The first two years at The Vail Golf Club I spent most of my time learning what it takes to manage turf in the mountains at 8,100 feet. It's a huge difference from the mid-west and east coast. Cooler temperatures, less humidity, less rain, more intense sun and UV rays, and clearing greens in the spring of two to four feet, or more, of snow and grooming a nordic ski track. These were all challenges that were new to me. However, I learned to love these challenges over the mid-west and quickly began to adapt. The irrigation system we inherited was terrible. As important as water is to a course in semi-arid climate we really struggled with the highly deteriorated system. Replacing heads, fixing line breaks, repairing control boxes all took hours and hours of our time every week. The most difficult process was getting the system fully charged each spring, a time when getting water to the plant is as important as ever. It took us two to three weeks to be fully charged constantly chasing breaks and blown out heads. During these two summers we were able to see a light at the end of the tunnel since we also were planning and researching a new irrigation system that was to be installed during the 2009 season.The soil probe became one of my favorite tools and still is as far as that goes. By probing each green and fairway almost on a daily basis I became very familiar with the soils on the course and quickly identified the problem dry areas and how to manage the very important water resource. We do a lot of hand watering to maintain greens and turn heads off or lower the precipitation rate as needed in areas that don't need as much water.
Overall I look back at the irrigation and new environmental challenges that I faced these two years and know that I can handle any irrigation challenge thrown at me. It also helped me to deal with many other challenges by learning to assess problems, make good informed decisions and prioritize my time.
