Holiday Weekend Prep.

"Mother Nature" has continued to work on our side so far this week.  Temperatures have been higher but with the shorter days the hot temps don't cause as many problems as they do during July and August.  Also with the shorter days and cooler night time temps the zoysia grass has slowed down its growth considerably.  We are now only mowing the fairways and tees two times a week as opposed to the three times that we were having to do a few weeks ago.  The zoysia still has great color and is still growing but it just isn't growing as aggressively.  Seeding of the roughs has taken a bit of a break this week with the warmer temperatures.  However the seed we did get down last week during the cool weather got a nice rain and is really germinating nicely.  We hope to continue doing some spot seeding next week after greens aerification is completed.  Speaking of aerification a reminder that we are scheduled to do our fall greens aerification on Tuesday September 8th.  Hopefully we will be able to get majority of the greens completed as the forecast doesn't look too favorable right now with rain chances in the forecast for most of next week.  We are going to keep our fingers crossed and hope that we get a break in the weather to allow us to get them done.
As the holiday weekend approaches the maintenance staff has stayed very busy this week. Our maintenance team has been hauling new sand to some of the bunkers that were low on sand.  Bunkers that need sand are ones that routinely wash out during heavy rains, receive a lot of play, or are exposed to the wind and the sand actually gets blown out of them.  We checked each bunker a week ago and made a list and started filling those bunkers today.  Also today we have been push mowing around bunkers and pulling all the zoysia grass runners that have grown down into the sand.  Pulling the runners takes a tremendous amount of time but the bunkers look awesome when they are done!  Another project we completed this week was flushing all of our drain lines in our greens.  This helps get all the old nasty water and debris that builds up over the summer in the drains out and lets the greens breathe a breath of fresh air and helps them drain also.  We try and do this about three times a year at the beginning of spring, middle of summer, and beginning of fall.  Doing this helps us to know that our drainage is in good shape in the greens and also helps us to keep all the exits in the creeks and catch basins in good working order.  We weren't able to get the new putting green aerified last week like I was hoping due to the heavy rains that we got on Thursday.  Our plan is to do it next week when we do the regular greens and then open it for play after that.  Well I hope you all have a very safe holiday weekend with your family and friends.  Looks like the fall weather is going to be back next week with some rain chances so hopefully you can get out to the club this weekend and take advantage of your time off.  I am going to keep my fingers crossed that the weather holds off next week so that we can get the aerification done on time so that the greens will be fully recovered in two weeks for the Friends/Foes event.