July Verticutting Complete

After the rain delay last week, we got the previously scheduled verticutting of fairways and approaches completed yesterday.  As I stated a few blogs ago, players are able to see that this cultural technique can improve your ball placement in the fairways.  Below are some pictures of the end result.

The seasonally cooler temperatures and 3.4" of rain last week were a welcomed break to another grueling Texas summer. The only area of turf on the golf course that is showing any signs of detriment is the greens.  The greens showed signs of stress this past weekend with what were relatively moderate temperatures, for July in Texas.  The reason bentgrass did so, even though it is not grown in its desired climate, is it has in most hot and dry times here the ability to harden off.  When it has times of cooler temperatures for 3 or 4 days it has the inherit trait to revert back to its genetic code and become more susceptible to higher temps.

We can confidently speak to this point since we use moisture meters.  Areas that were showing signs of heat stress were well above their normal threshold.  The great thing about moisture sensors is that it puts a number to the visual sign.  It is factual, not a guess.  I feel based on my commentary that the signs of stress you see on the greens is superficial.  I expect the few, small areas to heal quite quickly and no longer be visible. It is quite an unusual phenomena that I have been witnessing for the past 8 years and wanted to share some of my experiences with the membership.

Verticutting in Fairways

Heat stress on Greens. 

Putting Green Closure at Practice Area

This was a post from last summer.  I have heard some chatter as to why we close the putting green during the summer stress.  I thought this was a good reminder.  Please read below.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words so......the bottom picture was from 2011.  I think it is a place we don't want to go back to.

I know some of you are wondering why a green that looks perfectly healthy would be closed to play. Well we are trying to be proactive in minimizing the stress level to that green this summer. Once plants show the signs of stress, it is typically too late for them to recover fully. So when dealing with plant health it is better to be on the proactive side of management then the curative side.

The facts are this green is purely undersized to be the main putting green for our club. If its role was to only hit a few practice putts and then head out to the course it would be fine. However it's current usage is such where golfers will spend much longer sessions on it. Thereby increasing traffic stress to levels that the green cannot handle in the summer months. In a perfect world the 10,000 square foot green would be at the practice area and the 3,500 square foot green would be at the clubhouse. Our world is not perfect. I would ask our membership to bear that thought in mind throughout the year. As I stated earlier even though turf might not show symptoms of a problem doesn't mean it is not under stress from a problem.

Deep Tine Discoveries

While we were going doing our monthly venting of our greens, we made a discovery. The first green we have started on for the last 4 years, the practice putting green at the practice facility, had a little surprise for us.  A loud crash and bang; out of the ground came a large piece of metal.  It had obviously been buried since construction of the green some 10 plus years ago.  Pretty amazing!  The metal was folded over itself and was not in great shape. We have plans to deep tine this coming Monday July 1st.

Aerifiying High traffic Areas

This past Monday we spent time aerifying high-traffic areas. These areas receive a lot of cart traffic and not only have turf health implications but also play ability issues.  We made it around all 18 and cleaned it up ready for play on Tuesday.  In the picture below, you can see the aerifier operating on #7 fairway and rough.  We started this program last year if you recall.  I think we have seen a lot of benefits from doing this program monthly through the growing season.  The course received 0.3" of rain Monday afternoon.  The rain slowed down the clean up process; however at this point any rain is a great thing!

                                

Verticutting Really Starting to Pay Off

I know the main complaint out of our membership over the last few years has been tight lies in the fairways. I also know that this year I have heard many positive comments on the fairways providing the lies that everyone has been looking for. This has mainly been due to the aggressive verticutting program we have implemented over the last few years. 

When I took over four years ago, our height of cut in the fairways was .450". Today our height of cut is .600".  That is just a shade over an 1/8 of an inch. Not to much change really, right?  The real game changer in the lies in our fairways has been the verticutting. 

Previously we had not changed mowing directions as we should have. This got the Bermuda grass to grow in one direction and "run" along the ground as opposed to grow upright. With the use of the discs of the verticutting machine, that stops that growth habit of the Bermuda.   

Now with changing the mowing direction and our vertical mowing we are changing the way our balls lie in our Bermuda fairways. This is a process we will not be backing off of either. We are seeing the positive results so now it becomes part of our maintenance routine.  We have on the calendar to complete another aggressive verticutting in the second week of July. Please be prepared for the fairways to again react very favorably to this process. 

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.