#6 Green with Sun Angles

Richter has tree lined fairways that play a very important part in the aesthetic qualities of the golf course.  Unfortunately trees and grass do not always get along.   Trees compete for nutrients, water and most importantly hog the sunlight.  Last season we started looking at morning shade patterns to come up with a tree removal / thinning program that will help our problem areas.  Over the next several weeks and months you might see ribbons around some select trees throughout the course.  These ribbons are only going to be for internal record keeping and will allow the Greens Committee and authority to access our program and recommendations that will be presented during next years budget process.

It is easiest to determine what trees are causing the problems during the season when the leaves are on the trees causing the problems.  We are trying to locate old photographs to restore the course to more of an original state of when the course opened.  On the turf crew we are looking ahead to minimize and correct future problems that are in our control.

It must be stated that we are not going into this plan with the goal of cutting down trees.  We are using GPS and other programs to selectively target the trees causing the problems.  Trees are extremely important to a golf course and we plan on highlighting the important trees while eliminating the problem ones.