2025 Winter Update

Since mid October allot has been going on the golf course with projects and weather and I have neglected updating the Granite Bay Course Update with content. Therefore I will now attempt to catch-up and provide for those who are interested some context to what we in golf course maintenance have been up to.

Weather

What happens meteorologically effects everything we do in golf course maintenance which is why I bring it up in the course updates so much. Weather is never the same from year to year and can be predictable as it is un predictable. It is the one uncontrollable factor that effects golf course playing conditions the most from speed & firmness to turf health & sustainability.

The weather pattern that the fall and winter of 2025 will be known for so far is the return of the local phenomenon of The Unrelenting Tule Fog. According to the preceding linked article tule fog is, 

An atmospheric phenomenon occurring over much of California was unmistakable in satellite imagery in late autumn 2025. Fog stretching some 400 miles (640 kilometers) across the state’s Central Valley appeared day after day for more than two weeks in late November and early December. Known as tule (TOO-lee) fog, named after a sedge that grows in the area’s marshes, these low clouds tend to form in the valley in colder months when winds are light and soils are moist.  

1985, for example, Fresno experienced 16 consecutive days of dense fog, and Sacramento endured 17, according to news reports. Researchers have found, however, that tule fog has been forming less often in California in recent decades. Foggy days are beneficial for the valley’s fruit and nut trees, which need sufficient rest between growing seasons to be most productive. 

Interesting the Tule Fog is beneficial for tree crops however it is not beneficial for sports turf as it limits photosynthesis, the process where plants derive energy as well as the ability of the soil and course to dry out.

Above is a good representation of the foggy conditions that we experienced at GBGC in 2025 from late November until the Christmas Holiday storms as well as after those storms. These type of conditions do not facilitate drying of the golf course which inhibits GCM's abilities to get equipment out on the course to maintain it.

Above is rainfall data derived through December 2025 from GBGC's weather station located near the remote restrooms on #13. December's rainfall total was 8th most in the last 21 years but Novembers total rainfall is tied (2017) for 2nd most in 21 years only behind the 6.18" in 2012.

Despite the 4"+ rainfall we received in mid-November we were able to get carts back on the course after 4 clear days before the fog set in. We did not have to go back to cart path only until the Christmas Holiday storms dumped another 4"+ inches of rain as well as toppling trees. After this storm the tule fog returned immediately not helping at all with wet golf course conditions and following this we have another series of warm storms forecasted to begin the New Year.

This forecast will not help with drying the golf course out but there might be some short term light at the end of the tunnel.

Large Live Oak that toppled during the Christmas Day storm.

The tree toppled onto the back of the maintenance building and required some professional help to get it off the building without causing damage. Fortunately the damage was minimal and the tree has been removed from the building. 

Long Range Forecast 

Warm Subtropical System to Bring New Year Rain Before a Somewhat Quieter Pattern Takes Hold by mid January is the title of a Weather West article which is my go-to for long range forecasting. Excerpts from this recent post include:

December shattered many countless warm temperature records in the U.S. West. This map is not showing a data glitch: it’s showing where Dec 2025 will likely be the warmest on record (all dark red areas, which represents…most areas on the map). One of the only exceptions is CA’s Central Valley and parts of the SF Bay Area where tule fog reigned, though even here subtropical air at the end of Dec brought monthly average temperatures to above average levels (despite the notable damp chill earlier in the month). (climatetoolbox.org)

Looking ahead into January, a relatively active weather pattern may continue for another 7-10 days in California; thereafter, there are hints of a potentially more sustained break in mid-January with a West Coast ridge potentially developing. This is a relatively low-confidence pattern, though, so don’t hold me to it! I’ll be following this more closely in the new year.

Fall - Early Winter Projects

Since our 2021 renovation, GCM has been diligently working on the finishing touches of the project none of which is more important then adapting our irrigation system to improve coverage & control and irrigate our cool season rough independently of the warm season hybrid bermuda fairways. These retroactive adaptions are all part of our Master Plan developed post renovation as a roadmap to complete the many remaining tasks from 2021.  This work is typically conducted in the late fall through the winter, weather permitting and we have made great progress in 2025 as evidenced by the pictures below.

