Importance of Native Areas Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxAvtf2T-Dc&index=8&list=PLnU5qUEfww3cOAU8iTQTUpF5S4UqhXJka

An brief informative video on the importance of native areas on the golf course and how they may differ from course to course and hole by hole based on soil types etc.

How To Properly Repair Your Ball Mark Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myOTf1wuZoA&index=59&list=PLnU5qUEfww3cOAU8iTQTUpF5S4UqhXJka

A quick video refresher on the importance of repairing your ball marks properly.

Still Going!

A special thanks to my staff member Juan G for staying until 8:30 tonight to get 18 greens done with the hydroject.  Tomorrow he has 3 left to do.

Irrigation Upgrade

We are adding supplemental spray irrigation heads around the 16th green.  Now, the current surround heads throw about 65 feet to the cart path but nothing throws back in.  Now with these sprays we will have much better coverage.  We should consider this on many other holes moving forward.

Seeding Some Roughs

We are taking 2 holes as samples to overseed and aerify to see if we can improve the quality of the rough.  A lot of our roughs are comprised of bent, poa, rye, blue, fescue and all grasses play and grow differently.  We will see how this works out moving forward.

Hydroject App to Greens

We are hydrojecting greens today to get any imperfections out from aerification before Labor Day tourney this week and club championship next weekend.

Damaged Tree Over Cart Barn Being Removed Today

Just Another Monday at Arcola

Between numerous unrepaired ball marks, more than 75 fairway divots that were not replaced and donuts on fairways, not a bad day to get things done when not having an outing.

Natural Poa Reduction

When scouting the course this weekend, I noticed this patch of poa was heading south on our first fairway.  My initial reaction was the fungus anthracnose, since we just aerified, topdressed and brushed it last Tuesday.  When I dug it up, I found a few annual bluegrass weevil pupae.  The insect feeds mainly on poa and since this patch is surrounded by bentgrass, I am not concerned.  Now that the fairway aerification is completed, tomorrow we are scheduled to start up our Trimmit growth regulator program that will stunt the poa and allow the bent to creep over it and this is a great head start seeing that the insects are doing the work for me.  I have not noticed any other areas this bad on the course, a few minor spots that most people will not notice.  The bugs are done eating right now so whatever damage you see should not get any worse.  In another week or two nobody will even see this spot and instead of spending thousands of dollars, this is a case where this is beneficial to us.

Final Stage of Our Aerification

The greens, tees, fairways and approaches are all aerified and today we are topdressing the fairways as the last step of our major aerification before the fall.  Monday we do the new range tees and start looking at fescue areas that need to be improved.

Greens Aerification Almost Done

Despite the heat, today was a very productive day.  The greens were deep tined and aerified aggressively.  Tomorrow we will complete our dryject process.   While I was a little hesitant at first to begin this process considering the high heat and humidity the grass has been subject to the past few weeks, I felt the greens were healthy enough to withstand the abuse.  We made some timely sprays on Thursday and Friday to precondition them to stress and we will follow up tomorrow with additional nutrient sprays to keep the turf growing and allow it to start recovering.  The greens will probably take a good 10 days to heal but by September we should be back to normal.

The Right Turf

I saw this riding the course yesterday and had to take a picture of it.  The picture is of the driving range field near a new target green we built.  The right side of the picture shows the existing grass that is on the range and the left side of the picture shows the new bluegrass sod we laid around the green.  The old turf (mainly bentgrass and poa and rye) is inundated with the fungus dollar spot and is thinned out.  The left side is untouched.  The range field receives no fungicide treatments during the year so this goes to show you how important it is to have the right grass for the right application.  A lot of our roughs on the course are comprised of bentgrass and poa as well and need several fungicide applications throughout the summer months, which is very expensive.