Slight Oversight

Lately the greens have been drying down and the staff having to apply water to the surface via hoses constantly. This can be sustainable for only so long until we need to bring the entire sand profile back up to the moisture levels we desire more uniformly. What I mean by this is the surface can be wetter than the bottom of the 12 inch profile and we generally have roots into the 5-6 inch range. This creates soft conditions on the surface and eventually causes the grass roots to shrink up. Since the weather is cooler than normal we opted to do a flush of the greens. What this means is we water the greens so that the sand profile will reach field capacity, and once that level is exceeded the drainage system begins to operate like a toilet pulling the water through the drainage system at an alarming rate. A big advantage to this is the ability to remove sodium in the profile, to mulch salt from irrigation is harmful to the health of the plant. Some other advantages is it does wet everything uniformly and while the "flush" is happening it is also pulling the old and musty air out and trading that with fresh air. This is another technique in getting more oxygen to the root systems!

Where am I going with all of this? When we flushed the greens we noticed a a lot of water bubbling out of the ground at the short game chipping green. At was a large amount and our first instinct was that we have an irrigation leak. That was quickly not the case, it actually was the greens drainage that came off the chipping green and went into the old bunker we took out, there was so much force that the water made its way to the surface being buried about 2 feet down, as you can see the power of flushing the greens. When we removed that bunker we removed the drainage not thinking that the two were tied together. Sure enough the drainage line was cut and we now are busy extending this out towards the parking lot. At some point we would have figured this out because the green would be talking to us, we are glad we caught the problem early on.

cut pipe

new extension to dump into the parking lot

New Bunkers are holding up well

This morning the golf course had already received 1.5 inches of rain, and this after noon we are at another 1.75 inches with a total of 3.25 inches within a 24 hour period. In the past these bunkers would have been destroyed and a lot of man hours would be needed to repair them. Our plan is to do more of a preventative maintenance depth check tomorrow with just a few areas to repair. All in all the bunkers are doing what they are supposed to be doing, eliminating washouts by as much as 98 percent.

Our short game is in the final stages and we laid the sod on one half and need to finish the other side of the approach. We had almost beat the rain but there is only so much you can do until the ground becomes a slippery mess. We also floated out the teaching green and this was prepped for seeding. We are going to take advantage of this harvested area and seed a blended variety of bent grass and see how they compare to our existing grass.

Over 2 inches of rain at this point

A shoe box size wash out on #9, this is understood
because of the hill side.

#9 right side fairway bunkers holding up well

Floating out the teaching green

Laying the sod at the short game

Left side complete 

The right side has just a little more to go.

Hot and Humid

With the on set of the extremely hot and humid temperatures there comes a time when you need to play a little defense. At this point in time we are experiencing our typical issues on the 8th green. This green has been a problem this past summer and continues to be a problem this year. This green is sloped from back right to front left. When we do get rain the water drains towards the front of the green causing the lower half to take a while to dry down and exit the drainage pipe. Couple that with no air circulation and shade by 4:00pm and you have a recipe for turf canopy decline. We can control the irrigation water that we apply but we cannot contend with mother nature and the surrounding hills to the left of the green, which is where the predominate winds hail from. So to help us aid in air flow we have set up a portable blower to help alleviate some of the stress the green is under in the bottom part of the green. Bentgrass performs very well when soil temperatures are in the 50 -65 degree range. When you get above 80 degrees (soil temps)  roots begin to start there declining process which occurs every year. This is why it is very important to have a good root system to help during the hotter part of the summer. As the soil temperatures rise to above 90 degrees and higher then you have root systems that just do not function at all and the grass dies. As you see the temperature taken on the 8th green. Not good. So a fan would greatly benefit this area of the course in the future to help promote drying and air flow and in turn reducing the soil temperatures to an acceptable level.

The other photo is the syringe process we use on all of the greens during this stressful time to help cool down the turf grass canopy and promote transpiration.

Greens Needle and Top Dress

Today we are top dressing the greens and needle tining them. Why you ask are we doing this well for one we are on weekly top dressing schedule for the greens, remember I talked about how important this is to complete on a regular basis. We are diluting the organic matter we accumulate until our next aerification and helps with smoothing and firming up the surface. The needle tine is important to open the greens and let them breath with out being aggressive. This aids in compaction relief, air and water exchange and root growth. This is very important considering the high volume of traffic that we have when we get into the hot part of the summer. Once we roll the greens, in a couple of days the small holes will be covered up.

Also you may have noticed as you walk up to the short game that there are now plants lining this area. We have placed these plants here to screen the area as well as to transfer traffic around the green. So please walk around so we do not trample them.