Great Weather Continues

Our summer weather continues to be outstanding as the forecast this week is looking more like spring then summer. Highs are suppose to stay in the mid to lower 80's and lows are supposed to get down into the mid 60's. This is very unusual for this time of year as I know you are all aware, but I can't remember another summer like it! Course conditions are very good right now as the turfgrass is really enjoying the cooler weather pattern. However we really could use some help from "Mother Nature" to give us a little rainfall. Areas that don't have good irrigation coverage are starting to show some drought stress from the lack of rainfall. It has been about 3 weeks or so since we have had any substantial rainfall here and the soil is starting to really dry out. Here in the turf care department we have continued to stay really busy over the last week. Sodding in the fairways and a few rough areas has continued. This has been a long process this year as the winter weather caused some more then normal turf loss, but we are making some good progress and everything we have already replaced seems to be doing great and establishing nicely. On Monday we verticutt and topdressed the greens continuing our maintenance practices to continue to have good smooth and firm putting surfaces. Another focus of ours this week is doing some spraying of some nutsedge and clover that has emerged in our roughs over the last month with the nice cool weather. This cooler weather is allowing us to shift our focus some and get a lot of little projects like spraying weeds, edging bunkers, and sand depth work in some bunkers done due to us not having to babysit the greens like we do when it is hot. I hope all of you are having a great week and are able to get out and enjoy this spring like weather!!

First Real Heat Wave

It looks like we are finally going to have a summer heat wave over the next couple of days. Forecasted highs are supposed to be in the upper 90's with humidity levels extremely high as well causing the heat indexes to be in the 105-110 degree range. I guess it had to come at some point right? I mean it is the end of July! Our schedule this week has changed somewhat. We are using today as our off day on the greens and are currently out venting them prior to this heat wave to help them get the oxygen and water that they need to survive. We are not mowing them today. Also we are going to begin our fairway aerification process as soon as we get our tractor repaired this morning so it can pull the aerator. Our sweeper showed up on Friday but now our tractor is not wanting to run properly. The way things usually go is as soon as you need the piece of equipment the most it doesn't want to work! So we are delayed in getting the fairways started but hopefully we will be able too soon. The staff are doing their other normal mowing of the fairways, tees, rough, and banks as well this morning. I will update the blog with some photos once we get going on the fairway process, which I am crossing my fingers and hoping it is very soon!!

Sweeping the plugs up!!

Fantastic Weather Once Again

The weather around Kansas City continues to be unbelievably good. Again this week we set new lows for the month of July which has been terrific so far. Cooler temperatures allow the turf to exhale a little bit and relax and enjoy itself as it continues to grow. The staff has been busy working on various projects around the course this week enjoying this great weather as well. On Monday we did another verticutt and topdressing on the greens to continue to firm the surface and keep the greens nice and smooth. Doing this practice continues to help dilute the thatch layer in the top of the plants and helps to smooth the surface by breaking up the grain and cutting the leaf tissue that is left behind by the mowers when we mow. Also we are installing another senior tee on #16 and are harvesting the fescue/bluegrass sod in this area to repair some thin areas in some of our low lying areas around some drainage areas that had thinned out from all the moisture. We usually don't do any fescue/bluegrass sodding in July but that goes to show just what kind of a weather year we have really had. I am still waiting on the demo sweeper to show up so that we can start the aerification in the fairways. I am still hoping for it to show up this week so that we can get started. However we were able to get all the tee boxes aerified this week and this has really helped them take off and grow even more then they already were by helping them get oxygen and moisture down into the root zoned more efficiently and breaking up the compaction. Like I have mentioned before we still have a few areas in a couple of the fairways and a few other spots here and there that we are going to be sodding with zoysia once we get a few of these other projects completed. I also attached a picture below of the root growth we have had on our greens this year. I know a lot of it has to do with the weather we have been having, but I also know that our agronomic practices we have been doing over the last four years is really starting to pay off and we are now developing a very strong root system in our greens. This plug was taken on the fourth of July and I have never seen the roots that deep this late in the summer before.

Nice Weather Continues

Our weather pattern continues to impress here in the KC area. This past week has been no exception with high temperatures in the mid 80s and lows in the 60s. It looks like we are in store for a few warm days this weekend with temperatures in the mid to upper 90s but then according to the long range forecast it looks like things are really going to cool down next week back into the 70s for highs and 50s for lows. Temperatures and the timely rains have been a big help this summer so far. However I know we still have the rest of July to go and the month of August so things could still change in a hurry. We have had another great week here in the turf care department. Sodding of the Zoysia grass has continued as we are getting closer and closer to being done and getting all the winter kill areas repaired. This week we are going to finish sodding #9 fairway area and have done a few spots around some of our practice greens and bunkers. We are still going to work on #10, 8, and maybe a bit more around the practice area. Our big project this week has been starting to apply our grub control for the year. This process takes a long time as we spray the entire golf course. I have had to apply a good amount of water to the holes we spray to help water the product into the soil profile enough to get down where the grubs reside. So this is the reason some of the holes have been a bit damp during the day. Also we applied our summer fertilizer application in our roughs as well. This helps the rough continue to grow and stay in good health all summer. With the cooler weather coming next week we are going to try and do some more cool season (fesuce/bluegrass) sodding on some areas on the short end of #14 and the low area in front of the fairway on #16. Also we are planning to install another senior tee on #16 as well. Have a great weekend!!!

Another Round of Rain

We continue to keep getting blessed with some very timely and beneficial rains here in the Kansas City area. Just as we were starting to dry out a bit and the grass was starting to show some drought stress over the weekend, we received another 1" of rain overnight. Along with the rain we also had some extremely high winds that caused some tree damage and knocked a lot of loose limbs and debris down. As you can imagine the course conditions today a pretty wet thus the carts are on the paths. We are busy working on repairing bunker washouts and raking them, picking up all the limbs and debris from the winds, and doing some selective mowing on some of our high drier green bank areas. Yesterday we were able to start the aerification process on some of our tees. It went well and we were able to get roughly six holes completed. Our plan is to try and get the aerifier back out later this afternoon and continue to work on some more tees on the back nine if conditions are dry enough. The good thing is a lot of our tees are mostly sand so they tend to dry out a little faster then the roughs and fairways that sit on heavier soils. I will try and get a photo later today if we continue the aerification of the tees to show you how we are doing it. I hope to see the sweeper show up here on sight this week so that we can start the fairway aerification process as soon as possible. I hope all of you had a great Fourth of July holiday with your friends and families and I will hopefully update the blog again later today with some photos.

Fourth of July Weekend

Wow what a treat we have had the last couple of days! Lows in the 50's and highs in the 70's! Who would of thought we would be saying that on July 3rd? We will surely take it and enjoy every minute of it because as many of you know it can change in a heart beat and be the exact opposite. The maintenance staff has had a great week so far here at the course. Zoysia grass sodding has been a focal point for us this week as we are trying to finish up a lot of the areas that are left that haven't fully recovered yet. I feel really good about the areas we have replaced that they are going to be back to normal in no time. We still have an area on #9 fairway that we are going to attack and a few areas on some of our practice fairways and bunker faces that we plan to replace in the very near future. The aerification in the fairways and tees obviously didn't start this week so our plan is to start this next week after the holiday. This should take us most of the week to complete as we will try to do a few holes a day to not disrupt the play on the golf course too much. Also this week we installed another forward tee on hole #4. Hopefully this tee will help our older members and juniors to be able to play this hole better. Well that is about it for this post today I need to go check on a few things and enjoy this nice weather today I hope all of you do the same and each of you have a very nice and safe holiday weekend with your friends and families!!