Great Weather Continues

The great weather has continued over the past week or so.  Temperatures have been absolutely perfect along with low humidity which has really made being outside very comfortable.  Cool season grasses have really benefited with the break in the weather which has allowed them to relax and start to grown and develop a root system again and not just trying to survive like they were doing when temperatures and the humidity were higher.  On the course this week we started our annual over seeding of some of the rough areas where the cart and foot traffic have been concentrated.  We started seeding some areas last week and I just started seeing some seed germination this morning.  That is pretty darn good having germination in about 6 days as some times it takes 10 to 14 days.  However the conditions have been ideal and it is awesome to see!  Finally we got all the back filling and sodding around the new tee line on the driving range tee and the hitting shed completed.  It turned out very nice.  I already showed you a picture a week or so ago in one of my blog post's of the line on the driving range tee, but here is a picture of the one in front of the building.  Hopefully the fescue grass will survive better in front of the building due to all the shade that occurs in this area the zoysia never really had a fighting chance as it likes to receive a lot of sun.  Greens continue to perform well.  Along with the other cool season turf the bentgrass greens are really liking these weather conditions of late.  A lot of the stressed areas where the foot traffic or mower traffic has occurred have really started to recover and are getting less and less noticeable.  Also the firmness in the surfaces has started to come back as the roots of the turf are developing again and the water requirements are a lot less due to the lower temperatures and lower humidity.  We are scheduled for our greens aerification on September 8th, but we are going to aerify the new putting green on Thursday to try and give it time to get it healed up before the other greens are aerified.  Also this week we have started to try and tackle some of our native areas and spraying some of the broadleaf weeds that have emerged.  We were able to keep up early in the year but as the rain kept falling and areas flooded we slowly lost control of the weed growth.  Right now we are focusing on some high profile areas around tees and greens and will hopefully work our way around the entire property eventually.  Hopefully everyone has been able to get out and enjoy this awesome weather over the past week or so.   It looks like tomorrows forecast for the annual Member/Pro/Guest event is ideal and should provide some great playing conditions.  Next week's forecast looks to rise into the upper 80's to low 90's so we aren't quite done with summer yet, but with the shorter days things will start to feel cooler.    

Jacket Weather

Wow what a change in the weather today!  Going from upper 80's to lower 90's for highs down to lower 70's for highs and 50's for lows was a shock to the system this morning.  I don't remember the last time I wore a jacket in the middle of August.  The cool weather and 1" of rain yesterday were very beneficial and will provide the turf a little bit of relaxation and much needed "Mother Nature" love.  All the cool season grasses in the roughs and on the greens will greatly appreciate this break in the weather.  Our maintenance team continues to stay busy as the season continues to fly bye.  Today's schedule consisted of mowing the greens and rolling, mowing fairways and tees that were dry, and fixing the bunkers after the rain. Along with raking of the bunkers we are also starting the process of checking the sand depths and moving the sound around to get our consistent depth of 4" of sand on the floor of the bunkers and 2" of sand in the face of the bunkers.  After the wet weather we have had this year the sand has been moved around quite a bit by the rains and has caused some inconsistencies in our bunkers.  After we get this slow process completed the bunkers should play a lot more consistent.  There are a few bunkers we will be adding some new sand to as they have gotten shallow with sand from either a lot of play or from our crew having to remove sand after wash outs to get the silt out of the bunkers.  Also today we are push mowing around the bunkers as the zoysia grass continues to grow at a very rapid pace.  I have attached a few pictures below showing some work from this morning and this afternoon.  Looking ahead it looks like the weather is going to stay relatively cool for this time of year into next week.  This stretch of weather should really help our new putting green continue to develop the root structure it needs to withstand the daily wear and tears.  We are monitoring it daily and I will keep everyone up to date as we move along in the process.  If temperatures stay cool we may try to aerify the putting green a week or so prior to our regular greens to help with it's recovery.  This is all dependent on the development of the roots over the next couple of weeks or so during this cool down.  Over seeding in our roughs will hopefully start once the ground dries up some after these rains.  It is a great time to get seed down with the cool temperatures so we are going to try and take advantage of them.  I hope everyone enjoys the weather over the next few days as much as our staff and I will!!

Mowing fairways and the Zoysia grass continues to shine!!!!

Team members checking sand depths in bunkers and pulling the zoysia runners growing down into the bunkers.

Push mowing bunker faces.

  

Busy Times With A Great Cool Down

This week has been an extremely busy one so far and we are only on Tuesday! The nice cool down in the temperatures and humidity has been a big change.  Also the fact that it has been mostly dry is also been a big part in allowing us to finally get some much needed projects completed.  Today we spiked and topdressed our putting greens.  These agronomic practices help us to get some much needed oxygen into the soil profile and helps the surfaces of the greens to dry out.  Topdressing is done to help keep the surfaces firm and smooth, while also helping to keep our organic matter (thatch) under control.  Also today we are finally finishing up the aeration of our tee boxes.  We are aerifying holes #2,3,4,5, & 18.  All that will be left after today is #1 and the driving range tees.  I am planning on getting these done next Monday weather permitting.  Also today we are applying another fertilizer application to the fairways. On top of our normal weekly maintenance practices we are also putting the finishing touches on the new tee line project on the driving range.  Our crew has been back filling around the concrete and installing the sod.  The project has turned out great and will be a huge benefit to our driving range tees moving forward as the tee line will help lighten the load of traffic and divots.  Looking ahead to the rest of the week we are planning to do some sodding on the green bank on #5 where the water sat this spring and summer during the floods along with a few other areas around the course.  If the temperatures stay cool we will start doing some over seeding in some of the rough areas over the next week or so as well.  Here are a few pictures of some of the happenings this week.  Enjoy the great weather and we hope to see all of you soon.

New Tee Line

Spiking Greens

Spike Holes on Greens

Topdressing Greens

Cool Temps and Rain

After some warm and humid days we finally have got a break today as temps are in the lower 80's and the humidity is a lot lower which has made things more bearable for the turf and for the staff.  Along with the lower temps and low humidity we also received 1.02" of rain overnight and into the morning.  This rain will be very beneficial and will help a lot of our stressed areas around the golf course start to recover.  Speaking of stressed turf I know everyone saw Rod's note on us shutting down the new putting green for a while.  We are doing this as the turf is only 5 months old and it is was starting to stress out pretty good from all the traffic and heat.  This spring was a great time to seed the green as the temperatures were fairly good and we got some good moisture.  However the other side of that is the roots of the turf never really grew down to the depths that they were getting as all the moisture and food they wanted were being provided for it at the surface.  We had to fertilize it quite a bit during grow in to try and get it to fill in and have the green ready to open when we did.  There are some areas around the edges where the seed washed during grow in and where it has been exposed to more foot and equipment traffic then other areas.  These areas are being sodded this week as the turf in these areas were a lot more immature then the rest of the green.  As the temperatures start to cool down and the days get shorter the green should recover  and our hope is to open it as soon as it gets it's legs back under it.  We were able to start our tee aerification this week and will continue to work on them the rest of this week.  Holes #6,7,8,9,15, & 16 are complete.  If the weather cooperates we should have most of if not all of them completed by next week.  Have a great week and enjoy the nice cool weather for a few days!