May 8th, 2026 Update | West Hills Golf

West Hills

Fredericton

Hey Folks,

Here is the Friday update for your pursual. This week hasn’t been the week we had hoped for, with only one day at the temperature we need. Tuesday was beautiful and allowed us to seed the greens again, but the rest of the week was really too cold to be effective. Bent grass will begin to germinate around 12 degrees in the soil, but its not really warm enough for the recovery we are after.

The days following this post are not projected to be great either, with Saturday through to Monday as cooler and rainy.

As of today, numbers 3, 5, 7,12,13,14 and 17 are showing the worst signs of damage. The tees are also struggling from the ice damage. Numbers 2, 4, 13, 14, 17 and 18 are in rough shape. The following fairways 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 16 and 18 are damaged. We have seen some progress in the week but not enough to consider opening the golf course next week. Why not just open with some temporary greens? In the past we have opened with some damaged greens temped, but in those cases the rest of the golf course was pretty healthy. There are some very healthy areas on the course right now. Numbers 1, 2, 4, 10, 11, 9 and 18 look great but are thin, and require a little more heat and some sunshine before they ready to go.

To date all of the damaged areas have been overseeded, fertilized, protected with a fungicide, watered, covered with a tarp or mat. All we need in the environment to help us out.

We measure the potential for growth using Growing Degree Days. Here’s a definition:

“Growing Degree Days (GDD) are a way to measure how much heat energy plants accumulate over time to support growth and development.

Instead of just counting calendar days, GDD tracks how warm it actually was. Plants — including creeping bentgrass — grow faster when temperatures are above a minimum threshold.”

If you look at the weather from April 25th to May 1 the growing degree days (potential growth based on heat with a base of 5 degrees or GDD5) were only around 45. This past week we saw around 40 GGD5. Mid summer that number would be closer to 100 per week, so the potential hasn’t been great. In general, we need around 500 cumulative GDD5 for decent establishment of Bent grass, the tarps will elevate the GDD for the that period but for the last few weeks we are closer to about 130 GDD5. Basically we are on the cusp of the growth scale and just need that push.

Here’s 18 fairway after the seed has begin to catch. Its an improvement over last week but marginal.

Here’s 18 fairway again. You can see the rye grass has begun to germinate in the aerations holes that we created last week. It still has a long way to go but it is improving.

Here’s 3 green from last weeks post.

And 3 green this week. Some improvement, but not great. Ill keep adding to this as the weeks progress.

So unfortunately the course will remain closed for next week as we recover, and we will look to the week of the 18th to 22nd to get open. Stay tuned for more updates.