News | Spencer Municipal Golf Course

The Muni Update

September 21, 2025

Good Morning, This past week staff was able to clean out on the remaining landscaping beds. We used the landscape vacuum to remove the river rock and old mulch in all of these areas. This material had been in the landscaping beds for the past 24 years. It was necessary to use pickaxes to...

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The Muni Update

September 14, 2025

Good Morning, This past week our staff was able to apply our scheduled September fertilizer applications on the tees, fairways, green surrounds, and most of the rough on the south end of the golf course. This was completed on Thursday morning and the nightly irrigation cycles have mowed the...

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The Muni Update

September 7, 2025

Good Morning,
This coming week we will begin painting the remainder of our tee signs in the landscaping areas. We will also start removing plant materials and the river rock in these landscaping beds. Today's update will cover the month of August up to this weekend. Precipitation The...

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The Muni Update

August 31, 2025

Good Morning, This is the first week we have not had any recorded precipitation for the majority of the golf season. The irrigation system has been running every night trying to provide adequate water to the golf course. We have not really used the irrigation system, on a regular basis, for...

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The Muni Update

August 24, 2025

Good Morning, Another week is in the books at The Muni as school starts back up and the temperatures start to drop. We are fortunate to have great maintenance and clubhouse staff that love The Muni and all the golfers that visit us on a daily basis. With school back in session quite a few...

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The Muni Update

August 17, 2025

Good Morning, It's been a beautiful week for golf at The Muni. We hosted the Unified Golf Event last Sunday with 31 teams participating. This event allows athletes from the Special Olympics to play with a sponsor and complete nine holes of golf together. This is one of my favorite events of...

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The Muni Update

August 3, 2025

Good Morning, Well, it's been another crazy week of weather at The Muni and NW Iowa in general. The derecho, on Monday night, left a lot of small tree debris scattered throughout the golf course. We also had eight large trees blown over during the storm. There were five different storms...

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The Muni Update

July 27, 2025

Good Morning, It was another week with heavy rain and the grounds staff was busy trying to play catch up with maintenance practices. The Muni has received 9.05" of rain for the month of July. The golf course is completely saturated and we have had surface flooding multiple times during the...

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The Muni Update

July 20, 2025

Good Morning, This past week was definitely a challenge due to the amount of rain received which caused a lot of surface drainage across the entire golf course. The Muni had 1.5" of rain on Saturday, July 12, followed by 2.1" on Wednesday early morning, and finally 2.0" early Saturday...

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The Muni Udate

July 13, 2025

Good Morning, It was another very busy week at The Muni. The weather was beautiful leading up to the storm with heavy winds early Saturday morning. We lost a large tree next to #11 tee box which we are in the process of removing this weekend.
#11 tree on 7-12-25.jpg I have been...

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The Muni Update

July 6, 2025

Good Morning, This past week was one of the busiest golf weeks we have ever experienced at The Muni. The first six days of the week we had filled tee times for most of the day, every day. We had our weekly scheduled golf leagues and only open golf on Monday thru Saturday. This...

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The Muni Update

June 29, 2025

Good Morning, This past week there were multiple days of rainfall that totalled 2.8" of precipitation. The golf leagues on Wednesday were rained out but we were still able to host The Chamber Golf Outing on Friday and the Iowa Lakes Regional Water golf event on Saturday. It was definitely a...

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The Muni Update

June 22, 2025

Good Morning, We hosted our annual two gal triple treat golf event this past Tuesday with a record setting 80 ladies participating. I would like to thank the members of the Tuesday morning and evening ladies leagues for making this event so successful. They prepared so many different...

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The Muni Update

June 15, 2025

Good Morning, The condition of our golf greens is slowly improving now that the weather has straightened out with some quality growing conditions. We went from a devastating flood in June of 2024 then straight into drought conditions through the fall. We entered the winter months with...

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The Muni Update

June 8, 2025

Good Morning, Here is an update over the past month's activities at the golf course. It's hard to believe we are already rolling into the month of June. We have a golf event today with open golf becoming available by mid afternoon. Staff The maintenance grounds staff are the same...

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The Muni Update

June 1, 2025

Good Morning, This past week I completed about 95% of the herbicide applications for the golf course. There is still a little bit of rough to treat on the left side of #15 in the rough as well as the out of play area on #14. Once these areas are completed I will start hand spraying around...

