Tournament Preparation

I hope everyone had a safe and very relaxing Memorial Day weekend! Here at Wolf Creek we were very active as the weather was good and had a great turnout of golfers over the weekend. As the temperatures continue to warm up so does the ground temperature. This is important to us as it triggers several things when it comes to managing turf. First off it should really get the Zoysia grass growing finally and hopefully we are done with anymore set backs of cooler weather that slows the growth down. I have started to see the fairways and tees really start to wake up. We applied our first round of summer fertilizer this week to try and help it to grow and recover. We waited until now due to the cool and damp weather you can breed a lot of zoysia patch by adding nitrogen so we are very cautious during the cool and damp times of the year. Also with the warmer soil temperatures comes the threat of disease on our cool season turf. So we have to be diligent with our water and fertilizer from now until the end of summer as the warmer/humid weather at night is a breeding ground for several different diseases. Starting today we have began our preparations for this weekends Wolf Creek Invitational. It looks like the weather is going to cooperate and we are going to have a great weekend of golf. On Tuesday morning we verticut the greens for the second time this year and applied another light topdressing. This will continue to help us keep the surface smooth and also insures that our turf on the greens stays tight allowing us to have good ball roll by eliminating the leaf tissue that was laid over and not getting mowed by the mower. The verticut also helps us to incorporate the topdressing sand better into the canopy of the turf where we want it to go. I attached another photo of the verticut lines on the greens prior to us topdressing them to show you what they looked like. Today we are doing some more patching in some thin zoysia areas on #3 and #5. I have continued to see recovery in some areas and feel that the warm weather and fertilizer will help these thinner areas recover. Enjoy the warm weather and sunshine over the next couple of days.

Holiday Weekend

It has been an outstanding week of weather and activity here at Wolf Creek. The weather has been warm and full of sunshine and the maintenance team has been running at full throttle all week. We are still hoping for some much needed rain as we have yet to receive any significant amount this week. Last night it looked like we got a little shower enough to wet the pavement but not enough to really do any good. There are chances for the rest of the weekend so we will have to wait and see. The maintenance team has been busy working on replacing some more winter kill areas in our fairways on hole #8 and #4. We are hoping that the rest of the areas that are still somewhat dormant on these fairways will continue to green up like they are and eventually recover. Our plan is to continue to monitor these and give them some more time in the sun and warmer weather before we make our final decision to sod them. Another item we have been working on this week is spraying the rag weed crop in our native areas. I don't know if I have ever seen a crop this thick before! We will continue to spray these areas as needed. The rough and fairway turf have continued to shoot their seed heads out causing the fairways to look purplish and the roughs a bit of a yellowish white appearance. I am hoping that they are both getting to the end of this stage and then will start to settle in and harden off for the rest of the season. The seed heads make it difficult to get a good cut on these areas. The greens are continuing to perform unbelievably well so far this year. We have had a few areas around the greens get a little warm and crispy but the greens themselves have been holding their moisture very well. Since they have been holding the moisture so well we have been able to back off on the hand watering somewhat which has helped to keep them a bit firmer. Our goal is to continue to be diligent with our water management helping them to stay on the firm side as much as possible. One thing I would like to ask all of your help with is fixing unrepaired ball marks. I have been noticing an abundance of unrepaired ball marks on our greens. I think this is due to the greens being firmer and the balls bouncing more and rolling to the back of the greens. Players are then not seeing the marks towards the front of the greens where the ball actually hit. I would like to get everyone's help with this and together we can remedy this issue. I have included a little video showing the proper way to repair a ball mark. It looks like the weather is going to be great over the holiday weekend and on Monday. Hopefully the rain will come at night time so the golfing will be uninterrupted and we can also get our beneficial rain. Have a great and safe holiday weekend and I hope to see you at some point this weekend on the course!!

First Taste of Summer

The sunshine continues to shine this week and temperatures are supposed to be in the upper 80's for a couple of days. This is going to give us our first taste of some summer weather when it comes to the temperatures. Along with the warm temps we have had some very windy conditions that have really started to dry some areas out. I am really hoping that the chances of rain this week come true and we get some much needed rain. However we are not nearly as bad off as some of our counterparts to our south and west so I know it can get much worse if it wants to. We have had a good start to the week as things have gone very well. Monday we topdressed the greens to continue to help keep them as smooth and firm as possible. The greens have been behaving extremely well so far this year. Our root development has been as good as I have seen in my time here. We are finding roots consistently at a 6.5" - 8" depth pretty consistently. I downloaded a picture of a 6.5" core that I took this morning and it shows a little white root hanging out the bottom. I actually broke them off on accident but they are at least 6.5" down and continued in the hole a ways more which is tremendous. Depending on if it decides to rain or not we might do another venting of the greens later this week to help us continue to promote the rooting and keep the oxygen and nutrients moving down to the roots. We are also continuing to do some patching of some winter kill areas in our fairways. Our latest one we sodded was #8 approach area. I have seen some nice recovery in a lot of the areas over the last week or so. The Frost from Friday - Sunday however will set them back another week or so from really growing, as it is hard for the zoysia plant to reverse it's growth habit from thinking it needed to go into dormancy with the frost to actively growing again with the warmer temperatures. We will continue to monitor these areas and repair them if needed. A good sign that the zoysia is starting to think about growing again is the fact that it started shooting it's ugly purple seed heads. This will go on for about 2 weeks and then it should stop so if you were wondering what the purple hue is in the fairways this is the reason. Enjoy the sun and have a good week!!

