Happy New Year Granite Bay! 2025 is here and we in GCM are looking forward to another year of progress on the golf course and grounds. 2024 was a successful year for us in golf course maintenance and we look to build on that success in 2025 by continuing to work on infrastructure projects that are part of our golf course master plan.
The end of 2024 was on the wet side but nothing too historic or alarming as December has been the wettest month of the year on average for the past 20 years. Its hard to stay productive when it is wet and rainy but we are able to make progress nonetheless.
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The pair of Swans that left us this fall returned home on January 1, 2025. This will be the third season they have nested here assuming they are planning on staying. We did have a lone Cygnet survivor from the pairs 2024 spring family who remained here until just a month ago after her parents left in the fall. We believe the lone survivor is a female and just recently left we assume to find a mate. We are hoping she returns with a mate. |
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| After the 11th of December it started raining and seemed like it never stopped. Seventeen out of the remaining 20 days of December we measured some precipitation. Much of the rain during the holidays was light but the associated cloud cover, mist & fog kept the golf course wet. |
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As you can see from the above historic rainfall data that has been produced by our GBGC Weather station, December of 2024 was slightly below the 20 year December average. |
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The only significant rain events were on the 12th and 14th which produced conditions like above which rapidly dissipated once the rain stopped. The rest of the rain days were light. |
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So what does GCM do when it is raining like this? The staff rarely works a full day when the weather is this stormy but there a some tasks we can accomplish such as filling divots which is what they are doing above. |
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Another task that can be accomplished is spreading bark in large landscape beds. |
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The lighter rain events during the Christmas Holiday week kept the golf course wet without oversaturating it. So when we did get some clear weather with some sunshine on 12/31/24 through 1/2/25, we were able to get out and use small mowers (triplexes) on the fairways to clean them up. Here we are doing just that. We are not mowing much grass as the Hybrid Bermuda is not actively growing in the depth of winter, but just cleaning up and smoothing out the surface. We have to be careful and avoid soft wet areas, but have found this process to be a BMP for this year round golf course that gets played on in all kinds of conditions. |
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We were fortunate that these December storms were mild and dident result in the tree loss we experienced over the past two seasons. The only tree that toppled was a non-native oak tree that was planted some years ago across the path from the #8 tee. |
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We were rushing a bit to mow fairways to clean them up as another storm was forecasted for Friday 1/3/25 which has materialized. After that it looks like we are in for a patch of nice weather, the kind of weather that will dry the golf course out proper. |
