October Newsletter

Food and Beverage Manager:

Larry Eppler

I hope everyone has been able to see the new additions to The Creek. If you have not we were lucky enough to get three brand new flat screen TVs in there. It starts to feel more and more like a true lounge every day!

Start this month were are running some food special in The Creek only. We will be offering some all you can eat nights where you can get a ton of incredible food for a great price! Wednesday night will be all you can eat shrimp, hot or cold and that comes with French fries and coleslaw for $11.99. It gets even better though, on Thursday it is all you can wings for $10.99 which also comes with French fries and coleslaw. The one I am most excited about though is our Friday night fish fry which is all you can eat fried Alaskan Pollack with the best price in town just $9.99 and also comes with French fries and coleslaw.

Make sure not to forget about are local favorite, the early birds 4-6. Just a reminder, you must have the order in the kitchen before 6:00 so please come earlier to make sure you have enough time.

Golf Course Superintendent:

Chris Threatt

We are all noticing the signs of the changing seasons. Summer is bleeding into fall and random “cool” fronts dip into Florida and treat us with drier, crisper evenings and mornings. In golf course terms, this time of year means gearing up for winter overseed and all its preparations. The seed and cart restrictions are easily noticed, but many other events go into play weeks ahead of our seeding date. Here are a couple of those items that you may now notice and understand after reading this.

Irrigation Audit: The staff must check every sprinkler that is to cover a tee, fairway, green, or approach. The seed needs daily water for at least 7-10 days to germinate which is then lowered to normal in 14-21 days. The seedlings need just as much care and attention as the seeds prior to germination.   Most of this entails frequent moisture monitoring and fertilizer applications. Our sprinklers are critical during this time. Each head must be checked for clean nozzles, rotation, and arc. All of which must be checked and monitored for 35-40 acres of turf to be over-seeded until established. This also explains our cart restrictions. The seed and seedlings can be easily damaged, lifted, removed, transplanted by cart traffic until established, roughly 14 days. If carts were to drive over the seedlings and/or seed as normal conditions, the months of December through April would show burn marks, missing grass, thin areas, etc. unless re-seeded and watered again by our staff.

Turf preparations: The overseed areas will either be sprayed with growth regulators or height-of-cut reduced to create the seedbed. The greens will be sprayed to create a window of growth for the poa trivialis overseed. We must slow the Bermuda and allow the overseed to grow at least a week till we can mow again. The fairways, tees, and approaches will have the height-of-cut reduced to “open” up a seedbed and “stunt” the Bermuda temporarily to create the window of growth for the ryegrass. It will have a similar result as the new approach on #3 green. The crew cut down the area and irrigated adequately and it recovered nicely in roughly 14 days. All the areas may appear “more brown” or “less green,” but it’s all planned and part of our overseed preparations for the best winter season we can create.

Golf Professional:

Brad Skinner

I would like to take a minute to thank you for using the new sign in sheet, it has been a big help for the golf shop staff. Your continued help is greatly appreciated. The Greater Tampa Junior Golf Association will be at Cypress Creek again in November, if you are interested in volunteering please come see me. I encourage all of you again to come support this event and show some of these young men and women your support.

The course will be closed for the overseeding process on Tuesday November, 1^st. This will help keep our golf course in great shape as we head into the colder months. Playing conditions will be cart path and cart path side of the rough only for at least 14 days after overseeding. Thank you ahead of time for your cooperation and support.

We have some great sales going on in the Golf Shop right now and will continue to get more gifts for the Holiday’s. Select men’s and women’s shirts are 25% off, and don’t forget about your member discount of 10% off regular priced apparel. If you haven’t picked up your new Cypress Creek logo golf shirt, now is the time. Also Mrs. Dutkowsky purchased some awesome new merchandise while she was at the Atlanta Market last week, make sure to check out what we have before your holiday shopping begins.

General Manager:

Kevin Dutkowsky

There have actually been a lot of subtle changes around the club this month. Like Larry covered in his section The Creek received the much needed addition of a few TVs, like most males I still do not think the 55” is large enough though! With the addition of the all you can eat nights in The Creek I am confident that we have one of the best kept secrets in the area that will not be a secret for much longer.

I am not sure how many of you were aware of just how dire our golf cart situation had become but it was starting to get very scary. We were losing on average 2 carts a week to dead batteries and unfortunately the cart lease I inherited from previous management prevents us from realistically being able to get a new cart fleet for at least another 12 months. Luckily this month we were able to replace the batteries in 32 golf carts which got our entire fleet back to operational. As you can see in the picture below, we did not realize just how many carts were truly down until they were all lined up.

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On the cart note, that is why it is so important that if you are in a club owned cart that there be two golfers in that cart before we use another cart. This not only helps the wear on the carts but also helps keep our golf course in better shape with less cart traffic.

As Chris and Brad covered in their sections, we will be doing our annual overseed on November 1^st. The days following the initial seeding are some of the most crucial for the health of the golf course the entire year. The overseed is not only the single most important factor in having a quality golf course for the next 6 months but it also acts almost like a blanket for the dormant Bermuda grass and will help the course be in great condition again next summer. That being said I can not emphasize the importance of following the cart rules for the next few weeks. There will be additional rangers available on the course during peak hours to assist any golfers that may get confused as to what “cart path side of the rough” means.

I look forward to a great winter season with each and every one of you.