Crazy Weather Week

Needless to say the weather pattern this week has been a little unpredictable. We have have 60 degree days, winds in the 40 mph range, snow, rain, and severe weather threats in the form of hail and tornadoes in the area for the week. Just an ordinary week of spring weather in the Midwest I guess! The crew has continued to stay busy despite all the weather and we have had a great week up to this point. After we got the burning done on Monday we have been going through the burnt areas and cutting down all the suckers and volunteer trees that come up every year in these areas. It has really helped to clean them up and get them ready for us to start spraying our pre-emergent on them hopefully starting next week. The product we are going to apply will help prevent annual grassy weeds and broadleaved weeds from emerging in these areas. With the colder temperatures that we had at the beginning of the week things have slowed down growing but it looks like we are going to have an awesome weekend of weather so they should start greening up pretty good once again. We are applying our first application of fertilizer to our greens this morning to help them start growing and getting ready for our aerification on the 7th and 8th of April. Have a great weekend and enjoy the warm sunny weather that is coming our way!!

Finally!!

We finally got the go ahead today to burn our native grass areas. The guys were able to get the majority of the high profile areas burned before the snow moved in this afternoon. I am ecstatic that we got it done today ahead of the moisture that is coming and the fact that we go under a burn ban starting April 1st for an entire month. Getting these areas done will help us be able to control the unwanted weeds later in the year. What a crazy weather pattern we are in! One day it is 60 degrees two days later it is snowing! Welcome to weather in the Midwest. Here is a photo of the native areas burning this morning.

Windy and Warmer

Windy and warm have been the trends over the last few days. Temperatures have been in the upper 60s-70s with the night time lows being down around the high 30s-low 40s. However it looks like this is going to change over the weekend for at least a couple of days as forecasts are showing a cold front coming in bringing our highs back down into the 40s and lows in the 20s which will feel pretty darn cold after the warm trend we have been in. The turf has been waking up nicely with the warmer temps. Greens have really started to green up a bit and we are continuing to mow them about twice a week. Our plan was to start burning our native grass areas this week however the windy conditions and the lack of moisture have put a damper on us at this time. We have been checking everyday with the fire department to get the go ahead but we have been put on hold until further notice. Hopefully this will change next week as things are prime right now for a nice burn. Like I said we are out mowing the greens today and getting the bunkers cleaned up for the weekend. I hope everyone has been able to get outside and enjoy the sunshine and warm weather this week. Looks like this weekend may not be ideal but I think the long range forecast for the middle of next week is looking good again. March is a great time of year as everything starts to wake up and of course March Madness. My bracket has taken some hits already but I am hopeful my picks get it done in today's games. Good luck to my Wildcats tonight as they take on Kentucky they are going to need all the help and luck they can get!!! Go Cats!!!

Soil Temps are On The Rise

Weather conditions have continued to stay rather mild over the past couple of days. We had a little moisture over the weekend in the form of a little rain and then some sleet and snow followed by cold temperatures in the low 20s. The turf has started to wake up a little bit over the last week or so but the cold temperatures at night and last weekend have slowed this process down a little bit. However we are still mowing greens about 2 times a week right now and are getting a fair amount of clippings which means the bentgrass is growing which is great news. I took soil temperatures today and they read around the 45 degree mark. They say that the turf really doesn't start to do anything until soil temperatures hit the 50 degree mark for a couple days in row. Like I said though we have been getting a good amount of clippings in our mowing so I think it is just around the corner before things really break loose and start to grow. This is good news as I think the greens will be growing nicely for our greens aerification on April 7th and 8th. As you can see in the picture below there is a fair amount of green starting to peek through on our greens. There have been some questions as to why our greens are slower to green up then others around the area. Well this is due to the variety of bentgrass that our greens are which is A4 bentgrass. It is traditionally slow to wake up but then does better then some of the others in the heat of the summer meaning it is more of a warm season variety then some of the other varieties of bentgrass that are at other clubs in the area. Today we were finally able to get all the irrigation charged up and ready to go. The cold winter temperatures made things a little more difficult in recharging the lines as we had some irrigation heads freeze a bit and we had to wait on them to thaw or repair the broken parts before we could fully pressurize the lines.

