Course Update for January 2012

The weather has been very unusual around here for December and January. We have had extremely mild temperatures and almost no snow cover. The ground has yet to freeze and we have been able to take advantage of this. In mid-December we had an irrigation contractor come out and extend and improve some existing irrigation on the course. The areas we improved upon were the Driving Range tee, our chipping area, and the left tee pad on number 7.

• The improvement made to the driving range tee was due in part to the tee being changed from the design it had when the irrigation system was installed in 1996. The tee is comprised of sand and doesn’t hold water as well as a native soil would. The existing irrigation heads watered the area of the tee and the road as much or more than they watered the tee itself. So to fix this problem we installed more heads that water only onto the teeing surface and not pavement or unwanted areas, this will allow us to save water as we are now putting it only where needed.
  
• Our chipping area has had irrigation since 2001 but was never connected to our central irrigation computer, so it had to be turned on manually and ran during the day when we try not to run water due to high evaporation rates. This is more of a labor saver and much added convenience to the maintenance staff.
  
• The tee pad on number 7 was added during the bunker renovation in 2003 and was never irrigated by the sprinklers, so it has always been watered with a hose by maintenance staff. This new upgrade will result in labor savings and much better quality tee that will be brought into play more often this year.

Another improvement we have made this winter is 2 additions to the drainage system. We installed roughly 600ft of drainage since December and just finished up work last week. We have added a drain line to the descent on numbers 2 and 16. The area on 2 would always hold water even after an irrigation event, so this should allow us to remove that surface water and hopefully improve the drainage at the front of 2 fairway. We also did the descent on number 16 which is always wet after a rain and should allow us to provide a drier area to get carts to the fairway.

Here are a few photos of our drainage work:

 The above photos are from the area on 2 descent near the forward tee

These photos show the area on 16 descent and near the forward tee 

Greens have been covered

The golf course was officially closed on Monday November 21st. As part of our process for putting the greens to bed we topdressed the greens heavily. We then allowed the rain to wash it into the canopy and then we covered greens number 1,4,5,6,7, and 18. The greens on the front had suffered the greatest amount of poa loss this summer and still had some filling in to do. By covering them we can extend some of the lateral growth this late fall/winter and speed up recovery in the spring. This should allow us to hopefully have full coverage once we open this spring. We covered greens last Monday and they survived the brutal winds on Tuesday, which tells me they should stay put all winter.

The covers we use are permeable, meaning they allow air and water to come through but they hold heat in and reflect it back into the green. They do however protect the greens from wind desiccation in the unlikely event we have an open winter (they are calling for lots of snow this year).

 Number 5 green, last few staples being put in

 Number 4 from afar

Number 1 Green tucked in and ready for bed

I will continue to provide updates throughout the winter with updates to our maintenance progress and plans for the future. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Drainage Improvements

The time has come to finally put the course to bed after a long and weary summer. We just like many other area courses had our fair share of weather struggles. So in our normal fall and winter preparations we have done a few other small things to help us cope with similar weather challenges next year.

We have a few small projects that have been completed or are in the works as we speak. We did a couple of drainage projects to help improve the playability of a few areas as well as to allow the surfaces to accept cart traffic sooner after a rain. Two areas we recently completed were the front of 10 fairway and the 18th approach.

10 fairway you may remember after any descent rain storm would hold water up next to the road, so we installed a drain line parallel to the road to catch run off and move it off the fairway. This will eliminate the constant puddle we seemed to have.

18 approach is a major improvement, we installed about 300 feet of drainage to collect all water from the approach and allow that area to properly dry. If you remember we lost quite a bit of grass during July from rain and heat in that area, the water sat and cooked the grass. This has been a common problem for a few areas and has now been addressed. A couple of weeks ago when we received 1.75" of rain I noticed we had puddles almost everywhere but that approach.

We have 2 more areas planned as long as the weather holds out for us, 2 descent (the area between the tee and fairway), and 16 descent. Both of these areas tend to stay saturated for days following a rain storm. These will be fairly simple short runs but should allow us to dry these areas much faster.

If you have any questions regarding this or any other things on the course feel free to contact me!

Understanding Frost Delays

Its that time of year again, when we are faced with frost delays. Here is an article from the GCSAA with a simple explanation of why we have frost delays.  

