Well, it's that time of year again. The wind is "Howling", the temperature is rising and the irrigation coverage is terrible. When it's this windy out, our 27 year old irrigation system design just doesn't do the job and we start to get what we call "Hot Spots" all over the course. (The dry, dead looking areas). These are caused because our sprinklers are spaced at around 70-feet apart with some as far as 100-feet apart, and the wind just doesn't allow the water to reach these areas. This spacing is sufficient during the cooler winter temperatures when the winds are calm, but not even close to being good enough this time of year. We need to understand that when this course was built back in the 80's, the thinking was that this area was a winter visitors retreat. Therefore, there wasn't much concern as to what the conditions were like throughout transition and the summer. Everyone was gone back home and the only people playing golf were the local golf pros that didn't get a chance to play during the winter season. In fact, they actually preferred the winter grass to start dying out early in the spring so they could transition to the summer grass faster and grow a healthy stand of turf to use as a seed bed for the next years over-seed. That is no longer the case as this area has rapidly become a place of year-round residents. Today's irrigation systems are vastly improved and have a much better design. They allow superintendents many options to combat these situations. The head spacing is much closer, they allow individual head control to water isolated areas and you can install an insert into any sprinkler head on the property. That allows you to run a hose to any area of the golf course to spot water. All luxury's that we only wish we had.