Bermuda Suppression

As of today we have made numerous applications to the tees and fairways to suppress the bermuda. As I have stated before there is no guarantee what will happen and after this winter we will evaluate and see how we progressed. Because of the applications, it has caused some areas of the fairways to become thin and as a result of that we are going to back off for a bit and let the fairways recover. Once recovered we will resume the applications until the colder temperatures.

Around a few greens and bunkers we have been spot spraying the bermuda and this has worked really well. We are seeding these areas to tall fescue and they should resume there intended look within two weeks. If they are slow to establish we will go ahead and sod them for quicker recovery. Although unsightly and cumbersome this is what we need to do until there are better ways to eradicate this weed.

Parking Lot Trees

You may have already noticed but there has been some tree work going on in the parking lot, more specifically the cutting down of the trees we just planted last winter.  Lets take a step back and remind ourselves how bad of a winter we had in relation to temperatures. There was a lot of plant material that did not make it and this happens to be one area. Nothing is ruled out but there appears to be a number of factors that can happen to stress a tree. Once a tree is stressed apparently it puts out an alcohol smell that attracts insects that burrow into the tree. That then starts to damage the tree even more, when we inspected them they had all of the signs as to insect damage. The tree nursery is on the ball and we have started the removal process by first cutting them down and then grinding the stumps. All trees are covered by a warranty and we are looking to plant sometime in September or beyond.

Fore The Golfer: Why Aerate The Greens?

Golf Course Update

The weather has put a slight delay on the process and we are quickly getting back on track. Greens are complete with just a few amendments to still add to them and the use of a large roller to roll out any imperfections. This helps smooth out any tire traffic from using implements during the entire process.

Our goal today is to finish the core clean up and have the front 9 top dressed. We hope to broom in the sand by the start of the weekend. We anticipate a first mowing of the greens tomorrow and then possibly one over the weekend.  Because we have a lot of sand on the greens we are raising the heights for a few days and then we will gradually bring them back down as the sand starts to disappear.

We hope to have our normal mowing schedule back on track at the beginning of next week along with our routine bunker maintenance.

Pulling Cores on Tees 

Pushed off and ready for pick up

Ready to be top dressed with sand

Greens Aerification Update

Today we started our second annual greens aerification where we are pulling a core to alleviate organic matter and reduce the compaction that comes with foot traffic. This is a very important task to complete and very labor intensive.  Again this year we are changing it up a little differently, we are using smaller diameter tines so that we can heal up faster and get back to greens that putt and roll true. Rest assured this will not hurt my program on reducing the organic matter in the top surface area.  The clean up process is much easier when you are pulling less out of the ground so that for me is a plus. I still prefer the way we have done this in the past and will do this in the winter of next year starting sometime in January or February weather permitting. But for now, I can already tell that they are going to heal up very fast. Below is the process we completed this time.

We start first with the deep tine machine. This pokes a solid
hole to a depth of 12 inches to de-compact the lower profile
of the green. 

Pulling a core is second 

Majority of the staff blowing cores into a pile and picking up
with a shovel.

Top Dressing to fill the holes with fresh clean sand.

Using our sweep in fill to broom in the sand. 

And then turn the water on.

Old Tom Morris Quote

Course Update

With just one week to go, we are gearing up for our planned greens aerification on August 11th. The greens have over come some harsh climates during the most recent golf events with some thinness on our high traffic areas. Did you know that we received almost 3 inches of rain during the Member-Guest and Maryland Open in a 6 day stretch? And that the bunkers were a true testament to the brand we want Lakewood to be known for, with minimal repair to show case your course?  Although the greens roll very well the appearance is much to be desired for. This has been remedied by applying fertilizer to help the plant recover. It is true that this has been like this for a couple of weeks and we have been spoon feeding small amounts of nitrogen to alleviate the problem. But at the end of the day a well designed granular fertilizer application will kick them in the butt and on the road to recovery. We wanted to plan the application closer to our greens aerifiaction to decrease the time it takes to heal.  Not only will the greens be looking great at the end of this week but this will also help our recovery time after we pull a core and top dress next week on August 11th ,and yes we will be using small tines this go around. 

An example of thinning areas like this pictured.

The bermuda has been on roller coaster of suppression on the fairways and tees and we will continue to weaken it for the winter and will see the outcome next year.

There are some new club washers at the short game, these are very simple to use and only require you to dip your club in, they are a little tight but will break themselves in over time. The main thing is to stream line that process for your pleasure.

We have repaired the bridge traffic area on #7 near the green, this area receives a lot of traffic and actually began to dig itself a hole. We had already completed this on the opposite side of the bridge and just continued the theme.

Before

After