The Fall of 2024, which was the end of last years project completion window, we highlighted in a 2024 Granite Bay Course Update the work of drainage, irrigation, curbing and parking near the chipping green and behind #7 green.  Additionally that update highlighted the parking lot landscaping work we completed to end the 2024 year. In January & February of 2025 the second part of our project window,  we completed 7 blocks of irrigation heads on #2 and #12. Above depicts just some of this work in progress the beginning of 2025 on #12.

Once fall rolled around this year we began doing the same work of retrofitting our current irrigation system with "blocks" of irrigation heads that provide adequate coverage and control to the irrigation of the cool season rough independently of the warm season fairways. Above shows this installation in process near #4 green.

This picture is a really good representation of what we trying to achieve with these "block" irrigation installs to adequately irrigate the rough independently of the fairways. The picture shows multiple small irrigation heads controlled by one valve directed towards the rough and not the fairway. 

Once we were done with "block" installation on #4 we moved to #6 and worked over there for most of the month of November, completely surrounding the rough with these "block" irrigation heads. Because of the slope of #6 we utilized jute netting over the exposed irrigation ditches ahead of the mid November atmospheric river on 11/13 till 11/17. This was done in a abundance of caution to protect the susceptible compacted bare dirt covering a matrix of pipe, irrigation heads & wire. Mission accomplished as we did not have any erosion issues even after 4"+ of rainfall. 

We addressed as well the fairway bunker in the middle of #6 and the cool season turf that surrounds the bunker.

Above depicts the finished product of the work around the bunker awaiting seed germination in the ditches which is slow this time of the year particularly with the lack of sun from the above-mentioned tule fog.

Once we were done with #6 we moved to #2 to repeat the process there. We spent the month of December 2025 working on blocks on #2. 

This work is not just about plumbing pipe and adding irrigation heads. Equally important to the actual infrastructure of the block irrigation heads is the control of the valve the operates this infrastructure. There is always a calculation on how to get a control wire to this valve for these new block heads as control is as key to the plan as the coverage the block infrastructure provides.
Above depicts some wiring work we did on #2 to both facilitate control wires to the new block infrastructures on #2 as well as moving the irrigation controller across the cart path which was something we needed to do to expand some turf in the area.

Above shows the new location of the irrigation controller that we moved just before Christmas on #2.

The installation of this block infrastructure is key to GBGC's long term success. Areas addressed with this same process in 2022 to 2024 include #13, #15, #5, fairway bunkers #2 & #4 to name a few. Even though many members play weekly, the re-call of the before and after of these areas are many times vague. In GCM our memories are not vague as we work with these areas daily and have always strived to provide the best playing and aesthetic conditions for the course to achieve consistent playability, sustainability and sale ability. That is why we are working tirelessly to install this infrastructure as we know beyond a shadow of a doubt how this generational work will continue to transform this golf course.

In 2025 we installed 18 blocks, and we have another 8 we are planning to get done in January to February of 2026, weather permitting. This won't complete all of this work detailed in the GBGC Master Plan but will have addressed most of the worst areas that have been identified. The summer of 2026 is looking up, and yes, despite the gloomy wet & cold we are currently experiencing, Summer is Coming!

Happy New Year

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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.

Another task that can be accomplished is spreading bark in large landscape beds.  

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.

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.

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.

Another Atmospheric River

 All of us in the golf world, both players and operators watch weather fairly closely as the sport we all are a part of is played outdoors and thus impacted by weather. As such, I'm sure for most of you it comes as no surprise  that we are in for another Atmospheric River starting Wednesday 11/20/24. Dr. Daniel Swain, a weather forecaster from UCLA states.....

"The upcoming atmospheric river event will be a very long duration event for portions of Northern California north of the SF Bay Area... This combination of long duration and strong intensity will yield an overall rain event that will be, in many ways, more impressive than the sum of it's parts." (Weather West - November 18 2024)

Radar imagery from the Weather Channel 11/20/24 12:00 PM.

10 day forecast from Wednesday 11/20/24

What Does This Mean for The Golf Course?

Of course it means the golf course will be wet and we will be cart path only until the course dry's out. Additionally we will potentially need to call for some F9 & B9 alternating closures as the course dry's out to make pigment applications to our hybrid bermuda fairways to help them with winter color. These scheduled applications cannot be done in the rain or when it is too wet to get application equipment onto the course without causing damage and to  it needs to dry before golf activity. 

What Have We Done to Prepare for this Storm? 

