Wet and Saturated Conditons Continue

The rain has not let up over the past week to week and a half.  We have received a total of about 8" in the past 9 days.  Overnight last night we received another .5" of rain.  Needless to say things are rather soggy and wet.  Golf course however is holding up pretty well all with all the rain.  We have had two flood events that caused some minor damage, but nothing to severe yet.  The worst hit areas have been the bunkers and the silt deposit in some of our low areas.  Our maintenance team has been working their tails off cleaning up after each round of the storms doing some washing of the silted areas and repairing bunkers.  Thankfully we were able to get most of the golf course mowed at the end of last week and on Saturday in between the rains.  Roughs aren't overly tall at the moment, but if it doesn't start to dry out soon things are going to start to get really tall and start causing us problems leading into the Wolf Creek Invitational this weekend. We are hoping and praying for some drier weather over the next couple of days to help allow the golf course to dry down and to help us to get the golf course mowed.  Most of the fairways have completed their seeding process and look a lot cleaner after our last mowing.  However #10, 9, and 17 still have some seed heads on them so they still have a little bit of that purple and white dingy color and look to them.  Hopefully we can get out sometime this week and mow them which will really help to clean them up.  Greens have continued to perform nicely during these wet conditions.  Our agronomic program which focuses on keeping our peculation rates (How fast water moves through the green) higher has really paid off by helping to keep the greens somewhat firm and not letting them turn into mush.  This week we are hoping to try and do another verticut/topdress on them leading into the event to help keep them as smooth and consistent as we can.  I hope everyone has been able to keep dry as much as possible.  It seems like every time we get some nice sunshine and start to dry out in moves another round of showers and thunderstorms.  Let's hope this trend stops very soon and hopefully we can get back to our normal routine. 

Wet and Soggy Conditions

The wet and soggy conditions continue here in Kansas City.  As many of you have probably heard by now the golf course went under water on Sunday May 17th for the first time this year after we received 3.25".  I have seen way worse floods here over the years, however any flood is a bad one.   We had several fairways and roughs silted in from the water and our bunkers really took a hit.  The maintenance team worked their butts off the last two days and we were able to get all the bunkers and silt cleaned up and most of the golf course mowed on Tuesday.  Their are still quite a few wet areas that we were unable to mow, but all in all I was very surprised and pleased that we got done what we did. Shockingly we were able to get fairways mowed on Tuesday afternoon after they finally dried out. Since there were so many seed heads the quality of the cut wasn't up to our normal standards.  We are hoping to be able to mow the fairways again on Thursday or Friday if conditions allow us too.  Rain came again last night and gave us another 1" bringing our weekly total so far to 4.25".  Course conditions again are pretty sloppy as water is standing in the fairways.  The bunkers are pretty good except for a few areas that washed a bit.  We are able to mow the greens this morning as they have surprising stayed very firm after all the rain.  This is a testament to our agronomic program we use and keeping our water peculation rates high in the green profile allowing the rain water to move through and drain out quickly.  I have put a few pictures from the flood below.  Have a great week and keep your fingers crossed that "Mother Nature" lets up on us a bit this week and next!

   

Wet Conditions

Rain continues to fall and has caused course conditions to be pretty saturated.  Thankfully the first part of the week we were able to get the entire golf course mowed twice before today's rain that put a halt to the mowing.  We have had to do a lot of hand mowing in areas but all in all the course is in pretty good shape when it comes to clippings.  The rough is wet and thick right now and I know it is tough to play out of.  However it will start to slow down and dry out in the next couple of weeks as the rain stops and will become more playable.  Like most of you have heard me say numerous times this is a "short term pain for a long term gain" when it comes to the health of the rough once the summer  stress hits.  Being diligent with our mowing practices and our traffic control are two key reasons why I feel our rough stays healthy throughout the season.  As many of you can see the zoysia grass has really started shooting it's purple seed head and has caused the fairways to look dingy and unsightly.  This is an every year thing that happens, but it seems worse this year due to the wet conditions and not being able to mow more frequently. Our hope is to try and mow some of them late Friday if the weather cooperates.  If it rains again it will be next week before we can get the fairways mowed.  Early in the week we solid tined our greens for the first time.  We opened them up to help them dry out a bit after the rains last week and to help the oxygen continue to get down to the roots and promote root growth.  The greens responded nicely and have stayed relatively firm even with the wet conditions.  I hope everyone has a great week.  Hopefully the weather cooperates and the golf course drys and the weekend will be a nice time for all of you to come out and see us here at the club!

Damp Week

It looks like this week is going to be rather damp here at Wolf Creek.  The forecast for the week is rain and more rain.  We received about .5" overnight and it looks like it is suppose to move in again later this afternoon into the evening.  I am keeping my fingers crossed hoping it will be a gentle steady rain and not a heavy downpour.  Monday we did our first verticut/topdress on our greens helping to keep the greens smooth and consistent.  This practice really helps remove the missed leaf tissue that is laid over and the mower can't get and really helps the consistency of the putting surfaces.  Also we have continued our sodding of the drainage trench lines in the fairways.  We are almost finished with the trenches and we will then start patching in some of the thinner areas under trees and close to our approach areas where there is heavy traffic or shade issues.  The mowers continue to run as much as possible trying to keep up with the growth in our roughs.  This is the perfect storm for the cool season roughs as they love damp and 70 degree weather like we are having.  They will eventually start to slow down growing once the wet season is over and temperatures start to increase.  Many of you have probably noticed the annual purple tint to our fairways as the Zoysia grass is starting to do it's annual seed head production.  This goes on for about two weeks and then they will stop this is a normal occurrence but it just causes the fairways to have a dingy purple color.  The new putting green continues to fill in nicely.  We have been able to mow it and topdress it a few times now helping it to start to fill in.  It has a long ways to go yet but I am very encouraged about how it is going so far.  I hope everyone has a great week!  Stay dry and hope to see all of you here at the course at some point!

Greens after verticut and a mow.  Most of the lines from the verticut disappeared!

New Putting Green!!