July Newsletter

GENERAL MANAGER & HEAD GOLF PROFESSIONAL
Hope everyone had a great 4th of July! The weather was fantastic during the holiday week and hope it keeps going the rest of the season. The 4th of July is typically the kick off to our busy part of the season so book your tee time soon in order to get the time(s) you want. The golf course is in great shape and I can’t tell you how many wonderful comments I’ve received and on how well it has recovered! Golf course work never stops as Vince talks about in his article.

We have made some changes to the Wilderness Grill hours and availability. Most notably is the kitchen and menu service will be unavailable on Mondays. However, we will have the outside grill open offering burgers, brats and hot dogs from 10am – 8pm. The bar will be open all day as normal.

We do have a few fun events coming up that may peak your interest:
Chip & Sip Event – July 18th
5:00 pm Chipping Clinic
5:30 pm Shotgun Start – 9 holes
On course events and beverage samples!

9 & Stein – Aug. 8th
5:30 pm Shotgun Start – 9 holes
On course events and beer samples!

Indian Summer Classic – Aug. 15th
11:00 am Shotgun Start
Benefit for the Bois Forte Scholarship Fund

Call the golf shop to sign up or for more information! 218-753-8917

See you at The Wilderness soon!

Happy Golfing!

Ryan Peterson
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GOLF COURSE SUPERINTENDENT
I just walked off the 18th green after measuring green speed with a Stimpmeter and came away with a reading of 9.25’. The goal on these greens, with the heavy undulations and our volume of play, is anywhere from 8.5’ to 9.5’. Anything slower than this results in the slow greens complaint. Faster than this means complaints about pin positions and a reduction in usable space on putting greens resulting in excessive wear. I sometimes wish that I was managing flat greens again where the goal was simply to make putting greens as fast as you can while withstanding traffic. Managing greenspeeds within a range is much more difficult than just making them fast. I think we have a pretty good handle on where we are at now and for the rest of the season-for the first time in about 18 months or so. We have made the transition, finally, from finishing the recovery from the previous year and are back to where we can resume our maintenance (as opposed to recovery) programs as the picture below illustrates.

16 Collar 7-5-2019

While admittedly not my best photo, upon close inspection you can see two things here. Darker green patches of bentgrass (desired) interspersed with pale, sad green patches of Poa annua, also called annual bluegrass (undesired). Look at the areas in the sunshine and you can see the difference better. This situation is intentional in that we were able to resume our growth regulation programs on greens and fairways in June with the intent of “squeezing out” the annual bluegrass by creating a situation where the bentgrass outgrows the annual bluegrass. The PGRs (plant growth regulators) that we use encourage the lateral growth of bentgrass while weakening the Poa annua. These programs are especially important right now since the damaged areas last year were infested with annual bluegrass, some of which was tracked onto greens in the form of seed from golfers’ shoes. In order to encourage the long-term health of the golf course, we need to really commit to a program of weakening annual bluegrass while encouraging bentgrass. We had been on just such a program for over 15 years with solid success in keeping the golf course clean. Last year, however, we had to abandon the program in order to establish new turf in many areas of the golf course and you can tell. We have annual bluegrass through out the course, it is not something that we cannot mitigate over a period of 2-3 years given excellent growing conditions like those that we have experienced of late. Our hope is for conditions that continue to be warm and dry as this will help us to maintain this competitive advantage for the bentgrass. So far, so good. More than anything, we do not need any more 6 month long winters with multiple freeze/thaw cycles.

