The annual USGA Agronomist visit has been completed and is shared with our members via this email.  I encourage each of you to take the time to read through this very important educational document about the health of our courses and the recommendations provided to continue to create the beauty and playability we continue to enjoy.

We usually have the agronomist come in February.  This year we requested he visit in May so that he may review our transition process and analyze the courses after a year of solo carts.  In this report you will see the hardship done, by way of compaction of soil (you don’t see it from your cart), and how our Superintendent and his crew did their job very well. David will want to continue with vertical mowing, continuous deep aeration, irrigation, surface management, top dressing, herbicide and fertilizer applications and much more.  I ask your understanding during these always frustrating months as the grasses do battle, the compaction increases through cart traffic, dry and windy days causing dehydrated grounds and the unknown tactics of Mother Nature to assist, or not.

I truly enjoy these visits and they continue to confirm the knowledge our Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent bring to their execution of course maintenance.  As much as some of our members think the courses are TOO wet, what they don’t get (or see)  is 2 inches below the surface is hard clay that prevents the water to soak into the ground and allow the rootzone’s growth. Solo cart use has had its toll on the ground under the grass and it is time WE DO OUR PART!  We all need to get back to shared carts versus solo cart.  We as members cannot expect David to do it all by himself.  So I am asking members to get back into the mode of shared carts and give the courses a break. 

I applaud the work our maintenance crew has done with additional work assignments of landscaping the new Well site and pipe path, placing wires for the Vistas dual side sprinklers early to minimize course closures (that is revenue folks), the hole by hole placement of the sprinkler heads (again to minimize course closures) and assisting in preparing the Vistas Northend Practice area, Vistas #4 and Lakes #3 tee box leveling.  Thank you ALL!

There is great growth at Westbrook Village Golf Club and I want to thank all the members that “GET IT”.  “Get” that the Club Managers and their staffs have faced a shortage of labor and increased workloads, challenges of COVID19, and “Get” that a kind word and a “Bravo Zulu” to them goes a long way to let them know they are appreciated.  It takes members like you and a staff like them to make us “the best value in the West Valley”.

Now, read and enjoy!  And “thank you” David, Jose, and Golf Course Maintenance Crews” for another quality work year as recognized by the USGA Agronomist Onsite Visit Report.

View the Westbrook USGA Report

Respectfully, Jill Riedel, WBVGC President