Some Good Growth

The weather has been awesome over the past week or so.  We had a little frost on Friday morning, but nothing that hurt anything.  The zoysia grass is really starting to green up and take off which is a great site after the slow start we had last year.  We mowed the tees yesterday for the first time and are hoping to mow the fairways next week if the weather holds like they say it is suppose too.  The greens continue to heal after our aerification on Monday and Tuesday.  I was surprised how well they actually look already as they have a nice green color and are already starting to fill in four days after we aerified them.  We put another topdressing of sand on them on Friday to help fill in the holes that had settled to try make them as smooth as possible as they heal.  We hope to be able to mow them on Monday and start the process of getting the sand off of them as we finally have filled most of the holes.  Our new putting green has really taken off over the past week.  I have attached a photo below showing the good growth that we had. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that we don't have a huge rain that washes the green out.  Have a great weekend!

 

Aerification Complete

After some delays due to mist and no sun on Monday and most of Tuesday we were finally able to get all of our aerification completed on Tuesday evening.  It looks like we got done just in time before rain moves into the area.  As I am typing this post it is raining pretty hard here at the course.  Today our plan if the weather cooperates, is to roll the greens and start the process of smoothing them back out.  As usual it will take the greens 2 weeks or so to recover and fill in all the holes.  I attached a picture below showing one of the aerifiers in action yesterday.  Also yesterday we saw our first seed germination on the new putting green.  I put a picture below showing the seed germinating.  It has a nice consistent hue of green across it now.  This is a great sign as usually seed doesn't germinate in the Spring in 8 days, but we were lucky with the weather we have had so far up to this point.  We haven't covered the green yet because of all the great weather.  Covers are great when the weather is getting cold, but they can be a real detriment as well when growing in a green.  Every time you cover the green and then uncover it you take the risk of pulling the seed out of the ground or the little seedlings as they seem to attach their selves to the cover itself due to static or the cover getting wet and sticking itself to the ground.  So it is my hope to not have to use one in the near future but we do have one ready to go if needed.   I hope you all had a great Easter weekend with your families and I look forward to seeing you soon on the course!

Spring Has Sprung

Weather conditions have been border line perfect over the past couple of days. We have had great sunshine and some very comfortable temperatures. The current weather conditions have allowed our staff to stay very busy and make some good progress on some projects around the golf course. We finally got the new practice putting green seeded on Monday morning before the winds kicked up. The process went very smoothly. Hopefully we will start to see some germination in the next 10-15 days. Forecast ahead should be favorable so we are keeping our fingers crossed. Also then end of last week we were fortunate enough to have a cart path concrete extension poured by the putting green to help assist with some traffic congestion and hopefully to help spread out the foot traffic on and off the new green. I am very excited for the green and I think it is going to be a huge improvement for the club. I have attached a picture below showing the green seeded. If you are standing near the green be on the look out for the irrigation heads to come on. They are coming on every hour right now to try and get the seed to germinate and grow. Also this week we have started our preventative spring fungicide application on our zoysia fairways, tees, and bunker faces. This product will help to prevent and minimize any of those big nasty cooper colored disease spots (zoysia patch) that pop up during the spring. Another big item we have been working on is getting the native grass areas burned. I am happy to say that as I am writing this post we are finishing up and are going to get all areas burned that we wanted to do before the April 1st burn ban. I attached a video below showing the native on the left side of #14 burning. If you haven't seen this in person it is quite a show and that area burns really hot and really fast. I thought you all would enjoy seeing it for yourselves. If you want to see more you will have to stop me and ask to see some video on my phone I have quite a collection! Have a great week and enjoy the weather. Just another reminder that we will be aerifying the greens on Monday and Tuesday April 6th and 7th. The club will be completely closed on Monday the 6th and will re-open the practice facilities only on Tuesday April 7th.

Wolf Creek as A Construction Zone

We finally received some much needed rainfall this past weekend and then got another little shot of rain last night into this morning. It was very beneficial to 99% of the golf course except for the putting green project that we are trying to get completed. The rain last weekend caused the contractor to miss three crucial days of work. However things are moving along nicely still and they have made up some of the time this week already. Our hope is that by the end of the week all construction is done and we will hopefully be doing some sodding around the green and seeding of the green either this weekend or early next week. I have attached some photos of the construction work this week being done below. Yesterday we finally got the go ahead at 12pm to allow us to start burning our native areas. We got a good amount done in front of the rain. All of our burning has to be done by April 1st as they impose a burn ban for the entire month of April so the Flint Hills can do their burning. I hope conditions dry back out like they were yesterday by the end of the week to allow us to finish this week or first part of next week with our burning. We had some pretty impressive fires going yesterday. I attached a picture below of some good burning native grass from yesterday. Also as many of you may be aware we are replacing the concrete curbing in front of the clubhouse. The contractor tore it all out yesterday and will hopefully be able to pour the new sidewalk and curbing on Wednesday if the weather cooperates. Getting into the clubhouse at this time might be a little tricky, but hoepefully it will be short term. We appreciate everyone's cooperation and patience with this as we make these much needed improvements. Have a great week and I will post an update later in the week.

