Cooler Week Ahead

We have had some outstanding grass growing weather over the last week or so. Temperatures have been in the 80's and the low temperatures at night have been in the 50's and 60's which makes for some outstanding growing conditions. It looks like this week however is going to be a bit cooler with temperatures in the 70's and 60's for highs. The greens have continued to grow and heal well from the spring aerification. It has been a painfully slower process then in previous years but I feel that they are just about 100% healed and ready for the meat of our golf calendar that is coming up. Since they have finally healed we were able to apply our first round of growth regulator on them last week to help slow down their growth which should help keep the green speeds more consistent through out the day. The growth regulator should kick in by the middle of week just in time for the weekend. Today we also did our first venting with the pencil tines on the back nine greens. We do this to help keep the compaction layer from forming from all the mowing, rolling, and foot traffic but also it helps the oxygen, water, and nutrients get down to the roots of the plant, which helps keep our root system healthy. This practice is really important and is one that we can do without disrupting to much of the putting green surface all the while getting a huge benefit of our turf. I have attached a couple of pictures to help show you what the machine we do this with looks like and what the greens look like after it is done. Just a reminder that tomorrow is our day off on the greens. We will not be mowing or rolling them. However we will be doing the venting on the front nine greens along with topdressing, and fertilizing all the greens with a silicon product that helps with plant health. Our zoysia areas continue to improve in the areas that are slow to green up. We have been replacing the areas that I didn't think would recover but I am encouraged by a lot of the other areas and am going to stay patient as long as I can to let it come back. Have a great week!!

Sunshine and Warm Weather Continue

Warm weather and a lot of sunshine have continued to grace us here in Kansas City with their presence over the last couple of days. The cool season grasses (bentgrass, fescue, and bluegrass) have taken off and are growing at a very fast pace. Zoysia grass in our tees and fairways is also starting to get it's feet under itself and is starting to grow more and more every day. We are still watching a few of our North facing slopes very closely in our fairways that are in shaded areas and that sit in low areas. These areas are a bit behind everything else due to the lack of sunlight from the shade which allowed the the snow and ice to sit on them for several days and also has caused soil temperatures in these areas to be a lot lower then the rest of the fairways that aren't shaded. I measured the soil temperatures again this morning and in the blonder areas of the zoysia the temperatures are still only reading just above 62 degrees which is about 5-7 degrees warmer then last week, but we still need them to continue to warm up. Zoysia doesn't really start to get growing until soil temperatures reach the 65-70 degree mark. We are going to continue to give these areas some more time to allow the the soils to warm up and allow the turf to fully wake up before we decide to do any sod work. If they will wake up on their own it will be a lot better to let them do that instead of having to manage newly sodded areas. However I am replacing some zoysia on #16 today as this area was extremely thin and was not showing any signs of life. Most of the areas we are replacing are areas where there is a high concentration of cart traffic during the winter at the exit points and are areas where water, ice. and snow set under shade for a long time. Also this week we did our first venting of the greens with our spiker. This practice helps us continue to get oxygen into the root system along with helping to keep the profile open which will allow water to move down to the roots. Spiking is very beneficial and doesn't disrupt the playing surface at all. Here are some pictures of the zoysia peeking through in some dormant areas on a North face and what the greens looked like after we spiked them. Have a great week!

Course Update

Course conditions here at Wolf Creek continue to dry out. We have carts off the paths on almost all the holes except for a few. It looks like we are finally going to get some much needed sun over the next several days along with some much warmer temperatures which will be a welcoming site. The staff is continuing to mow the roughs as much as possible. We have been able to mow it three times this week and the clippings are getting less and less each time. It is next to impossible to keep up with the growth habits of the cool season roughs during heavy rain events like we have had over the last week. We will continue to work on keeping the rough at a playable and manageable level so that your golfing experience is enjoyable. The greens have continued to improve this week and are just about back to be being 100%. It was a slow recovery this year with the weather but I feel we are set up to have a great season on the greens. This morning we were able to get out and do our second mowing of the year on the zoysia tees and fairways. The weather forecast for this weekend and into next week will really help the tees and fairways to take off and should help our slower green up areas to continue to improve. One thing I would like to remind everyone is over on the right menu of this blog there are some logos of our local superintendents association, our national association, and USGA. You can click on these logos and it will redirect you to the home pages where you can find some other information on golf course care and maintenance. I hope everyone has a great weekend and it looks like sunshine and warmer temperatures are on their way!!