New Team Member

It has been a great week of weather this week as it brought us some nice bright sunshine and some highs in the 60's and 70's. Also this week we had a new team member join us. We are very fortunate to have Sean Berger become a part our team as Assistant Golf Course Superintendent. Sean got his Golf Course Management degree from Kansas State University and has spent the last two years at The National Golf Links on Long Island, New York working as an assistant superintendent before moving back to accept the position here at Wolf Creek. Sean is originally from Leawood, Kansas so he is excited for the opportunity to move back home and be able to work at a great facility like Wolf Creek. We are extremely excited to have Sean as a part of our staff and he will be a very valuable addition to the Wolf Creek team so please take time to introduce yourself to him if you get the chance when you are out playing over the next couple of weeks.

As the great weather continues we have been able to get some winter projects completed finally. The irrigation installation between #6 and #7 is finally complete. This is going to make a huge difference in this area by helping the turf to be more consistent during the hot summer months. Also we are just about complete with installing stone along some of our cart path edges. There are just a few more areas that we might try to complete before the season really gets started. Another project we completed was getting all the tee signs and post installed around the golf course. The signs really turned out nice and look awesome with the new paint job. We also were able to mow greens for the first time on Monday and are mowing them again this morning as they have started to wake up and grow a little bit. I hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoys the great weather and great basketball that is going on. This is a great time of the year to enjoy awesome weather by playing golf and then being able to sit down and watch some great basketball!!

Sunshine and Warmer

We finally have some much needed sunshine and some warmer temperatures to enjoy! The staff has been out on the golf course working their tails off over the last week. We finally were able to finish up the huge drainage project on #17 fairway and it is going to really help out this area when it gets wet. We also have been finishing up grinding the stumps, picking up the stump grindings, and doing some more dead tree removals. The area in between #6 and #7 has been cleaned out and looks amazing. We removed about 20 dead Locust trees that were full of vines and saplings. Our plan is to get this all burned down and then try a new pre - emergent product to try and help control the annual weeds and saplings from growing in these areas. I have enclosed some photos of the area before and after we did the clearing. I think everyone will really like how much cleaner this area looks now. We also re-installed our tee post for the new signs after Matt Ida took them and re-powder coated them for us. They look awesome and will really help out look around the golf course. Have a great weekend!!

Ice and A Little Snow

Well "Old Man Winter" continues to rear his ugly head! Temperatures have once again dropped down to single digits and even some negative numbers. This morning on my way into work at 6:30am my truck said it was -5 degrees are you serious? The silver lining in all of this is that we were able to dodge most of the heavy snow as we only got around 1 inch or so. However it mostly came in the form of sleet and ice with some snow flakes mixed in. Last week before this latest storm hit we were out on the golf course working on our unfinished projects from the cold weeks before wherever we could. The team was able to get some more stones installed along some cart path edges in areas where cart tires continue to rut. They also were able to work on some more tree work on the golf course continuing to remove dead trees that were unsightly and also unsafe to the golfers as they were prone to dropping dead wood periodically on windy days. Stump grinding has also been keeping the staff busy. We have been grinding the various stumps around the property and will eventually get all the grindings picked up and the holes back filled so we can sod them once temperatures are warm enough. Also we had a tree service come out and do some much needed maintenance pruning. Areas they attacked were the main drive into the club house around 9 green, #10 tee, and the putting green area. On the golf course they did some pruning on all the trees on holes #1, #6, and removed a dead tree for us next to #16 bridge that was awkward for us to do in house. I am really pleased with the work they did and I think it really cleaned up these areas and they look amazing!! I have attached some pictures of a couple of trees that they worked on. My hope is that every year we do some trimming like this moving forward eventually getting around the whole golf course to help keep the trees healthy but also to help our course have a more maintained look. I hope everyone had a great weekend and are staying warm this is getting old I am ready for Spring!!!