Drying Out and Some Heat

What a change in the weather we have had over the past 7 days or so.  The cool wet weather gave away to mid 90 highs and mid 70s for lows.  These temperatures really helped us in getting things dried out, however they made things interesting when it came to managing the cool season roughs.  As a turf manager the last thing you want to see is a bunch of moisture followed closely behind by mid 90's degree temperatures.  This pattern doesn't allow the turf to establish a good solid root system and on top of that it breeds disease as the humidity levels give the spores and fungi a play ground to swim around and infect turf plants.   So needless to say we have been extremely busy this week trying to get caught up on all the mowing and clipping management and we also were busy applying control products for diseases on our greens and in our roughs.  We were able to get it out in time to control most areas however there are a few areas, especially where we flooded, that the disease was a bit more severe.  We have sprayed these areas and they should eventually recover over time. The temperatures cause problems for shallow rooted grasses such as our Kentucky Bluegrass as it doesn't hold up to the traffic and heat as much as the Fescue.   We have been doing some spot watering in some of the cart traffic areas and in and around the green complexes to help the turf recover.  Coincidentally our Zoysia grass fairways and tees have absolutely exploded over the last week.  Our fairways and tees are really starting to green up and grow.  The turf team applied a fertilizer this week so they should continue to grow and fill in and become a lot more consistent then they have been coming out of the slow Spring.  Our zoysia farm has dried out  so we are going to be starting some zoysia sodding in a few of the thin areas in our fairways.  I don't know how far we will get as the extended forecast looks rather bleak with rain chances of 50% or higher every day for the next 10 days.  We will work as hard as possible to try and get as much done as we can.  I attached a picture below of our fairways showing how good they look after they have dried out and we got a good mowing on them.  Also I attached a photo of some bird damage that we had on our #17 green.  The birds were digging for some sort of insect and really did a number on the green.  We are applying an insecticide today to try and help with this issue.  As you can see there is always something new happening around here and it isn't always related to weather or golfers!!  Have a great weekend!

Zoysia Looking Good!!

Bird Damage on #17 Green

Rain Just Keeps Coming

For some reason this year ole "Mother Nature" has decided to grace us with a lot of rain so far this spring.  Like the past couple of weeks this week has been a soggy one.  Not as bad as some of the others, but course conditions are still very wet as we received another 1.25" of rain giving us about 2.25" for the week and bringing our May and June total close 11" of rain.  Luckily the creek stayed in it's banks last night and this morning and flooding wasn't a big concern or issue.  The creek is unbelievably full right now so crossing our fingers that it has time to drain down before the next round of rain comes either later today or over the weekend.  Between the rain events we have been able to get some mowing done in select areas.  Thankfully we had two dry days this week so we were able to take advantage of them and stay somewhat caught up on the mowing.  Course conditions are such that we were unable to mow the greens this morning.  The maintenance team is working on getting the bunkers put back together and doing some general clean up around the golf course picking up limbs, silt, and debris that was left behind by the storm.  We hope to resume our normal greens maintenance over the weekend barring anymore major rain events.  Hopefully everyone will be able to get out and enjoy their family activities over the weekend.  If you are coming out to play over the weekend please be as careful as possible with your carts and their tires driving down the path.  It doesn't take much right now to cut a mud track in the turf as things are extremely wet.  Have a great weekend!!  

June is Here

What a wet month the month of May was!  One of the wettest months on record according to researchers and weather forecasters.  I can believe it as I have never in my five years of being at Wolf Creek seen this property as wet as it was this past weekend.  Luckily we were still able to host the annual Wolf Creek Invitational only losing 9 holes of competition to the weather.  However at times it looked like it was going to be questionable to even play any of it.  Hopefully we will get a nice dry week this week and get caught up on the mowing and applications that we couldn't get done the past couple of weeks.  Today we are solid tining the greens to open them up a bit after the wet weather we have had.  This practice will help dry them out and supply the roots with some much needed oxygen after being saturated for so many days.  I couldn't have been more happy then I was over the past couple of weeks with our greens.  They have stayed pretty firm and consistent through the wet soggy weather.  This is a testament to our agronomic program and shows that what we do to try and keep our infiltration rates (how fast water moves through the soil) as high as possible really pays off.  Also today we are applying another light topdressing to the greens to continue to help them stay firm and as consistently smooth as possible.  Our rough mowers are out this morning trying to get as much rough mowed as they can.  Most of the areas we should be able to mow, however there are still some wet areas that we will have to leave and hopefully come back to later in the week.  Our plan is to try and mow fairways and tees on either Tuesday or Wednesday depending on when they dry out enough to get the mowers on them.  We are also planning this week to do some applications in our roughs for disease prevention and weed control that we haven't been able to do with the wet conditions.  Lastly our #5 creek project held up extremely well over the past month with all the water that has been thrown at it.  We didn't have any wash outs or erosion issues on the slopes.  The only blemish we had was it looks like we lost a little bit of our rough in front of the bunker due to it being under water for so many consecutive days.  We will be replacing this turf once conditions dry out here and at the sod farm where we get our sod.  I have attached a few pictures from today showing the solid tine on the greens and the topdressing.  I hope everyone has a great week and I look forward to seeing all of you here at the Club soon. 

