Ipswich Country Club GCM

Lights are needed for the first few holes this time of year It has been awhile since our last blog post so we wanted to provide an update to some of the work the agronomy team has recently completed or has planned for the near future. This time of year sunrise is over 30 minutes after the grounds crew starts their work day. With tee times still at the normal summer hours we need to complete the first few holes of work before the sun comes up. As a result one thing early morni

Assistant Michael Curtin performing a micro tine to the 7th green On Monday, July 27th we performed a micro tine/vent to greens. A micro tine utilizes a small specialized aeration tine to pull a very small core from the greens surface. Some questions have come up of why we did this so close to our normal greens aeration. First off greens venting is something that is part of our normal agronomy program. We have scheduled a micro tine to greens in June, July, and September/Octo

Greens Venting On Monday, July 27th the agronomy team is planning to vent greens. This is a practice of making a very small hole with either a solid tine or a very small coring tine. The practice of venting allows gases to exchange from the soil and allows oxygen to enter the root zone. Venting also provides an area for water and nutrients to go. In essence, this process helps infiltration over a short period of time. Venting is a key cultural practice for putting green succe

Renovated 6th Forward Tee after Mow Spring is well underway as seen and felt with the amount of pollen and tree debris blowing around. The pollen and oak catkins are problematic and frustrating for both golfers and the maintenance staff. Turf surfaces need to be blown clear before mowing or spraying can take place only for these surfaces to become covered again shortly after. By the time afternoon groups of golf are starting their rounds many greens are completely covered aga

Final laser grading of the 8th tee The forward tees have been completed and soil amendments added. The sodding has been pushed back to Thursday, May 7th. The sod for the tees is coming from New Jersey and the temperatures are in the 90's down there today and very dry like we are in Ipswich. The sod would not survive cutting and transportation today for installation tomorrow. Weather looks perfect for sod harvesting and transportation tomorrow and we should be on track for a

Deep tine and Core Aeration The weather cooperated this Monday and Tuesday and we were able to get a nice aeration done to greens. We started with a 1/2 inch deep tine machine mounted to a tractor. This aeration was set to a depth of approximately 10 inches. This will allow the greens to breath. Basically the aeration allowed for the greens to release gases and allow oxygen into the rootzone. It also helps with infiltration and deep rooting. Then we followed this process up w

With the predicted low of 25 degrees for Ipswich, we will most likely have a delayed start in the morning. We will get play out as soon as possible. Frost communication will come via a text. It will only go out to members that are currently on the tee sheet. With the rain/snow today making bunkers moist combined with the cold night, the bunker sand will most likely be frozen in the morning. Frozen sand might linger late in the day. Please be aware of this as you attempt any b

The golf course will open on Wednesday, April 8th. The tee sheet will currently remain closed until the official opening email is sent from the club. Please do not try to book tee times or call the pro shop looking for tee times until the official email is sent. The temporary course will close at the end of the day on Sunday, April 5th. On behalf of the entire Agronomy Team, we are excited for the upcoming season and seeing members back on the golf course.

The start of the 2026 golf season is fast approaching. An updated opening date for the course will be provided this coming Monday via the blog. An official club notice will be going out sometime later. As stated in the last blog the golf course came out of the winter in good condition. The first group of our seasonal staff returned at the start of this week and have been hard at work preparing the course for the start of the season. So far work completed in the last few weeks

Impressive reach from the crane 12th Hole Tree Removals: Last Friday seven trees were removed from the 12th hole by Iron Tree Service. These trees were removed after multiple discussions last season between the Ipswich Greens Committee, the agronomy department, and the golf professional staff. These discussions focused on increasing pin placement options, improved shot opportunities/fairness onto the green, and planning for future work to the hole. Below will be some brief d

The warm days we experienced on March 9th to11th were a welcome change of pace. It has been a long time since we have had temperatures in the upper 60's at Ipswich. With the warm temperatures and some overnight rain/fog we melted a good deal of our snow pack. We still have a long way to go before we are snow and ice free at Ipswich. We do have a warm rain predicted for Monday, but after that it appears to be a long stretch of highs in the upper 30's to low 40's. A gallery of

Another snow event Not much can be said about February other then it was a very cold and snowy month. On average, I would say we have 38 inches of snow cover on the golf course with much higher amounts in drifts. The last storm that started early on Monday, February 23 could have been worse as far as snow amounts and wind. This storm combined with snow on Friday, Feb. 20 and Feb. 21 added an additional 16 inches to the golf course. This additional snow pretty much ended any c

Winter Wonderland December and the first three weeks of January featured a lot of temperature fluctuations. These temperature fluctuations combined with snow and rain led to two periods of ice cover on greens. The ice that formed at the very end of December was the worst ice cover I have experienced since my time at Ipswich and probably the worst I have seen in my entire career. All greens had a very thick and dense ice layer as well as tees and fairways. Luckily, we had a br

Overlooking the 9th Green Winter here at the ICC has been very cold with frequent small snowfalls. While the snow amounts have been overall low they have forced the agronomy team off the course more than we would like in the early stages of winter. Thankfully, we have been able to perform work to some areas more easily accessible to us even with snow and ice over significant portions of the golf course. On the days spent inside the winter crew has been busy working through eq

New Tee Mower Monday, December 8th we received a new Toro Triflex 3300 to serve as an additional tee mower. This was a $44,000 investment by Invited. This investment will help us maintain our tees more efficiently. It currently takes 3 team members a total of 15 labor hours to mow, blow, and set tees for the day. Also, this investment will allow us to reposition two of our older mowers to topdressing mowers for greens. Topdressing sand quickly dulls mower blades and negativel

Cold winter days ahead The golf course will be closed for the season starting Monday, Dec. 1. Wintery Precipitation is predicted for Tuesday and temperatures don't look to get out of the 30's for the next two weeks. The temporary course will open daily at 10:30 for walkers only. Holes 1,6,7,8,9,10, and 18 will be utilized for the temporary course. Tee markers will be placed at the beginning of these fairways. All regulation greens and practice greens will be closed.

Assistant Superintendent Michael Curtin Spraying Greens Last Year The golf course will be 100 percent closed to play on Thursday, Nov. 27th, Thanksgiving Day. The agronomy team will be performing crucial winter applications to greens. The golf course will reopen Friday, November 28th as usual.

A Very Frosty 2nd Hole The agronomy team has been focused on fall cleanup and turf winter prep over the past few weeks. My team has done a good job with fall cleanup. Other than day's where we have had extreme wind, the course has been very playable. Unfortunately, the landscape company for the residential areas of the property has not blown backyards as of yet. Leaves blowing onto the course from backyards has been a source of frustration for our cleanup efforts. My primary

Irrigation Blowout 2024 We will be blowing out the irrigation system today Nov. 12th. While playing please expect some noise and disruption as we work our way through the course. The driving range will close at 2:00 PM today to allow for the range irrigation to be blown out.

Leaves: Fall in New England is well underway and with that comes plenty of leaves. Everyday the crew is busy blowing and clearing off play surfaces of leaves and other tree debris. Unfortunately, at this point in the fall the leaves fall at a rate that makes it impossible for us to completely keep up with. We do the best we can to keep play areas clear, but there will be times where accumulating leaves interfere with play like piles of leaves collecting in bunkers or blanketi