The irrigation does work at the chipping area.

One of the items I implemented several years ago when I took over as the Golf Course Superintendent was overseeding the chipping area in the winter. I noticed over the years that this area in particular gets a lot of use and has no way for divot recovery during that time period. The solution was easy, overseed. Now it is summer and we need to get rid of the rye grass overseed. There are really two ways to accomplish this. One way is to remove it by spraying a herbicide, which we do on our tee boxes. This works extremely well but has one downside. The material sometimes has a potential to "move" once applied. It has the ability to move off target areas and into non-target areas through irrigation or rain events. The herbicides we use have a selectivity for cool season grasses like Bentgrass or Ryegrass. Bermuda is tolerant of these herbicides and therefore unaffected by them. For these reasons we use a slightly different approach in the chipping area. We use the environmental stress approach. So the drought stress that is evident right now in the chipping area is due to the fact that we are attempting to remove out the ryegrass from the Bermuda.

Greens Aerification.....Healing Nicely

Monday we completed our May greens aerification. We affected 6% total surface area of our greens surface. I know it might seem like quite a bit more to the eye, but simple math tells the story. I would anticipate healing to be very quick this time around as summer approaches and plants shift to a more shoot growth this time of year. The weather has been perfect for the the greens to heal. These cool mornings and moderate high temperatures is just what we need for a speedy recovery.

I got a lot of positive feedback on course conditions at our men's member/guest tournament this weekend. The greens played fast and firm. Remember, it is processes like this aerification that allow the turf care team to provide those excellent conditions at those times.