Braving the Heat During the Arcola Cup

With 100 degree heat today and a major heat wave all week, the maintenance staff has been working hard to keep the golf course alive.  Above, the staff prepares the greens for the afternoon wave of golfers in this years Arcola Cup.  Our normal green speeds of 13+ for this event are a distant memory as we got the greens rolling around 11 today.  This week we only single cut to take stress off the greens and they still stressed all week with the excessive heat and humidity.  This morning at 4:40 it was 82 degrees outside.  Grass does not have a chance at night to catch its breath when the temps stay in the 80s.

Heat Taking its Toll on Poorly Drained Turf

This is a picture of an area of our 17th fairway.  These brown areas are where water sits all the time and especially in June of this year where the rain was relentless.  Now that we have the heat and high humidity, these areas are stressed and thinning due to poor root systems and the heat makes them wilt easily and turn brown.  Of course it is a catch 22, if we over water them to prevent them from wilting, we will encounter other problems like fungus that will kill the areas all together.  It is best to lightly syringe to take the stress off and eventually it will grow out.  The best solution is to add drainage to this area so we stop the water from sitting for prolonged periods of time.  Also, we have a lot of localized dry spots on other fairways where the turf is brown and stressed since the soil is hydrophobic, meaning it cannot take up the water, it actually repels it.  Even though we are throwing a lot of water and using wetting agents, the problem has not subsided.  We will need to address thatch issues this fall to allow water to reach the root zones easier.  This is a tough stretch of weather where we are either facing stressed turf from all the wet June weather, fighting fungus off and now fighting localized dry spots.  To say the least this season is going to tax my pesticide and fertilizer budget, my labor budget and my sanity.

7th Hole Before and After

The before and after of the 7th hole.

Poa Reduction Program Working

Top photo shows a yellow patch of poa on our 5th fairway that is regulated with Trimmit and all the bluish green leaves you see are bentgrass plants taking over the patch.  We have been doing this for 4 years now and our bentgrass populations on fairways have increased by almost 30-40%  Our 5th fairway is probably 80% bentgrass right now with the majority of the poa right in front of the green where all the carts cut across to go to the next tee (bottom picture).  Also, the lack of drainage near the front of the green is also a good place for poa to grow and when we renovate the golf hole we will address the drainage and traffic issue and hopefully remove the rest of the poa you see.

Before and After of the 6th Hole

The top picture is the 6th hole before we renovated it.  The biggest change was the loss of the large oak tree on the dogleg that blocked a high percentage of second shots.  Instead, we added 2 additional fairway bunkers to the right to help protect the dogleg and also added a front right bunker that protects a good portion of the green from this side of the fairway.

July 1 Storm Pictures

Top pictures are the ditch on 6 taking as much water as it can handle and even though the ditch is 5 feet deep, the water is still almost over the top of the bridges.   The bottom picture is the bunkers on 7, regardless of how good the liners work, the amount of water that came still slid sand off the faces.  The bunkers would have been much worse had the liners not been installed.

July 1 Rain Storm Continued

The top picture is the front of the 6th green during the rain storm.  2" of rain in almost an hour was epic and no drains or ditches could keep up.  But the bottom picture is of the 6th fairway 2 hours after the rain stopped and not one puddle.  What a difference the drains made along with the ditch.  My only concern now is the forecast for the next few days of storms with high humidity.   Poorly drained areas are sure to suffer if we get more rain and the humidity and night time temps remain high.
Also, every single bunker on the course was washed out during this storm, including the new bunkers that have liners.  It will take us a good day or two just to get the bunkers playable, not to mention all the debris that washed out of streams, ponds and ditches has to be cleaned up as well.

July 1st Rain Storm Continued

The top picture shows a 12" drain the runs down the left side of the 2nd hole.  Apparently, the drain was cut with when the irrigation main was installed in 2005 and even though the drain somewhat still works, you can see the water was pushing up out of the ground and creating moguls everywhere by the force of the water.
The bottom picture shows all the range mats that were in the back of the upper practice tee, washed some 60 feet down onto the service road.  There is not one mat left on the tee.

July 1st Rainstorm Wreaks Havoc on Course

The 2 pictures above are of the ditch that crosses 16 and 17.  Notice on 17, you cannot even see the bridge in front of tee.  The bottom picture is of the ditch by 3 tee.  Here water was flowing so fast it was pouring in from all sides and at one time was passing over the bridges.  Notice the 7th green in background, the water was into the bunker on the right.