Venting of the Greens

Solid Tine Holes

Topdressing Greens

New Putting Green

Wet and Saturated Conditons Continue

The rain has not let up over the past week to week and a half.  We have received a total of about 8" in the past 9 days.  Overnight last night we received another .5" of rain.  Needless to say things are rather soggy and wet.  Golf course however is holding up pretty well all with all the rain.  We have had two flood events that caused some minor damage, but nothing to severe yet.  The worst hit areas have been the bunkers and the silt deposit in some of our low areas.  Our maintenance team has been working their tails off cleaning up after each round of the storms doing some washing of the silted areas and repairing bunkers.  Thankfully we were able to get most of the golf course mowed at the end of last week and on Saturday in between the rains.  Roughs aren't overly tall at the moment, but if it doesn't start to dry out soon things are going to start to get really tall and start causing us problems leading into the Wolf Creek Invitational this weekend. We are hoping and praying for some drier weather over the next couple of days to help allow the golf course to dry down and to help us to get the golf course mowed.  Most of the fairways have completed their seeding process and look a lot cleaner after our last mowing.  However #10, 9, and 17 still have some seed heads on them so they still have a little bit of that purple and white dingy color and look to them.  Hopefully we can get out sometime this week and mow them which will really help to clean them up.  Greens have continued to perform nicely during these wet conditions.  Our agronomic program which focuses on keeping our peculation rates (How fast water moves through the green) higher has really paid off by helping to keep the greens somewhat firm and not letting them turn into mush.  This week we are hoping to try and do another verticut/topdress on them leading into the event to help keep them as smooth and consistent as we can.  I hope everyone has been able to keep dry as much as possible.  It seems like every time we get some nice sunshine and start to dry out in moves another round of showers and thunderstorms.  Let's hope this trend stops very soon and hopefully we can get back to our normal routine. 

Wet and Soggy Conditions

The wet and soggy conditions continue here in Kansas City.  As many of you have probably heard by now the golf course went under water on Sunday May 17th for the first time this year after we received 3.25".  I have seen way worse floods here over the years, however any flood is a bad one.   We had several fairways and roughs silted in from the water and our bunkers really took a hit.  The maintenance team worked their butts off the last two days and we were able to get all the bunkers and silt cleaned up and most of the golf course mowed on Tuesday.  Their are still quite a few wet areas that we were unable to mow, but all in all I was very surprised and pleased that we got done what we did. Shockingly we were able to get fairways mowed on Tuesday afternoon after they finally dried out. Since there were so many seed heads the quality of the cut wasn't up to our normal standards.  We are hoping to be able to mow the fairways again on Thursday or Friday if conditions allow us too.  Rain came again last night and gave us another 1" bringing our weekly total so far to 4.25".  Course conditions again are pretty sloppy as water is standing in the fairways.  The bunkers are pretty good except for a few areas that washed a bit.  We are able to mow the greens this morning as they have surprising stayed very firm after all the rain.  This is a testament to our agronomic program we use and keeping our water peculation rates high in the green profile allowing the rain water to move through and drain out quickly.  I have put a few pictures from the flood below.  Have a great week and keep your fingers crossed that "Mother Nature" lets up on us a bit this week and next!

   

Wet Conditions

Rain continues to fall and has caused course conditions to be pretty saturated.  Thankfully the first part of the week we were able to get the entire golf course mowed twice before today's rain that put a halt to the mowing.  We have had to do a lot of hand mowing in areas but all in all the course is in pretty good shape when it comes to clippings.  The rough is wet and thick right now and I know it is tough to play out of.  However it will start to slow down and dry out in the next couple of weeks as the rain stops and will become more playable.  Like most of you have heard me say numerous times this is a "short term pain for a long term gain" when it comes to the health of the rough once the summer  stress hits.  Being diligent with our mowing practices and our traffic control are two key reasons why I feel our rough stays healthy throughout the season.  As many of you can see the zoysia grass has really started shooting it's purple seed head and has caused the fairways to look dingy and unsightly.  This is an every year thing that happens, but it seems worse this year due to the wet conditions and not being able to mow more frequently. Our hope is to try and mow some of them late Friday if the weather cooperates.  If it rains again it will be next week before we can get the fairways mowed.  Early in the week we solid tined our greens for the first time.  We opened them up to help them dry out a bit after the rains last week and to help the oxygen continue to get down to the roots and promote root growth.  The greens responded nicely and have stayed relatively firm even with the wet conditions.  I hope everyone has a great week.  Hopefully the weather cooperates and the golf course drys and the weekend will be a nice time for all of you to come out and see us here at the club!

Damp Week

It looks like this week is going to be rather damp here at Wolf Creek.  The forecast for the week is rain and more rain.  We received about .5" overnight and it looks like it is suppose to move in again later this afternoon into the evening.  I am keeping my fingers crossed hoping it will be a gentle steady rain and not a heavy downpour.  Monday we did our first verticut/topdress on our greens helping to keep the greens smooth and consistent.  This practice really helps remove the missed leaf tissue that is laid over and the mower can't get and really helps the consistency of the putting surfaces.  Also we have continued our sodding of the drainage trench lines in the fairways.  We are almost finished with the trenches and we will then start patching in some of the thinner areas under trees and close to our approach areas where there is heavy traffic or shade issues.  The mowers continue to run as much as possible trying to keep up with the growth in our roughs.  This is the perfect storm for the cool season roughs as they love damp and 70 degree weather like we are having.  They will eventually start to slow down growing once the wet season is over and temperatures start to increase.  Many of you have probably noticed the annual purple tint to our fairways as the Zoysia grass is starting to do it's annual seed head production.  This goes on for about two weeks and then they will stop this is a normal occurrence but it just causes the fairways to have a dingy purple color.  The new putting green continues to fill in nicely.  We have been able to mow it and topdress it a few times now helping it to start to fill in.  It has a long ways to go yet but I am very encouraged about how it is going so far.  I hope everyone has a great week!  Stay dry and hope to see all of you here at the course at some point!

Greens after verticut and a mow.  Most of the lines from the verticut disappeared!

New Putting Green!!