Cool Temps as Promised

The weather forecasters were right on the money this week with the forecast. Temperatures have been on the cool side like they predicted. This morning we had one of the hardest frost I have seen and temperatures were 29 degrees at 6am here at the golf course. The up and down temperatures shouldn't do a lot of damage to the turf with it only occurring today, however it doesn't help out our zoysia areas that we are trying to get to grow and finally come out of dormancy. Frosty mornings will set it back a bit but hopefully with next's weeks forecast high temperatures in the mid 80's they will start to grow again and continue to recover. This week we have been extremely busy prepping the golf course for the KGA Kanza Cup event and continuing to work on our sodding and routine maintenance practices around the course. We have had a great week of work and have gotten a lot mowed and repaired and I am feeling good about where we are going into the weekend. Over the last week or so the greens and roughs have started to slow down growing. The roughs is due to the fact that the bluegrass/fescue are starting to shoot their seed heads out and the weather conditions have been drier. The greens is also due to the weather but it is more to the growth regulator application that I mentioned last week. This product shuts down the vertical growth of the grass forcing the plant to concentrate it's efforts to developing a good and healthy root system. This also helps to keep the ball roll on the greens at a more consistent rate through out the day as well. The course has really come alive over the week and things are starting to get into their form for the year. Have a great weekend and hopefully you all are able to get out and enjoy the great weather and play some golf!

Cooler Week Ahead

We have had some outstanding grass growing weather over the last week or so. Temperatures have been in the 80's and the low temperatures at night have been in the 50's and 60's which makes for some outstanding growing conditions. It looks like this week however is going to be a bit cooler with temperatures in the 70's and 60's for highs. The greens have continued to grow and heal well from the spring aerification. It has been a painfully slower process then in previous years but I feel that they are just about 100% healed and ready for the meat of our golf calendar that is coming up. Since they have finally healed we were able to apply our first round of growth regulator on them last week to help slow down their growth which should help keep the green speeds more consistent through out the day. The growth regulator should kick in by the middle of week just in time for the weekend. Today we also did our first venting with the pencil tines on the back nine greens. We do this to help keep the compaction layer from forming from all the mowing, rolling, and foot traffic but also it helps the oxygen, water, and nutrients get down to the roots of the plant, which helps keep our root system healthy. This practice is really important and is one that we can do without disrupting to much of the putting green surface all the while getting a huge benefit of our turf. I have attached a couple of pictures to help show you what the machine we do this with looks like and what the greens look like after it is done. Just a reminder that tomorrow is our day off on the greens. We will not be mowing or rolling them. However we will be doing the venting on the front nine greens along with topdressing, and fertilizing all the greens with a silicon product that helps with plant health. Our zoysia areas continue to improve in the areas that are slow to green up. We have been replacing the areas that I didn't think would recover but I am encouraged by a lot of the other areas and am going to stay patient as long as I can to let it come back. Have a great week!!

Sunshine and Warm Weather Continue

Warm weather and a lot of sunshine have continued to grace us here in Kansas City with their presence over the last couple of days. The cool season grasses (bentgrass, fescue, and bluegrass) have taken off and are growing at a very fast pace. Zoysia grass in our tees and fairways is also starting to get it's feet under itself and is starting to grow more and more every day. We are still watching a few of our North facing slopes very closely in our fairways that are in shaded areas and that sit in low areas. These areas are a bit behind everything else due to the lack of sunlight from the shade which allowed the the snow and ice to sit on them for several days and also has caused soil temperatures in these areas to be a lot lower then the rest of the fairways that aren't shaded. I measured the soil temperatures again this morning and in the blonder areas of the zoysia the temperatures are still only reading just above 62 degrees which is about 5-7 degrees warmer then last week, but we still need them to continue to warm up. Zoysia doesn't really start to get growing until soil temperatures reach the 65-70 degree mark. We are going to continue to give these areas some more time to allow the the soils to warm up and allow the turf to fully wake up before we decide to do any sod work. If they will wake up on their own it will be a lot better to let them do that instead of having to manage newly sodded areas. However I am replacing some zoysia on #16 today as this area was extremely thin and was not showing any signs of life. Most of the areas we are replacing are areas where there is a high concentration of cart traffic during the winter at the exit points and are areas where water, ice. and snow set under shade for a long time. Also this week we did our first venting of the greens with our spiker. This practice helps us continue to get oxygen into the root system along with helping to keep the profile open which will allow water to move down to the roots. Spiking is very beneficial and doesn't disrupt the playing surface at all. Here are some pictures of the zoysia peeking through in some dormant areas on a North face and what the greens looked like after we spiked them. Have a great week!

Course Update

Course conditions here at Wolf Creek continue to dry out. We have carts off the paths on almost all the holes except for a few. It looks like we are finally going to get some much needed sun over the next several days along with some much warmer temperatures which will be a welcoming site. The staff is continuing to mow the roughs as much as possible. We have been able to mow it three times this week and the clippings are getting less and less each time. It is next to impossible to keep up with the growth habits of the cool season roughs during heavy rain events like we have had over the last week. We will continue to work on keeping the rough at a playable and manageable level so that your golfing experience is enjoyable. The greens have continued to improve this week and are just about back to be being 100%. It was a slow recovery this year with the weather but I feel we are set up to have a great season on the greens. This morning we were able to get out and do our second mowing of the year on the zoysia tees and fairways. The weather forecast for this weekend and into next week will really help the tees and fairways to take off and should help our slower green up areas to continue to improve. One thing I would like to remind everyone is over on the right menu of this blog there are some logos of our local superintendents association, our national association, and USGA. You can click on these logos and it will redirect you to the home pages where you can find some other information on golf course care and maintenance. I hope everyone has a great weekend and it looks like sunshine and warmer temperatures are on their way!!