It Must Be December

Getting ready to put the greens to bed for 2018.  Our final spray was made last week, our dormant feed of fertilizer and gypsum was done 2 weeks ago and now a nice topdressing and aerification with 5/8" solid tines and 1/2" deep tines to help with winter drainage. The sand will help protect the crowns of the plant from foot traffic, ball marks and cold winds during winter play.

18 Coming Along

Despite the weather, we are making progress on 18.  The staff will be laying sod today, tomorrow and Monday and most of the 18th fairway area will be covered for the winter.  The tees are still too soft to even attempt to start to shape them in so we will have to be patient until ground conditions improve.

Mad Rush

It will be all hands on deck today as we race against Mother Nature again.  Trying to get the new fairway expansion sodded, temporary drains in the new fairway bunkers and then tarp the bunkers so we can continue to work on them once the rain passes.  We still have to rebuild the tee complex and put the irrigation back on the left side of the hole and sod everything so we will have our hands full the next few weeks.

Putting Green Work

We are putting the Graden sand injector verticutter across the new practice green today.  When the new putting green was sodded back in May, it had a clay layer in the sod that we have to remove via aerification and other means.  The green was aerified on October 24th, now we are passing the Graden over it to put slits into the clay layer and inject sand.  This along with aerification needs to be done several times a year to this green until we can reduce the layer or else the green will begin to seal off.

Drainage Paying Dividends

It looks like two different fairways but the above pics are the front and second half of the 17th fairway.  We installed new drainage in the front half two weeks ago and have not been able to get out and start on the second half yet.  What a difference.  Once we can finally tackle from the fairway bunker to the green, the fairway will be much improved than before.

Tree Removal

The oak tree that was struck by lightning on July 2nd is being removed today.  The tree showed immediate signs of die back and now that we are closed this week it was a perfect time to take it down.

Green and Fairway Aerification Underway

Better late than never, but we are finally punching holes in the greens.  A frost delay this morning held us back by 2 hours, so today we will finish 11 greens, leaving us 12 more to go tomorrow including our practice greens.  We are hoping to have all greens done tomorrow and then work on fairways and approaches the rest of the week.  Tough time of the year to pull cores as the sun is slow to come up and quick to go down but we will fight through it.  Clean up will take a little longer but hopefully by Friday we will have 80% of the fairways done.  Dryject is coming in on Wednesday to do our greens and then we will add nutrients on Thursday and topdress again if needed.  We probably will not mow greens, approaches or fairways until next week some time depending on weather.

Nursery Work

We are currently finishing stripping the barn hole fairway and rough to create a new turf nursery  that will be big enough for future needs.  The barn hole gets little usage with our improved practice facility so  we can better utilize this space to create a 20,000 sq ft nursery.  We will build the nursery with plugs from our greens this coming week when we aerify so we can create a nursery that matches our greens.  We have not pulled a core from our greens in 8 years and this will be the last time we do this probably for another 8.  We used the fairway sod for our drainage project the past few weeks and we have a few rolls left for the drainage still to be done.  We will also fill in the old bunkers as we do the nursery work.

Drainage Improvement Already

The area to the left of the 17th fairway has been a nuisance for more than 9 years.  A simple 1/2" of rain would leave puddles in the area and we would have to stake it off and not mow it for a while.  After the installation of a sump pump and some drain lines in the rough the picture below shows the area the day after almost 4" of rain, not a single drop of water.  Even the dog fainted when she saw it!

The Proper Way to Hit Balls on the Range

The picture above sent to me from George Cultraro shows how to properly hit balls on the range to help protect the life of the range tee.  Taking divots in a sporadic fashion wastes usable space and limits recovery time.  Thanks for the picture GC!

And So It Begins...

Putting in a few drain lines on the 17th fairway on the left side and the rough.  Only way to move water out of this location is to use a sump pump since the nearby ditch is not deep enough and we need to get the laterals deep enough to not be effected by aerification and to get some of the ground water that we are fighting.  The 17th, 16th and 5th fairways will need wide spread drainage and a few other holes will need some supplemental. 

