Course Update

Yesterday,  we welcomed the much needed slow rain for the golf course. We had one sod truck delivered and this quickly was laid out on holes 1 and 18. We were a little short but we new that and had planned for another truck to arrive on Friday. The rain put us behind and we will finish our current areas next week. All areas will be painted ground under repair and we ask you you avoid driving and walking in these areas.  We also started to top dress some areas with compost in the rough to help with traffic and drought tolerance, this also helps the new sod establish it self very quickly.

We are revamping our divot mix on the golf course. With the help from a friend of mind who has seen good results from incorporating a specific seed mix into the divot mix, this has helped fill in the areas quicker. What was interesting is that the grass seed that we are using will sprout up to give a cover then the bent grass will over take it. The mix is a 50/50 mix of sand and compost, sand for drainage and compost to hold moisture for the seed. We are still working out the fine details but this should help our divot recovery program on the fairways and tees.

Top dressing sod areas and rough with compost

Concrete mixer we rented to prepare the divot mix

Look carefully and you can see the seed in the divot mix

Sod Truck Season

The first day of  fall has begun and so has our sod truck schedule for various areas in the rough. We have a plan in place to go after worn out areas and bermuda spots. We will be making our way around the golf course very quickly and will have much of this done in a couple of weeks with new sod painted ground under repair.  Unfortunately, this is an every year process to keep the rough in good shape.

Also, we did a root check on our the 6th green (which is our worst on the golf course in years past) and we are pleasantly surprised to find that they are very long and healthy. Expanding that green to gain 1500 square feet has really helped spread out the traffic resulting in less congregated compaction.

6th green

Behind #1 green

Mowing Greens in the Dark

Just a small glimpse in the eyes of a greens mower operator mowing the green in the dark following the dew line.

Course Update

Small improvements have been started while trying to be mindful of our Member-Member event coming up. We are chomping at the bit to start sod cutting the rough areas for replacement, this is why you may notice some brown areas in the rough that contain bermuda grass. Our goal is to start this process September 22nd and continue into October, before that we do plan on seeding various areas of the rough this week to get that process rolling. There will be at times open areas that need to be completed with sod and rest assure that we will be completing sections at a time. These areas will be marked ground under repair and we would encourage you to drive around them until they have rooted in. We have started to sod some fairway areas that were thinning out because of the heavy rains and in partly do to the herbicide we used for the fight against the bermuda,

Yesterday we were able to apply our monthly potassium application and top dress the greens. Obviously this is a Monday Maintenance day but with the rain possibly coming Thursday night, we wanted to take advantage of that to help work the sand into the profile. 

Top Dressing being applied

Potassium application 

Course Update

Last Friday we were able to replace the sod on the 18th green side intermediate. We harvested this from the teaching green and will do the same to #4 green side intermediate. Eventually we will have a few trucks of sod delivered and we will be working on the bermuda patches in the rough. Then there was rain again this past weekend, I cannot complain but when we get this much and and you start to see low lying areas becoming thin, it begins to be a problem. What we are seeing on #14 is one of the worst out on the course, I have always been planning to put drainage in this approach and this will be first on our list as we approach the winter, most of the water is coming from the tree line on the right and pools at the bottom of the approach, not good when we had 90 plus degree days last week. In the mean time we aerified and top dressed this area to help dry out and recover.

Repairing 18 intermediate with new sod

14 approach

Aerifying to help dry down

Top Dressing to fill in the holes

Course Update

So far, this week has been very eventful and also a sign that the season is slowly coming to an end. As I say that it does finally feel like summer has arrived, but I am okay with that because the days are getting shorter and shorter. This weeks high temperatures has dealt us some severe pop up storms in the afternoons. When I say we are wet, we are really wet out there.  We are gearing up our aerifiers for the greens and will be poking a small hole to help them dry out during this stretch of high temperatures. When ever you have high temperatures and wet conditions this poses a problem to the greens health.  Our goal is to have them completed by tomorrow afternoon and to disappear by the weekend. 

Some notable projects taking place is the transplanting of the bur-ford hollies to other various locations around the club house. These plants are getting smothered by the zelkova's shade and are not thriving like they should, they also receive damage every year from the snow plows. We will seed tall fescue into the existing mulch bed and this will give us a much cleaner and presentable look as you drive into the club.  The rough is getting some much need food to help fill in from the traffic, we also spot sprayed bermuda patches in anticipation of seeding these areas this week.

existing holly row

half way complete on removal

Applying the fertilizer to the rough. 

Needle tine on greens

Brown area in rough  is bermuda that has been sprayed