Projects Update

The weather has continued to be outstanding over the past two weeks. We have been extremely busy working on both of our new projects. Mid-America Golf has been working their tails off and are doing a fine job getting our new putting green constructed. The new shape of the green taken shape and I think it looks awesome. The new green is going to be around 11,000 sq. ft of usuable putting space which is going to be a huge improvement over our old green that was 5,500 sq. ft. They are in the process of of putting the final touches on the shaping of the new green as I am typing and have started installing the internal drainage in the green cavity. Sod has been installed on #5 and #7 and man it looks really good! Adam Bridenthal and his crew from Turf Design did an incredible job laying the sod. I think everyone should be very excited when you see it in person. I know Rod sent an email out to our membership but I will also ask that everyone stay off the new sod as it is very wet and will slide off the hill side into the water if you walk on it right now. Hopefully in 2-3 weeks it will start to root down and take hold. We are starting to install the new liner in the new bunker today. Our sand supplier is back logged due to all the winter weather in the northeast over the past month or so. I hope to have some new bunker sand very soon to fill the bunkers on #5. Warmer temperatures have really caused the bentgrass to start growing nicely. We mowed the greens for the third time on Monday and actually mowed a decent amount of grass. Just a reminder that our Spring aerification is scheduled for April 6th and 7th. We are going to do our normal deep tine on the 6th followed by our regular core aeration on the 7th. I have attached some pictures from this week showing the progress of the two projects. Have a great weekend!!

Project #2 for 2015

After a bit of a slow down things have once again ramped up here at Wolf Creek. The weather has been unbelievably great over the past couple of days and the grass and "To Do List" are starting to think it is Spring already. As I mentioned in my last blog post a week or so ago we are starting another very beneficial project here at Wolf. Mid-America Golf is on site starting construction on the practice putting green in front of the clubhouse. Our plan is to double the size and make it as flat as possible to maximize the amount of space to use. Tom Watson has once again stepped in and is lending his design expertise to us, which I am very grateful for. The construction process should take about 2-3 weeks and then we hope to be seeding the green as soon as possible. During this time we are asking everyone to use the three practice greens behind the clubhouse and the chipping green as a putting green. Please do not use #9 as we will cause excessive wear on that green and interfere with play that is on the course. I have attached a few pictures below showing the putting green project. Just like I did on #5 I plan to keep updates on this blog regularly as the process progresses. Speaking of #5 we are planning on installing the sod on Thursday of this week. We are doing our final grading now and hope to have it completed tomorrow. Also today we mowed our greens for the first time. All went well and they should start to green up slowly and really start to grow with the warmer weather. Cart traffic in the fairways is always an issue this time of year as the ground is freezes over night and then thaws out during the day. We are trying to regulate and allow as much cart traffic as we can. However there are some holes that are just to damp and wet and the carts are causing some tracking issues. This is causing us to have to do some regulation of allowing carts onto the fairways. I apologize for the inconvenience and want you to know that we are checking the fairways regularly and will allow carts in the fairway as soon as possible on some of these holes. I have attached a picture I took this morning showing the cart tracks in the fairways. Have a great week and I will update the blog throughout the construction process.

Winter Time Is Here

It has been a while since I have put a blog post up. Since we completed the heavy dirt work on the project on #5 things have been a little colder and quieter around the maintenance facility. "Old Man Winter" has made his presence known over the past couple of weeks. Temperatures have been very cold and the wind has been blowing at a pretty steady pace. There have been a few days where the sun has been out and day time temperatures have gotten into the the 50's but otherwise things have been very cold. The ground has been frozen ever since we completed the dirt work on #5. We are still waiting for some warmer weather and the ground to thaw out so that we can get the final grade work done and get the sod laid. This past week we have been out grinding the tree stumps where we removed trees this winter. Our plan is to grind the stumps and then back fill in the holes with dirt and sod them this spring. Also we have been doing some more annual equipment repairs and finishing up on the painting of the tee markers and cart post for the course. Once the weather breaks we are going to be going like crazy finishing up on #5 and starting a new exciting project that I will inform everyone of soon! You will just have to keep checking back on the blog to find out what it is. It is going to be a huge improvement for the club and will really help everyone with their short games! Have a great weekend!