We were mowing rough today right up to the start of rainfall. Additionally we make sure all of our drainage inlets are trimmed and clean to facilitate quick movement of rain water off of the golf course. We also made a big push to finish the entrance way landscaping and irrigation work that we were in process  with as  this type of rainfall will make open ground a real mess and delay progress once the storms subside. Below are some pictures of this progress. 

Finishing up second pass on rough mowing this week on Wednesday 11/20/24 just as the rain started falling

We also finished new planting on the  parking lot mound in the entrance way ahead of the storm on Wednesday 11/20/24. 

We also added plants to the left hand bank as you enter the club. We completed renewing the irrigation of this area two weeks back. 

The renewing of the irrigation on this parking lot bank was just getting started on Monday 11/18/24. We of course were looking at the forecast and pushing to get the work completed prior to the storms so we could plant and bark which is precisely what we did. It literally started raining on us when we were raking out the last of the bark. 

11/22/24 postscript. The atmospheric river is not hitting the golf course with the originally forecasted intensity. Through Friday 11/22/24 mid morning we have had just over 1" of measured rain. The jet stream seems to be skirting us and even producing some great photo op's for Kubota.

July 2024 - The Hottest July on Record

Multiple news outlets have been reporting that July of 2024 was the hottest July on record in California and  the Western US. Some relief is in sight according to CA's new go to climatologist Dr. Daniel Swain who predicts  more moderate temps and some moonsonal thunderstorms in the near future. 

 Any of us who have been around Granite Bay know how hard summers historically can be on this golf  course, and we have just experienced the hottest July in the courses existence. Currently the course is not without summer issues, particularly in the cool season rough but if we were to honestly compare this summer so far to prior summer's which were not as harsh, the course has held up better. 

This is primarily due to converting the fairways from a mix of cool season grasses to warm season Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda, but also the introduction  Turf Type Tall Fescue to the rough and continued work on irrigation coverage. The work of improving irrigation coverage along with continued interseeding  of tall fescue into our rough will continue which logically bodes well for the future.

Above is weather data generated by our on course weather station. The average high temperature for the 31 days of July 2024 was 101.57 degrees almost 9 degrees warmer then the historical average highs for July in Granite Bay. I like to look at the number of  recorded days above 100 degree's as a  matrix for determining the the severity of the summer. Summer of 2024 has had 28 days over 100 degrees through July compared to 11 days in 2023, 16 in 2022 & 20 in 2021 the year of our renovation. 2020 had only 13.

NOAA historic average temperature's for Granite Bay CA. But remember if you are sitting on a block of ice while your hairs on fire, on average you are fairly comfortable or so says GBGC's beloved John Korvin.

Spiking Greens

On Monday 8/12/24 we plan to spike and topdress the greens keeping in line with our small, but more frequent aeration events throughout the year. These aeration events are designed to keep putting surface disruption to a minimum year round avoiding  traditional large hole aeration in the spring and fall. This accomplishes the desired goals not disrupting putting quality for extended periods of time and mitigating poa annua encroachment by not giving it a chance to get going in larger aeration holes. Below are pictures of the process conducted today, Monday 8/12/24. 

Step #1 is to aerate with the Procore 648. We are using a coring tine this time around to actually remove some organic material from the green. Weather is forecasted to be in the mid 80's today with no excessive heat the remainder of the week making this a perfect time to jump on a core aeration in August.

Aeration holes are small. 1/4" in diameter maximum if that. The small hole combined with 2"X2" spacing will recover rapidly and will not deflect ball roll leaving putting quality intact especially after we thoroughly roll the surface's the morning after aeration. 

Step 2 remove the coring material. We basically use blowers and scoop shovels to remove all of the debris from the surfaces

Step 3 we usually mow the surfaces to remove any straggler cores that get stuck in the holes during initial cleanup. After mowing we blow the surfaces off again creating the finished product prior to sand topdressing depicted in the picture above with the ball mark repair tool. 

Step 4  we are seeding the collars. More to come in the future on what are our ultimate plans with these collars.

Step 5 lightly topdress the surface with sand.

Step 6 we brush the sand into the open holes and turf canopy.

Step 7 is to irrigate. We typically irrigate deeply after opening greens up with aeration. This deep watering brings the greens soil profile to its field capacity as well as drawing air into the rootzone which is one of the main purposes of core aeration.