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The Muni Update

May 25, 2025

Good Morning, This past week we had a lot of cold days with rain or light mist. This weather affected several golf leagues and diminished open golf for several days of the week. The rainfall was definitely nice and helped the golf course tremendously. Staff was very busy working in the poor...

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The Muni Update

May 18, 2025

Good Morning, The street division was on site to continue working on the shelter behind #2 green. The concrete was poured and the framework of the shelter was started this past week. The high winds limited the amount of work we could complete later in the week and the project will continue...

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The Muni Update

May 11, 2025

Good Morning, The week started off with the repair of a four inch main irrigation line behind #1 green. There was an isolation valve as well as a four inch irrigation "T" that cracked causing the leak. We also had a concrete thrust block on the north side of the "T" to support the pressure on...

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The Muni Update

May 4, 2025

Good Morning, As we near this time of the season the conversations begin in regard to the presence of dandelions. They have started appearing this past week and I am scheduled to start treating the golf course in about one week. There will be a pre-emergent sprayed to control crabgrass from...

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The Muni Update

April 27, 2025

Good Morning, This past week we had a couple of nighttime temperatures that were at least 50 degrees and only three for the month of April. There have been seven nights where the temperature was below freezing and a couple of those were below 20 degrees. Our bentgrass greens do not react...

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The Muni Update

April 20, 2025

Good Morning, This week there were two reports of private golf carts missing from the north cart shed. Two weeks ago there was a report of two sets of golf clubs missing from the north cart shed. A month ago there was a report of a missing cart charger from the north cart shed. Police...

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Theft Update

April 18, 2025

Good Afternoon,

This week there have been two reports of private golf carts missing from the north cart shed. Two weeks ago there was a report of two sets of golf clubs missing from the north cart shed. A month ago there was a report of a missing cart charger from the north cart shed.

Police...

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The Muni Update

April 13, 2025

Good Morning, This past week we continued to go through the irrigation stations to check nozzle throw and make any necessary repairs. Greens, tees, and surrounds were irrigated multiple times to provide moisture to these areas with the high winds we experienced on multiple days.
#...

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The Muni Update

April 6, 2025

Good Morning, The week started off with a couple inches of snow covering the entire golf course. Rainfall followed with colder temperatures. The precipitation is great for the golf course but not so much for golfers. The weather looks a little bit nicer for our tournament today then returns...

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The Muni

March 30, 2025

Good Morning, The Muni was open for the 2025 golf season on Wednesday at 11:00 AM. The weather was a little brisk in the morning but the afternoon turned out to be pretty nice with minimal wind. Very few tee times were left unavailable from noon until 5:00 PM. The golf course was very busy on...

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The Muni Update

March 23, 2025

Good Morning, On Monday the putting greens were hand watered with a wetting agent added to the tank water to help control isolated dry areas. The wetting agent will help hold today's rainfall in these areas and keep the greens from drying out too quickly. The areas where turf damage was...

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The Muni Update

March 16, 2025

Good Morning, This past week the driving range was opened on Wednesday at noon. There were quite a few golfers out practicing their swing in anticipation of the 2025 golf season. The morning started off with a heavy frost and finished about 6:15 PM when we ran out of range balls for the day....

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The Muni Update

March 9, 2025

Good Morning, This past week we had some very much needed precipitation at The Muni. There was several inches of snow and roughly 3/4 of an inch of rainfall totalled on two different days. The rainfall soaked into the ground pretty quickly and provided much needed moisture for the golf...

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The Muni Update

March 2, 2025

Good Morning, The warm weather has definitely been a welcome change from below zero days. Warmer weather does not mean it is time to start thinking about getting out on the course to play some golf. The frost level is still near the top of the soil profile. The frost level needs to be 10-12"...

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The Muni Update

February 23, 2025

Good Morning, As warmer temperatures enter the forecast we feel relief from the bitter cold past week and become excited for the golf season to kick off in 2025. The snow on the ground will be gone in a couple of days, "Golf Fever" will be in the air, but that doesn't mean we jump right into...

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The Muni Update

February 16, 2025

Good Morning, The recent snowfall has really been a blessing for the golf course. Snow is usually a bad four letter word when winter rolls around, but it is very important for the golf course. Snowfall provides an insulation blanket for the bentgrass greens which protects the turf from the...

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The Muni Update

February 9, 2025

Good Morning, I have been on vacation the past couple of weeks and will be returning on Monday. I will be in and out of the clubhouse each day, starting on Tuesday. If you would like to schedule a time to stop in at the clubhouse please reach out to me on my cell phone to make sure I'm in the...