A Lot of Rain

We were begging for it and true to good Ole "Mother Nature" she answered our begging and she didn't disappoint. From last Friday to Tuesday of this week we have received about 3.25" of rainfall. It was much needed to help rehydrate the soils and help replenish our water supply in our holding ponds, but it has made the working and playing conditions very wet and is now causing some challenges for us. Today we are trying to mow as much of the rough as possible without making a complete mess of things and we are trying to blow the clumps of clippings as well. Our plan over the next couple of days is to mow as much as possible and try and keep the rough at a manageable level. I know it is difficult right now to play out of at times but we are doing all that we can right now to battle the wet conditions and growth rate of the cool season roughs. Also this morning we topdressed the greens with sand to continue to help keep the putting surfaces smooth and help with the firmness of the greens. We are keeping our eyes on a few Zoysia spots in our fairways on #7, 8, and 9, that are either in a low area where moisture set all winter, in shaded areas, on North facing slopes, or a combination of all of these that are a lot slower to green up. I think most of the areas will be fine once temperatures and sunlight become the norm and they actually have some time to grow. We have given these areas some extra fertilizer to try and stimulate the growth and have had some good look doing so. However there might be an area or two that we may have to end up sodding out as there may not be enough turf left in the areas to recover. I am going to let these areas sit for another week or two to see if any recovery occurs before we make the decision to replace them. It looks like the weather forecast for the end of the week is looking very favorable and warm which will be great for everyone. Have a great week and I hope to see everyone soon!!

Mowing Zoysia

Warmer temperatures have continued to grace us with their presence here in Kansas City over the last week or so. The turf has really started to finally grow and thicken up. The greens have really improved and the healing of the aerification process is progressing nicely. Today we were able to get out and mow our zoysia for the first time on the fairways and tees. This really cleaned up the tees and fairways a lot by cutting off the dormant material that was laying on top and it really greened some of them up. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the upcoming forecast for Thursday holds true and that we get the much needed rainfall that they are forecasting. Soil conditions right now are really dry and we could use some rain to help replenish our water supply going into the summer. Here is a picture of one of our fairway mowers mowing on #18 fairway if you look real closely you can see a pretty big difference in the green and how much plant material we were mowing off today.

Busy Friday

Some much needed sunshine and warm temperature is just what the doctor needed here at Wolf Creek and it looks like the big man delivered today. The weather today has been the best it has been all year up to this point. Bright sunshine and temperatures in the 60s. The maintenance team was able to take advantage of the weather today as we had an extremely busy morning. Along with a lot of our members who took the time to come out to participate in the Demo Day on the range, we were out and about after the frost broke spraying greens, mowing rough, mowing green banks, raking bunkers, and hand watering the newly sodded areas in our roughs. The greens have slowly but surely continued to heal after the aeration we did a week ago. The cold weather has really slowed the recovery down from where they normally are at this point after the aerification. Our upcoming forecast will really help them to continue to grow rapidly and should really do some healing over the weekend. One area I am keeping a close eye on is the back of the #9 green. It has come out of winter significantly slower then the other greens due to the long winter and windy conditions we have had as of late due to its location of sitting up on the hill. The back portion of the green stayed frozen longer and was in the shade longer then any of our other greens. We have been trying to give this green some added help in it's recovery with some extra food and TLC. If we don't see some improvement in the next week or so we will probably have to do some spot sodding on the back hump where the majority of the winter dessication to place. This will be no big issue as the area is on the back part of the green and is not in play all that often. Have a great weekend and enjoy the warm temperatures.

Heavy Frost,Sunshine and No Wind

The day got started today on the chilly side but man did it turn out to be a great day! We had vibrant sunshine and minimal wind. Our team has been waiting a long time for a day like today. After the heavy frost burned off this morning around 9am or so we were able to get our work started. We were able to mow the greens for the first time since aeration with the sand reels and they did great. The greens did get a little warm in spots on Saturday afternoon due to the wind, warm temperatures, and some sand still laying on them. Some of them don't look as good as the others but once they get some sunlight and warm temperatures and some hand watering love they should turn around pretty quickly. When the wind blows in excess of 30 mph and you have open holes and sand laying on the bentgrass it is darn near impossible to not have some dry spots show up. Today we were also able to start applying our pre-emergent herbicides in our roughs and fairways. Our hope is to have this complete by tomorrow and just in time to hopefully catch some more much needed rain that is in the forecast for later in the week. Speaking of rain we did receive about 1" of rain on Sunday. The rain really made the rough and zoysia grass really start to wake up. We were able to get the mowers out today and start our second mow. As is the customary during the spring the rough will get damp, thick, and grow like a weed. I would like to ask for everyone's patience as we will work diligently on keeping it at a playable height with trying to keep up on the mowing. The benefits of keeping the turf at 3" year round will really benefit us come summer time when it is put under a tremendous amount of stress from the heat and traffic.