Another Timely Rain

This summer has been quite the contrast to last. We received another 3.1 inches of rain at the golf course between Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning. The rain Sunday night was quite strong and caused a lot of run off on the golf course. This had an undesired effect on our bunkers which were the worst I've seen in quite some time. However, it was quite advantageous to have completed our aerification the week prior allowing deep penetration for the water into our soil profiles throughout the golf course corridor. We are still in the midst of cleaning up, especially bunkers. We should have this completed midday or early afternoon. The rain has also brought a lot of fire ant mounds up to the surface which will be treating later this week.

Summer Stress is Definitely here for Greens

Some of our usual suspect greens as I like to call them are certainly starting to show some signs of summer stress. Greens that have poor air circulation or some that have sod from last year are showing signs of stress. We have mitigated the stress levels as best we can through this summer with blowing air through the drain tiles and precision watering practices. However even the utmost care is no match for mother nature. I do feel that the damage is very limited and the greens in total are the best they have ever been at this time of year. We will over the coming weeks begin to plug out the bad spots prior to our fall aerification. I anticipate full coverage through the fall and a great winter with the greens. You will also be able to see tree work and clearing being completed around some of these greens as in years past.

Aerification complete!

Our scheduled aerification of fairways, tee tops, and approaches could not have gone better. We finished pulling cores yesterday around noon. We have cleaned up everything through number 11 completely and have started our fertilization application to the front nine fairways. Due to our turf care teams hard work yesterday the entire golf course is open at the start of play on Tuesday morning. We even had enough time to get back around onto some of the entrance areas and wear traffic areas that we are hoping to get to later in the week but should have that completed by this morning.

Some other of the projects that we got completed yesterday included verti cutting of fairways and approaches prior to mowing. Top dressing greens. We are out putting the stones back in the tee boxes, fertilizing fairways, fertilizing greens and back to our normal schedule.

Verticutting on Tees

We have completed another verticutting on the tees last week and they are healing wonderfully.  It was a very aggressive verticutting however it will pay off dividends in the long run, just as it has in the fairways.  We gave them an application of fertilizer this past Monday to help push recovery.

Great Start to the Week!

We got another .6" this Sunday bringing our seven day total to 3.1", not too bad for the middle of the summer and much better than last year.  The turf care team was very busy yesterday and got a lot of work completed.  We verticut the first 14 fairways yesterday and our finishing them up today.  Greens were sprayed with a product to protect against the little algae that is out there and were heavily topdressed.  We edged cart paths, heads, and valves in fairways.  We verticut and mowed all approaches.  We will spray fertilizer and wetting agent later this week over all the bermuda.  Our team worked diligently and effectively yesterday and today to get a lot of good work accomplished.  We are off to a great start this week!   

Turning Boards

In an effort to keep improving our golf course and keeping it in top condition we have purchased some new tools. We have noticed over time that areas around the bunkers where there's not much room for mowers to turn become thin and start to wear heavily in the summer months. To help alleviate this stress from the collars around the greens we have purchased some turning boards. These boards are made of high density polyethylene and are lightweight and easy for the staff to move around. I have attached two pictures were you can see the wearing on number one green's collar in the foreground and our staff member turning on the new boards.

For those of you around yesterday afternoon you are already aware we had a couple more rain showers go through the golf course. That rain brought us another half an inch. Which brings our weekly total up to 2.2 inches. Certainly a welcome surprise for what is typically one of the driest months.

More rain!

The golf course received another half an inch last night. The golf course is dry and fairways are open to cart traffic. It is instances like these where our sand capping in fairways is superior to native soils.

This weather has been a nice change of pace for us and we have been able to get some other projects completed that typically when were trying to keep everything green and growing we were unable to complete. One of these projects sodding at the back of number seven green some of the Bermuda grass that has a hard time growing due to the shade. You will also be signing some other areas such as the back of number eight, the front of number 11, and the front of number 12 tomorrow.