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The Muni Update

January 19, 2025

Good Morning, This past week we hosted Hy Vee for their employee holiday gathering. We have two more events scheduled for the next couple of weekends. It's nice to have people that don't play golf take advantage of our clubhouse. The clubhouse is closed during the offseason unless there is...

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The Muni Update

January 12, 2025

Good Morning, This past week a lot of time was spent cleaning in the clubhouse facility. All of our beverage inventory was updated in preparation for events we are hosting over the next four weeks. It's always nice to have the opportunity to have people use our facility for a non golf...

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The Muni Update

January 5, 2025

Good Morning, This past week our temperatures have started to return to the normal range in comparison to the upper 50's we experienced the prior week. The warm temperatures are definitely enjoyed by our normally cold Iowa winter bones. However, these temperatures don't instantly create...

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The Muni Update

December 22, 2024

Good Morning, This past week the pumphouse renovation started with Dakota Pump and Control on site. They spent a couple of days placing the new 75 horsepower turbine in the wet well followed by the 5 horsepower jockey pump. The turbine will maintain the system when the irrigation is in...

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The Muni Update

December 15, 2024

Good Morning, The rainfall has helped add a little moisture to the surface of the golf course. It's interesting to see how the precipitation effects the turfgrass sensors we have installed in our practice green for the University of Minnesota. I have participated in the winter turfgrass...

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The Muni Update

December 8, 2024

Good Morning, Last weekend I started to experience some extreme pain in my left ankle. I had surgery on this left toe in early October. On Monday I went to the Emergency Department at the hospital and discovered I had an infection present. I spent the week trying to figure out how to get...

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The Muni Update

December 1, 2024

Good Morning, This past week the 2024 golf season came to an end. We had a dozen or so golfers out playing one last time on Sunday, November 24. It was a pretty nice day to play golf considering it is the end of November. On Monday we removed the flagsticks and cups from the greens,...

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The Muni Update

November 24, 2024

Good Morning, This past week we were able to complete the winterization of the irrigation system. On Monday we used a 250 CFM air compressor to blow out the irrigation lines. We start blowing out the main lines of the irrigation first then go through each individual station to remove all...

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The Muni Update

November 17, 2024

The golf course maintenance staff has been working on quite a few projects as we near the close of the 2024 golf season. Here is a list of some of those items:
Pumphouse - the flood caused quite a bit of damage in the irrigation pumphouse. The three pumps have multiple issues but we were...

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The Muni Update

November 10, 2024

Good Morning, Staff have been very busy working on the irrigation system the past several weeks. The majority of the repairs have been on the lateral line side of the valve and also cleaning out diaphragms. The most obvious sign of leaking lateral lines is a saturated valve box and green...

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The Muni Update

November 3, 2024

Good Morning, It was nice to finally see some precipitation this past week. We received .15" of rainfall on Tuesday afternoon and another .8" on Thursday. It was nice to be able to shut the irrigation system down for a few days. We received 31.1" of rain, for the year, as of June 22. We...

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The Muni Update

October 27, 2024

Good Morning, The Spencer Municipal Golf Course is happy to announce we will be partnering with Upper Des Moines Outreach to host a music bingo night on November 21. This event will help raise funds for UDMO of Clay County to help citizens of our community with a lot of great support. We...

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The Muni Update

October 20, 2024

Good Morning, This past Monday we fertilized the golf greens with an 18-9-18 foliar fertilizer which was irrigated for eight minutes after application. The product will provide nutrients to the bentgrass green for the remainder of 2024 and be "plant ready" in the spring of 2025. This will...

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The Muni Update

October 13, 2024

Good Morning, The past couple weeks the weather has been above normal temperatures and no precipitation. The non irrigated areas of the golf course have turned completely dormant. The irrigated areas continue to receive as much water as possible. They are hanging in there pretty well...

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The Muni Update

September 27, 2024

Good Afternoon, The golf update is being sent out a couple days earlier than normal due to a scheduled vacation I have planned with my wife. I will be unavailable for phone calls but will still check my email periodically. I have my maintenance and clubhouse staff organized for the daily...

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The Muni Update

September 22, 2024

Good Morning, On Monday morning we brushed our greens in the same format as we've done the past couple of years. The greens were double mowed following the brushing of the greens. We collected grass clippings from #18 green after the first mowing and after the second mowing.
#18 Green...

