Winter Update

After over 38,000 rounds and a summer and fall where drought dominated the conversation, the 2025 golf season at Oakfield wrapped up about a month ago. By all accounts a very successful season was had.

The season began with the completion of Phase 2 of Ian Andrew's Master Plan. Turf Masters did excellent work constructing new fairway bunkers on 1 and 9 and greenside bunkers on 9 and 18. They also removed the fairway bunkers on 17. All of this work has resulted in improvements in the form of improved bunker conditions for the members. No more rocks and silt contamination compromising uniformity and predictability when playing out of our hazards. From my standpoint, the maintenance of the new bunkers has improved our day to day operations drastically. By removing bunkers, we reduce our daily time spent raking sand, and the new bunkers do not require a team of people to repair after heavy rainstorms. Not that it ever rained in the summer....but rather than sending the entire team out to pump out water and push the sand back to its proper place, we can keep our labor, both in number of personnel as well as time spent relatively the same, regardless of the weather. The ability to reallocate our staff to other areas of the course to work on cannot be understated.

In this Phase of the renovation we decided to go in a new direction and have a teeing area renovated. Our par 3 holes for the most part are lacking in hittable square footage. Hole 3 was identified as the worst culprit. Particularly when the gold tees were moved back to the 165 yard tee that tee and the white tee players limited to the 180 yard tee were getting beat up in a way that was making it difficult to have quality turf to tee off of for the duration of the summer. We opened the new tee deck in August, just ahead of the Men's Club Championship. Several months of diligence nurturing the sodded tee with water, fertilizer, and topdressing to ensure a healthy and level stand of turf. A progressive plan to lower the height of cut without pushing the bluegrass too quickly. And very importantly a patient approach and not opening the tee too early. The project was a rousing success. I believe this lays the groundwork for future tee work. We have identified tees (primarily white and red tees) that would be good candidates for renovations and future renovation work will include improving some of our teeing areas.

How it started

Finished Product. Opening Day.

The season was highlighted by the drought that affected much of the east coast. This topic has been discussed ad nauseum. Our irrigation use increased by 75% year over year. We spent a large amount of our days focused on water management. Ensuring nightly cycles were going off properly, seeing where we needed to apply additional water, hand watering greens every day it seemed. Tightening our wetting agent application intervals....it was all hands on deck. I believe our staff performed at an extremely high level throughout what was a very challenging 12 week stretch.

At the peak of the drought in August

As the winter takes hold our focus is on monitoring conditions on the course. We are always on the lookout for ice accumulation and other abnormalities that may impact turf health as we all wait for spring. Merry Christmas, everyone! Already looking forward to the 2026 golf season at Oakfield!