Funny how one year can have such long-term effects on a golf course. Also interesting is that the management decisions we make regarding the golf course are long-term in nature-the best managed golf courses have a plan to ensure the viability of the golf course well into the future. As opposed to continually reacting to issues that will inevitably arise if this perspective is lacking. The challenge is in sticking to your guns in following through with these plans as sometimes the short-term pressures-both financial and from players-can cause one to deviate from the long-term goals. Financial pressure can cause us to simply not afford to continue our programs-such as our just mentioned regulation program as well as our annual drainage work that has worked wonders in improving course conditions. This golf course maintenance stuff can get pretty expensive. An example of player pressure would be in the form of complaints about slow green speeds while in recovery. The worst thing we could have done in June would have been to lower cutting heights below what has historically been our optimal setting as this would have tilted the field in favor of the annual bluegrass as well as encouraged the formation of moss on greens-but this could be the topic of another newsletter.

See you on the golf course,

Vincent Dodge
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FOOD & BEVERAGE MANAGER and EXECUTIVE CHEF
Join us Friday through Sunday for our weekend dinner specials. In store for July are some new and exciting dinner entrees. Click here for more information on the July Specials. Call 218.753.7804 to make a dining reservation today!

As A Reminder:
The Wilderness Grill kitchen will remain closed on Mondays. Outside Grill available: burger, brat, hot dog, cold sandwiches from 10:00am - 8:00pm, Bar open for regular hours.

Other Important Specials to Note:
Fore! Happy Hour
-Tuesday – Sunday 3PM – 6PM
-$4 appetizer and drink menu

Night in the Patio with Live Music
-Wednesday nights at 5PM – 9PM
-July 10th Music by Pat Surface!
-Click here for schedule of entertainment and menu specials
*We will not be taking reservations for this event on the patio. Inside reservations welcome.

9 & Dine Event
-Sunday Nights after 4PM
-$65 for 9 holes of golf for 2 people, an appetizer and 2 beverages

Chip & Sip Event
-Thursday, July 18
-$45 for chipping clinic, 9 holes of golf, and free wine samples
Phillips Wine & Spirits will be sampling off several different beverages!
-Call to sign up by July 16th at 218-753-8917!

9 & Stein
-Thursday, August 8th
-5:30pm shotgun start
-9 holes of golf, beer samples on the course provided by Castle Danger Brewery and a complimentary beer.
-Call to secure your spot at 218-753-8917 by August 6th!

Monthly Winner
Congratulations to Jerry Hoel for winning our monthly giveaway for filing out our survey! Jerry won 2 dinner entrees!

See you in the restaurant!

Food & Beverage Manager, Darlene Simonson & Executive Chef, Doug Sperry
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DIRECTOR OF SALES & MARKETING
Congratulations to Sean Kruschke, Jeff Dewing and Tim Hansen! Sean received his Hole-In-One on hole #12 on June 11th from 117 yards with a Titleist 9 iron! The perfect birthday present! Jeff Dewing aced hole #7 on June 27th from 138 yards with a gap wedge! Tim Hansen got a Hole-In-One on hole #3 on June 29th with TaylorMade 7 iron from 170 yards. All of them won a 5 day, 4 night luxury vacation in Mexico through Vidanta Resorts!

Pictured Left to Right: Sean Kruschke, Jeff Dewing, Tim Hansen with golf partners

Thank you to everyone who came to the 4th of July Parade in Tower. We had a blast handing out freezies to the kids and koozies for the adults. Fun was had by all!

Pictured Left to Right: Steve, Ryan, Michael, Kalleigh, Doris, Billie, Cindy, Willie, Ace, Aly, Hayley, Rachel, Ross

Reminder!
Since it is our 15th Year Anniversary we are doing more specials throughout the property than normal.Sunset 9 – 9 holes of golf after 6pm on Monday and Tuesdays until the end of August. August after 5pm.
Local Specials throughout the year
$4 Happy Hour Tuesday – Sunday 3pm-6pm
Weekend dining features every Friday through Sunday

Golf Scooter Update!
We should be receiving the 4 scooters in two weeks! If you are interested in using these please give a call ahead of time to schedule as we only have 4 available. Each scooter will be $20 per round.

Rachel Indihar

P.S. 'Click' on the photos below for more information.