnell over.
The day we visited, crews had planned to spray fungicide, which they call a snow mold app. Unfortunately, snow got in the way.
O'Donnell says they will soon blow out the course's sprinkler system.
"That is a two-day process, and a very large air compressor [laughs]!" O'Donnell said.
They also have to deal with their many leaf piles, blowing the 252-acre course daily.
"We mulch where they are and we leave it for the nutrients," she said.
The final mow was last week. Most of their seeding happens in the spring, and they will aerate after they can spray.
"Like you put your finger in the sand, it's just putting a hole in the green," she said. "It's really just to help in the springtime any snow and everything just to go into the green."
They also put black sand on the greens and tee boxes to help the grass green up more quickly in the spring.
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"It's to heat up faster than like your normal USGA just brown, normal sand," she said.
So after all their winter prep is down, and a big snowfall comes — can O'Donnell and crew just take a big vacation?
"No," she said. "We're still hauling, and organizing, powerwashing, start planning for next year ... It never ends."
O'Donnell says not all golf courses work exactly that way. Each superintendent has their own theories and methods to come up with the best grass come spring.
