Fall Conditions Arrive Early

Fall weather has arrived early and has blessed us with some mighty fine playing conditions.  The cool season turfgrass (fescue, bluegrass, and bentgrass)  has responded nicely and is in a very nice and relaxed state.  Our new putting green has been doing well and has recovered nicely after the aerification.  We are continuing to take it slow and easy on it to allow the grass to mature and develop before we start treating it like the other greens (mowing heights and rolling).  So the putting speed remains a little slower then the other greens as we are mowing the new green at a higher mowing height.  This week we applied our pre-emergent and zoysia patch prevention to our fairways and tees to prevent any poa annua germination and fungus from growing during the wet fall conditions.  Also we have done a few more areas of seeding and sodding in some high traffic areas around the greens on #1 and #17.  We are going to be patching a few more areas around holes #2,3, & 4 before the end of the week.  These are areas that have high traffic from mowers and foot traffic and are hard to get seed to germinate.  Speaking of seed germination the areas in the rough that were over seeded have really started to fill in and grow.  There are a few areas where the cart traffic is heavy that we may need to reseed eventually if the seed doesn't germinate good enough over the next week or so. Our plan going forward is to start mowing our fairways once a week as the growth has really slowed down.  Like I said in my last blog post we will monitor the growth and once we see that the Zoysia is getting close to shutting down completely we will let the fairways and tees grow up a bit to give it some insulation and protection for the winter.  Tomorrow we will be spiking our greens to open up the surface to allow the water and air to get into the profile.  Typically after aeration the surface of the greens starts to seal off as they have had a lot of machine traffic on them from all the rolling and topdressing that occurs getting the greens healed after aerfication.  After we spike and mow them we are going to apply a thin coat of topdressing sand to help keep them smooth and fill in any voids that still remain from aerification.  Enjoy the fall weather and I will take some updated photos of the greens and post them.  Have a great week!