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!!

First League Night and Great Weather

"Mother Nature" has been really good to us over the past couple of days. We dodged some big rain over the past weekend and received just the right amount (.5") not causing  any damage on the course.  The only bad thing from that storm was it put the carts on the path for our opening weekend event and some during the actual weekend. However things have dried up nicely the carts are off the paths and maintenance team have been staying very busy.  Keeping up with the roughs has been our number one challenge.  Our mowers have been running around the clock as the conditions allow after they dried out.  Currently we are mowing the roughs 2-3 times a week to try and keep it as playable as possible.  We mowed our zoysia fairways and tees for the second time yesterday.  They are starting to grow more regularly now.  Last week's temperatures and lack of sunshine caused them to slow down a little, but this week's weather and sunshine should help them really start to grow.  Our new putting green has continued to grow and we mowed it for the first time on Monday.  The new grass has really started to fill in nicely.  We have a few areas around the edges that are lagging behind from getting washed out earlier in the spring, but they will fill in over time.  I have put a picture below showing us mowing the new green for the first time.  The greens on the golf course have finally filled in after aeration and have started to get back to their normal selves.  We applied our first growth regulator on them on Tuesday so hopefully they will start to get more consistent pace to them once this product kicks in a few days.  It is always hard after aeration and the greens heal to get them right back to having a consistent pace since we give them a bunch of fertilizer to grow and heal during the aeration.  Plus the weather and temperatures have been ideal for growth as well.  Have a great week and hope you can get out and enjoy the nice weather here at the golf course!
 

Cool Week

We are in the midst of another great week here at Wolf Creek.  The maintenance team has been extremely busy even though cooler temperatures have moved in.  Highs temperatures this week have dropped back down into the low 60's and we have had some low temperatures in the high 30's to low 40's.  Cool season turf (i.e. fescue, bluegrass, etc.) love these temperatures but the warm season grasses (zoysia, switchgrass, etc.) not so much.  We have been extremely busy trying to keep up with the mowing in the roughs.  As I mentioned above the roughs are thriving right now with the cool weather and the moisture that we have received over the last week, so our mowers are having to work hard to keep up with the growth.  So far I think we have done a pretty good job as we have a few clippings laying around in areas but all in all we have been able to avoid excessive clipppings laying in the roughs.  Fairways were mowed for the third time on Tuesday after they dried out after last weekends rain.  Obviously with the cooler temperatures their growth will slow down a bit so our mowing schedule is on a as needed basis.  Once temperatures warm up again they should start to continue to take off and grow and our mowing schedule should get a bit more consistent.  Our putting green continues grow and fill in.  Cooler temperatures have slowed the growth down a bit, but we are doing everything we can to keep it accelerated and growing.  As  the temperatures warm up the growth on the putting green will as well.  Also this week we have been doing some mulching around the newly painted clubhouse and it really looks sharp with the new paint and the fresh shot of mulch.  Lastly we started filling the new bunker on #5 today with the new sand.  Our hope is to complete it on Thursday.  Here a couple of pictures showing the new mulch and some team members filling the #5 bunker.  Have a great week and we hope to see all of you on Friday night for our cocktail party and Saturday morning for Opening Event!  Keeping our fingers crossed that the forecast rain will hold off.

New Bunker Sand #5

New Mulch at Clubhouse

Sunshine and Great Weather

At least for today we were blessed with some much needed sunshine this afternoon and almost perfect weather.  It has been a while since we have had some good sunshine and finally we got our wish.  Unfortunately I think it is short term as it looks like another storm system is going to be moving in over the weekend bringing some more rain with it.  Today we were able to mow our greens for the second time since our aeration last week.  They are starting to heal nicely and should be improving everyday.  Tomorrow we are going to apply another thin application of topdressing sand on them to help them continue to fill in and smooth out.  I attached a picture below showing one of our greens from this morning.  Yesterday we were finally able to get out and mow our zoysia fairways for the first time this year.  They cleaned up nicely and should really start to take off over the next week or so.   I have attached a picture below from yesterday showing the #1 fairway mowed.  The new putting green continues to grow  and is starting to slowly fill in.  We had a little erosion damage on the west side of it from the rain last week, but that area should eventually catch up and fill in.  It will be a little slower now for a while until it gets caught up with the rest of the green since we had to reseed a section of it after it washed out.  I have also put a picture below showing the progress of the green.  Have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing you all on the course soon!

Aerification Holes Healing on Greens

New Putting Green Grow In

First Fairway Mowed!