View of Tilley's PG on Tuesday AM following a good rolling and blowing. 

A closeup view reveals some open holes after the seed irrigation event the evening before. A light follow up topdressing followed by brushing and blowing will fill them nicely. Size of the hole again does not deflect ball roll so they putt nicely and recovery will be rapid.

Wet February

 The Water Year in California is a "12 month period that extends from October 1st to September 30th." "The water year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends." "The current water year is 2024." "In the current water year, the greater Sacramento region has received:

76% of Average Rainfall

41% of the Average Snowfall

0.5% F  Warmer, Daily on Average

Weather data collected here at GBGC tells a slightly different story particularly for the month of February 2024. Through Tuesday 2/20/2024 we have measured a total 5.72" for the month which will make February 2024's accumulation the 4th highest in 19 years of data collection from the GBGC weather station. More importantly then the rain accumulation amounts were the number of rain days and cloudy days in between. We have measured rain on 13 days in the first 20 days of February and 17 days of the 31 in January. So 30 of the last 51 days of 2024 we have measured rain and there have have been very few sunny days in between.

Our record of 19 years of rainfall accumulation measured by the GBGC weather station. 2024 accumulation through 20 days of February ranks 4th in 19 years.

2024's daily records confirm 30 days of rain measured in the years first 51 days.

So our total YTD water year accumulation is less then the historic average of 24",  but the last 50 days have been wet and cloudy and have created wetter then desirable playing conditions. It has always taken 5 consecutive days of clear weather for the golf course to dry out enough after rain events to allow carts onto the golf course, a big satisfaction matrix for course dryness. Unfortunately,  we have  not had those blocks of clear, sunny and hopefully windy days to dry the golf course out yet in 2024. Hopefully the remainder of this week will start that drying trend, however it is still February.

Mid morning on Wednesday 2/21/24 following a 6 out of 7 day stretch where rainfall was measured. Hoping the sun will persist and dry the golf course out.

We will continue to install surface drainage and sand topdress in season which will help when we experience these wet sort of winters. Additionally repairs to specific bad areas such as #2 fairway exit that we recently completed will continue and will help as well. The flipside to the rain the entire State has been receiving in January & February and golf course conditions is  the refreshing of reservoirs and snow crucial for the big picture, irrigation in the summer. Not nearly the abundant water year of 2023, but the last two months are helping to catch-up from a slow start to the water year of 2024. CA current water storage and snow accumulation data below.

Folsom Reservoir from which GBGC's irrigation water originates is in decent shape thanks mostly to record rainfall in water year 2023, but recent storms have contributed to recent gains.

The best water storage for CA has always been in the mountains in the form of snow. 2024 was slow to start with snow but experiencing a little better finish.

Like Folsom, many of our big reservoirs throughout the State are still in decent shape from the  record rain and snowfall  from water year 2023. It will be interesting to see if Shasta & Oroville will fill once the snow starts melting as well as of course, Folsom.

 

February Storm

 As many of us are aware, a Powerful Winter Storm hit California Sunday 2/4/24 causing a substantial amount of damage state wide. Very strong winds caused the downing of trees again here at the course for the second year in a row. We lost 30 trees between mid December & mid January 2022-2023. 

We lost another 20+ trees this time where we  measured 50-60 MPH gusts.  Most of the downed trees were out of play in native areas or walnut shell areas. The only structural damage we experienced was a tree that went over onto the short netting on the left-hand side of the driving range. Wet conditions dident help as we have measured over 3" of rain in the 3 days since 2/1/24. It took us over 4 weeks last year to process and clean up after 30 trees, it will take us at least a couple of weeks to clean up these 20+. Some pictures below.

#18 left-hand side cart path

 
Further down on #18, closer to green, left-hand side of cart path.

Another on the left-hand side of #18. This one across the left hand driving range net.

Two pretty good sized live oaks in the native area between #11 tee & #12 fairway

This is at the #15 side of the bridge below the tee. Half of it came down last year.

Left - hand side of #16 near the cart path below the green.

#6 tee across the cobble stone wall 

Above is a good representation of the 20+ total that are down. We spent all day yesterday, Monday 2/5/24 doing basic cleanup and clearing cart paths so we all can get around the course on Tuesday. Again, I estimate it will take us a couple of weeks to clean all of this up along with routine maintenance. 

Thanks for your Support!