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The Muni Update

September 15, 2024

Good Morning, At the beginning of the week we started refurbishing our existing tee signs around the course. These signs were installed when the golf course expansion project was completed in 2000. We use a special lithichrome paint on these signs to update all the painted areas including...

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The Muni Update

September 8, 2024

Good Morning, This past week the grounds staff spent the majority of their time on daily maintenance tasks. We have cut back on our mowing frequency on tees and fairways to twice per week. Normally we are mowing these areas three times a week but the growing conditions have slowed down quite...

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9-1-2024

September 1, 2024

Good Morning, This past week we received 1.1" of rainfall on Thursday afternoon. The precipitation was definitely needed by the turfgrass and also helped give the irrigation system a break in operations for a couple of days. The unfortunate part of the thunderstorms is it caused the...

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The Muni Update

August 25, 2024

Good Morning, This past week we hosted the Jasen Petersen Memorial golf outing and our golf leagues inched closer to the end of their season. There were 148 golfers for the JP Memorial event on Saturday. Tuesday we hosted the morning ladies league end of the year tournament. This morning we...

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The Muni Update

August 18, 2024

Good Morning, This past week our maintenance staff focused on our daily maintenance practices. Our mowing frequency had decreased with the lack of precipitation the past few weeks. Non irrigated areas had become fully dormant and even irrigated areas of the golf course required as much mowing...

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The Muni Update

August 11, 2024

Good Morning, Our maintenance staff has been busy with daily maintenance practices on the grounds along with planning fall projects. Clubhouse staff has been busy with golf leagues, daily golf, and events. Several of our employees will be leaving soon to go back to teaching school. I...

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The Muni Update

August 4, 2024

Good Morning, This morning we hosted the annual Special Olympics golf outing. There were 27 athletes participating with their sponsors playing two person alternate shot for either six or nine holes. It is such a great event that really brings a lot of smiles to every face on the golf course....

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The Muni Update

July 28, 2024

Good Morning, The warm weather and lack of precipitation has started to really dry things out at the golf course. The non irrigated areas are starting to turn dormant at a rapid rate. The warmer temperatures have started to cause a lot of stress to the turfgrass and also shows where we...

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The Muni Update

July 21, 2024

Good Morning, This past week at the golf course staff was busy with daily maintenance practices getting the golf course in as nice of shape as possible heading into the weekend. Our fairways are looking great and so are the putting greens. Every area of the golf course has been finely...

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The Muni Update

July 15, 2024

Good Morning, This past week I was able to complete a lot of spraying to control clover and other broadleaf weeds. The only areas left to spray are the rough on holes 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 17, and 18. I hope to complete these areas this coming week. The majority of clover has been eliminated in the...

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The Muni Update

July 7, 2024

Good Morning, This past week the golf course operations were back to as close to normal as we could expect considering the devastation our community experienced two weeks ago. We still have staff members that are dealing with the loss or damage to their homes and I am giving them as much time...

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The Muni Update

June 30, 2024

Good Morning, The golf course opened for play once again on Saturday, June 29. It was nice to see some of the folks come out to play golf and express their relief to "just get away from it all." We didn't have a lot of golfers, but it was a successful day for everyone that had a chance to...

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The Muni Update

June 28, 2024

Good Morning, It’s been a devastating week for the citizens and business owners of our community. Quite a few employees at the golf course were also affected. The golf course came through everything with no flooding issues to any buildings or sheds. Our only problems were from the...

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6-24-24

June 24, 2024

Good Afternoon, The Spencer Municipal Golf Course will be closed until further notice. There is currently power in the clubhouse but no internet or phone service. The golf course was not really affected by the flooding. There was a lot of surface drainage that covered the course after we...

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6-16-2024

June 16, 2024

Good Morning, Monday morning started off with a bang at the golf course. Literally, there was a loud bang and a hydraulic valve blew on one of the Toro green mowers. Hydraulic leaks are usually a rarity but when they happen it is not good for the turf. We used oil dry to try and soak up as...

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6-9-2024

June 9, 2024

Good Morning, The past week consisted of wrapping up the 2023/24 irrigation renovation project at The Muni. The contractor was on site Tuesday and Wednesday to complete the installation of irrigation heads and wire on the last ten greens. Our last green to finish was the practice green and...

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6-2-2024

June 2, 2024

Good Morning, The golf course irrigation renovation started this past week. The contractors were on site Wednesday to get the project started on #18 green. We used a small track hoe to expose the old irrigation heads and remove them from the system. Two new irrigation heads were installed in...