Fairy Ring

This is fairy ring, a fungus on our 15th fairway which so happens to be one of our experimental fairways.  The fungus usually shows up as dark green circles and certain types of fairy ring will turn brown and others will remain green.  These were non evident and then immediately turned brown as soon as the rain stopped and hot weather emerged.  The rings are already healing and next year we will know that this fairway will be susceptible to this and we will plan accordingly.

Bye Bye Oak Tree

The large oak by 1 tee that was hit by lightning last month is already showing signs of die back at the top of the tree.  From the magnitude of the lightning strike, it was evident the vascular system was fried and the tree would eventually die.  Structurally the tree is sound but we will remove it in the coming weeks.

Met Am Timeline

After Wednesday afternoon final prep, heavy thunderstorm hits the course

During Thursday stroke play, another storm rolls in and suspends play for several hours

Fridays match play portion is cancelled in the afternoon due to flooding

Saturday morning the staff comes in to torrential rains, staff stays for 10 hours to get course ready for play at 3pm.  No mowing done, but all bunkers repaired and all turf squeegeed. 

By Sunday afternoon a champion has been crowned and the tournament finishes on time.  For the exception of Saturdays washout, greens rolled between 12 and 13 every day regardless of weather.  A big thanks to my staff for going above and beyond the past 5 days.

Difficult Met Am So Far

We all know the dreadful weather we had before this week and now it has rained every day since Tuesday.  The crew has done a remarkable job keeping up with the weather.  We have started work at 4am the past few days, had volunteers come in to help and then had to bring the crew back twice to help squeegee water off playing surfaces after thunderstorms in the pm rounds.  So far the course is holding up but we have not been able to mow our wet fairways in the past few days and they are showing signs of water stress from constant puddles sitting on them.  You can only squeegee for so long until the grass will die off.  High temps are expected tomorrow so the rain tonight is only going to make things worse.  A big thanks to the crew for getting us to this point so far with 2 more days of matches to go.

Getting Sprays Done

We finally broke down and did a full spray to our experimental (no spray) fairways.  To date, we made 1 light application for dollar spot back in early June when we started to see the fungus.  Now with the rain forecast for almost a week straight and high humidity we cannot take the chance that we will make it through.  You cannot control brown patch with nutrients and the weather now is conducive to many diseases.  When we can control the water it is much easier to control fungus, but the weather we are having now is too tough to predict.  With the Met Am, the Clambake and the Morgan Hoffmann outing all in the next 3-4 weeks, we cannot be playing catch up.
I am proud that 1/3 of our fairways or 10 acres have only received 1 full fungicide spray to date.  I am confident as long as the weather does not get too crazy this spray should get us to Labor Day. 

The Weather Is Not Cooperating

What a stretch.  Dry conditions, followed by rain during the Stoddard Cup last week which delayed play and shortened the event to 27 holes.  That was followed by high humidity and triple digit temperatures and then yesterday a pop up thunderstorm flooded the course and lightning took out the big oak by the 1st tee.  Luckily nobody was injured but the weather has been extremely difficult to deal with.  Our next big event this Friday the Arcola Cup the forecast is calling for much of the same, 1" of rain and thunderstorms.  Now, we are moving up to a 7:30 shotgun to try and get at least 18 holes in.  I can deal with the humidity but when you cant control the water applied to the grass, things can get dicey quickly.  Again, my crew always rises to the occasion, whether we have to start at 4am or stay late, they make it happen and make us all look good.  They are the unseen heroes at Arcola.

Hot Mulch!

We had mulch blown into our flower beds this past Monday evening.  Usually we do the mulch first and then add flowers but with the weather our contractor was backed up and could only come Monday.  Mulch is usually very hot to begin with and on top of that sitting in the truck for a few hours when they applied it, the heat stunted all the annuals and actually scorched the bed edges.  The annuals while ugly will recover and already are pushing new flowers out and the grass will green up as well but goes to show you how something so basic can become a headache.

