The fall season is finally upon us with leaves changing colours and falling, cool mornings with very minimal frost (so far).  It’s a busy time of year with winter prep underway while still trying to maintain our courses with way less staff.

The 2026 Don Campbell Research Tournament was a great success raising approximately $10,000 toward turf research.  89 golfers participated at the North Battleford Golf & Country Club on a beautiful day on Grant’s wonderful course. 38 golfers participated in the skins game at Jackfish Lodge golf course on Monday afternoon, and enjoyed a great evening barbeque on the deck afterwards. Many thanks go out to long-time STA member Grant Sawchyn and Kyle Kellgren and all the staff who helped me both days great!

It’s hard to believe August is here and only 75 ish days until the end of golf season. The weather continues to be unusual. Hot, humid conditions the past few weeks and little wind in the Saskatoon area.

Here we are near the end of June and we are still waiting for summer to happen. The weather continues to be unsettled with below “normal” temperatures and pockets of rain hitting different parts of the province.

Wow! After 3 false starts into spring, summer came in with mid 30 C temps and 40-60 km winds, just in time for a mainline break that shut down our irrigation system. Fortunately we were able to get repairs done and catching back up with watering.

After another long Saskatchewan winter, hopefully spring is here to stay soon, although in the next few days there are forecasts of 10-15 cm and 30-50 cm of snow in some areas of the province, especially in the northern parts of the province, which still has 2-3 feet of snow on the ground.

Wow! What a month September has been. With temperatures consistently over 20 degrees, and little frost, it is one of the nicest Septembers ever. Courses have been extremely busy and mid summer conditions prevail.

As we enter the last week of summer we are experiencing some of the nicest weather of the season. This is the final week for most of the students that work for us (as least those who don’t take 2-3 weeks off before school) leaving us all to do the same amount of work with less staff for a few weeks. Hopefully we will have a great September and October to close out the season as we start preparation for winter.

I read that May was the 7th driest on record and combined with drought-like conditions over the past several years, the much needed moisture that has fallen over the last half of June has been very beneficial.

After a long winter of fluctuating temperatures it looks like spring is starting to arrive. Although we had temperatures from the –40’s to above 0 over the winter, hopefully the snow cover in most of the province kept the temperature at a consistent level, although I have heard some are concerned about potential ice issues mostly in the south of the province. Hopefully that is not the case and everyone has a great start this spring.