I received the following update from Metcalfe a couple of weeks ago:


In the last six weeks there has been a lot of thawing and refreezing which has led to ice building up in the greens. As a result, we will be attempting to remove the snow from the greens in mid-February and will then apply an ice melting product made up of leaf compost and wood ash. This product is very black and attracts the sun to melt the remaining snow and ice from the green. Timing of this application of product is critical because there needs to be 3 days of strong sun to melt the ice. We will keep you up to date.


There have no updates on whether this intervention has been successful or not, but clearly the greens-keepers are worried. BTW "Rader Rob" is predicting an April 17th opening date for Metcalfe , so the "early-bird" courses are usually a week or so before that...