Summer Weather and Rain Continue

Hot temperatures and high humidities along with bouts of rain have become the norm as of late here in Kansas City.  I have seen summers that are very hot and dry and I have seen summers where it has been very cool and wet, but I don't recall any that have been as wet and hot thus the high humidities as this year.  The maintenance staff has been staying busy trying to keep up with watering, mowing,  and keeping the diseases under control which has been a challenge.  Our new putting green has continued to hold up pretty well with all the traffic and heat.  However we do have one edge where the seed washed out several times during grow in that the turf never was able to mature enough to withstand the foot traffic it is receiving.  We will be patching in this area with some sod this week during this brief break in the temperatures.  Also this week we will be getting our new artificial turf tee line installed on the driving range tee.  I will post pictures once the contractor gets started. They were delayed today due to the 1.25" of rain that we received overnight.  Bunkers have become a topic of conversation lately as I have heard from some that they think they are too firm or don't have enough sand in them.  We changed up how we rake the bunkers this year and the frequency in how many times we rake them during the week to try and firm them up. Last year and even this spring members comments were they thought our bunkers were to soft and had too much sand in spots causing the ball to not release to the middle of the bunkers.  I feel that along with the change in our raking techniques that the firmness is a result of all the rain we have had.  The new bunkers that we have redone in the past two years aren't quite as firm because they do not have contaminated sand in them like the old ones due to the new linears we installed, keeping the new sand free and clean from the silt that washes during the heavy rains.  The comments on the new bunkers are that they are playing nicely and aren't quite as firm as the old ones.  We rake all the bunkers the same, so the difference is in the clean new sand being a better playing surface due to them not having contamination in them.  Our plan is too however add some sand to a few of our bunkers that wash out frequently where we have had to scoop silt and sand out of them following the storms.  I have been waiting on the rain chances to slow down so that the new sand won't get contaminated right away by a big rain event.  Like I said I will post some photos I hope later in the week of the new tee line installation. Have a great week!