Presented by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America

In many regions of the country, golfers occasionally face frost delays in the spring and fall, thus pushing back starting tee times. When frost is present golf course superintendents delay play until the frost has melted. This is done to prevent damage that affects the quality of the playing surface and could potentially be very expensive to repair.
Frost is basically frozen dew that has crystallized on the grass, making it hard and brittle. A grass blade is actually 90 percent water, therefore it also freezes. Because of the short mowing height (sometimes as low as 1/8 inch) and fragile nature of the turf, putting greens are most affected by frost. Walking on frost-covered greens causes the plant to break and cell walls to rupture, thereby losing its ability to function normally. When the membrane is broken, much like an egg, it cannot be put back together.
Golfers who ignore frost delays will not see immediate damage. The proof generally comes 48-72 hours later as the plant leaves turn brown and die. The result is a thinning of the putting surface and a weakening of the plant. The greens in turn become more susceptible to disease and weeds. While it may not appear to be much of an issue if a foursome begins play early on frost covered greens, consider the number of footprints that may occur on any given hole by one person is approximately 60. Multiply that by 18 holes with an average of 200 rounds per day and the result is 216,000 footprints on greens in a day or 6,480,000 in a month.
As golf enthusiasts superintendents do not like to delay play, but they are more concerned about turf damage and the quality if conditions for the golfer. Frost also creates a hardship on a golf facility's staff as all course preparations are put to a halt until thawing occurs. Golf carts can cause considerable damage, therefore personnel cannot maneuver around the course to mow, change cup positions, collect range balls, etc.
One technique employed to reduce possible frost damage is to raise the cutting height of mowers to create a hardier surface. It may also be possible to reroute play to holes where the frost melts more quickly. But regardless of these methods, the best medicine is for all to understand the hows and whys of the delay and in turn gain a greater appreciation for the golf course. It would also be wise to give the course a phone call before heading out to play to see if tee times have been pushed back due to frost.

Course Update for October

I just realized its been almost a month since my last blog post. So a few things have happened since then.

Fairway aerification was completed, we did 3-5 fairways per day in order to minimize our disruption to play. It went very well except for the spat or rain on one of the days but we are completely healed in and finally starting to dry after all the rain.

Greens are continuing to improve but the colder weather has slowed growth to a crawl on the newly seeded areas, however we have been rolling almost daily and the greens are rolling out nicely.

Next time you are out you may notice we have mowed down all of our experimental "native areas" back to regular rough height and they will remain as such.

We in the recent days have resoded a few of the collars and 18 approach. They look great and are playing great. We continue to make small improvements throughout the property and will continue to do so until the snow flies.

 Sod was just put down, it has since been rolled and watered and looks like its been there forever!

One recent addition we have made is the addition of a new annual flower bed near the pro shop, which has been filled with Kale and Mums.

This was taken just after planting, they are blooming much more now, come out and take a look!

Mother nature has started the fall color show and the leaves will be dropping here shortly in mass. I now leave you with a couple of shots I snapped this morning, mother nature is putting on a show.

 The maples have begun the change!

The ducks enjoying a beautiful morning on the water (there were 15 of them!)

Greens Recovery Underway, Fairway Aerification To Begin!

Good news and bad news. We will go with the good news first. The greens aerification went off without a hitch, the holes healed in in about 5 days. Seed began germinating in thin areas within 6 days and has continued to so ever since. In an effort to speed the germination and maximize healing we have backed off of mowing. We are mowing greens every other day and rolling on the off days (weather permitting).

Here are a few pictures of the seed coming in on the PG, 5, 6, and 7 greens.

 This is from the Putting Green

 7th Green

 Look across 5 green (its harder to see after its been mowed like this has)

6th Green, its beginning to recover nicely, it still takes time.

Now for the bad news, we will be starting the fairway aerification process on Monday. We will attempt to minimize player disruption but its still a long laborious process. I have posted previously on the benefits of aeration and photo proof of the benefits 3 and 4 months after the process has been completed. We will be starting on 12-14 tomorrow as these fairways received no aerification this spring and will benefit the greatest in the short term.

So if you're playing one of these holes please pardon our dust and feel free to lift, clean, and place on the fairways.

Greens Aerification and Recovery

We have moved up our scheduled greens aerification a week to take advantage of this great growing weather and to speed up our recovery. The schedule now is to core the front 9 greens starting on Tuesday, August 30 and do the back 9 greens on Wednesday, August 31. We will close the nine being aerified so that we make work uninterrupted. Our process for this is going to be as follows: we will verticut in 2 directions to remove thatch and open slits for seed to get into, we will then core aerify and remove all plugs by hand. We will topdress very heavily to fill the holes and then apply seed, fertilizer and water. Sounds simple enough but is a very laborious process.We will aerify the tees on those too in a much less laborious process.

As far as recovery on the greens is concerned I showed the crew seeding the greens and we had a majority of the seed catch and it is slowly but surely beginning to grow. We will add more seed to greens and fertilize to push growth. So for about a week or two after aerification the greens will be pretty slow as we will not be regulating growth but aggressively pushing it.

In the mean time here are a few pictures of some germination on greens and of our nursery green that we recently seeded as well.

 Small areas filling in on 3 green

 Here is the back plateau of 5 green, a nice catch and interesting to note the old cups surrounded by grass.

Sorry they are a little dark, they were taken at about 5:30am as its easiest to see when there is dew present.

On a positive note the nursery has begun to grow and is progressing along nicely. This picture was taken 9 days after seeding. The important thing to note is this has yet to be mowed, it gets absolutely no traffic of any kind and we can water whenever we need to. It is much easier to grow grass when it has no stress placed on it.

If you have any questions regarding any of this feel free to contact me at ravisloecc@gmail.com