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.