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5-26-2024

May 26, 2024

Good Morning, The past week was spent on clean up after multiple storms passed through the area. There was a total of 4.5" of rainfall that arrived Monday night through Tuesday another .8" of precipitation overnight on Thursday. It was definitely a challenge for staff and volunteers to get...

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5-19-2024

May 19, 2024

Good Morning, This past week at the golf course was spent trying to catch up on a lot of our daily maintenance practices. The high amounts of precipitation and warmer temperatures has the grass growing at a rapid rate. We were able to get everything mowed multiple times by the end of the...

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5-12-2024

May 12, 2024

Good Morning, The past week was filled with rain and more rain causing the golf course to become completely saturated with multiple days of surface drainage causing flooding. The irrigation pond was overflowing into the large flood drain but it could still not contain the water. The water...

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5-5-2024

May 5, 2024

Good, This past week there were multiple days of rain or thunderstorms resulting in over three inches of rain which was preceded by more than two inches of rain the week before. The golf course held up very well throughout all of the rainfall until we reached maximum capacity on Wednesday...

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4-28-2024

April 28, 2024

Good Morning, Last Sunday we hosted our first golf event of the 2024 season. This was a four person best shot with 144 golfers participating. This is the first event in a long time where all 36 teams that registered actually showed up for the tournament. It was a little breezy but everyone...

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4-21-2024

April 21, 2024

Good Morning, This past week the weather was beautiful at the start of the week and slowly dropped in temperatures as the days passed. We did receive 2.5" of rain at the golf course which helped provide precipitation for the golf course as well as the new trees we planted last season. The...

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4-14-2024

April 14, 2024

Good Morning, The maintenance staff has spent the past couple weeks working on course preparation. There were a couple of trees removed and lots of branches and small sticks cleaned up throughout. We also went through all the streams and waterways to remove garbage and other debris impeding...

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3-31-2024

March 31, 2024

Good Morning, The past week we pushed through the snow and rainfall to have a little bit of golf at the end of the week. We had close to 3" of rain and about the same amount of snow. The precipitation was great for the golf course and it all soaked in pretty quickly. Thursday staff spent...

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3-24-2024

March 24, 2024

Good Morning, The weather has changed and reminded us Winter might not quite be over yet. With the uncertain snow amounts in the forecast I felt it was best to spray the greens with a fungicide. This treatment protects the bentgrass greens from the threat of "snow mold." This is a fungus...

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3-17-2024

March 17, 2024

Good Morning, This past week we completed our first mowing of the 2024 golf season. The tees and fairways were mowed on Monday and Tuesday. Lots of dormant grass was removed with a dense green grass present underneath. The soil still had plenty of surface moisture creating a lot of soil...

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3-10-2024

March 10, 2024

Good Morning, Another week is winding down at the golf course. We started the season with the earliest opening date in The Muni history. It has continued to be busy on the days the golf course is open. The online tee times are starting to fill up for the next few days. Beautiful golf...

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3-3-2024

March 4, 2024

Good Morning, Our driving range opened last week and we had a lot of golfers take advantage of the warm February weather. This led to a lot of phone calls and text messages wondering about the opening date for the golf course. Every year I open the golf course as soon as the course is ready for...

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2-18-24 Update

February 18, 2024

Good Morning,
The weather continues to be quite abnormal and leaves us all anxious for spring to arrive. The start of the golf season is always on everyone's mind that owns a set of golf clubs. Weather patterns definitely play the biggest part in that each year. Here...

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2025 Golf Season

February 16, 2024

Welcome to the website for the Spencer Municipal Golf Course. Please take the time to enter your email address if you wish to receive event notices or seasonal specials. Your email address will only be used by our facility as a way to better serve you the public. Visit the rate page, of our...

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2-11-24 Update

February 11, 2024

Good Morning,
This past week I attended a seminar at Lake Creek Country Club, in Storm Lake, to learn about the updates to the World Handicap System. There are new changes for the 2024 season that will affect how a golfer’s Handicap Index will be adjusted for rounds of golf more than nine holes...

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2-4-24 Update

February 4, 2024

Good Morning,
Golf season is only a couple months away. The warm temperatures have melted the majority of the snow which helps provide moisture to the golf course but also leaves it unprotected from the winter weather conditions. Severe drop in temperature, high winds, and now snow cover can cause...

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