Just A Reminder

A reminder about our bentgrass conversion program on fairways.  Here you see the yellowing from a recent growth regulator application (Trimmit) that stunts the poa for about 3 weeks.  Once the poa is stunted we put out some nitrogen applications to encourage the bentgrass to really push growth.  Throw in the mix we allow annual bluegrass weevils to eat the poa to some extent and we have a great ability to lessen our poa populations.  Remember we also allowed the fairways to seed out which weakens the poa even more.  Notice here on the 12th fairway (our weakest fairway) how much bentgrass we have.  The bentgrass populations have more than doubled since we started this program and removed a bunch of trees to allow more sunlight.

Lawn Area Nearing Completion

The bulk of the heavy lifting is done.  The black tee above the rock wall is done but we cannot finish our tie ins until the stair case is installed.  A few smaller rocks are needed on the wall to tie into the steps as well.   Some minor sodding is left to do along with 2 sets of blue stone staircases which will require a lot of plywood and careful work not to disturb all the finished work.
The good news is the sod was laid on Thursday and the area has been mowed twice already and topdressed and sprayed. 

We're Trying!

More rain, same old story.  We are making progress but now we are dealing with mud.  The good news is the retaining wall is just about done, the new black tee up by the patio will be getting mix today and we are going to attempt to start drainage today.  If all goes well, we should have the mix on the lawn area by the end of the week and then hopefully next week get the steps in, install electric and irrigation and lastly sod the area.  A lot of moving parts but the weather has not been cooperating.

Old Practice Green Going Away

Now that the new practice green is constructed and growing nicely and the 18th hole is completed, we are moving on to removing the old practice green.  The 6000 sq ft practice green will be bulldozed to create a 10,000 square foot lawn area that will serve as the blue tee, a dining area, a tent area for big events and other recreational purposes.  The tee will be sodded with the same grass as our range tee and mowed at the same height.  When completed this will mark the end of a very busy spring for our staff who stepped up and did a great job on all the construction work.

New 18th Green Complex Open

The design of Steve Smyers has been brought to life on the 18th hole.  Battling through difficult weather from day one, Randy Ray the shaper and our staff were able to get the product completed.  Phase 2 will take place in the fall when the entire fairway will be reshaped.

First Mowing on New Practice Green

The new practice green was sodded last Wednesday and yesterday was our first mowing to try and keep top growth under control.  We added 4 amendments to the soil before sodding and fertilized the green after.  We already have some root growth starting so we want to keep up with the top growth.  Mowing heights will slowly come down after a few weekly topdressings and a another plate compacting. 

Another Step Closer

The practice green was sodded today about 2 days later than our target date we set back in November.  Thanks to New England Turf who came in today to lay the sod for us.  With high temperatures and low humidity we have our hands full trying to keep more than 6 loads of sod alive.  We are hoping to have most of the remaining sod laid tomorrow, leaving only the bunkers and some other misc. work to do to finally complete this project.  Once completed, we will move up to the clubhouse and remove the old practice green.  Most likely this will take place on May 15th so we can concentrate on the golf course and finishing up 18 next week.  While we are only in early May, we have not put all of our resources into the golf course to date and we need to start putting our manpower on the course to get conditioning on track for the upcoming season.  A week or so of concentrating on the course will get it on track for the upcoming season and then we can move on to removing the practice green.

17

The rough on the left side of 17 has been a chronic wet area.  This hole is slated to have drainage done throughout this fall.  We decided to dig a drain line in the rough on the left side of the hole.  Upon digging up the area, we found an old drain that was cut during the irrigation installation back in 2005 and never repaired properly.  Water was literally sitting under the soil.  We installed a new drain line in this area to alleviate this problem until we can address the entire hole this fall.  Sometimes it is the little simple things that make the biggest difference.

Just In Time

It was a busy Tuesday for the staff.  We were able to get all 22 loads of mix into the new practice green and lay 2 loads of sod to stabilize all the slopes before the rain today.  Greens mix is floated, compacted and pretty close to being ready for sod.  Irrigation will go in tomorrow and Friday and next week we can sod the green and move on to finishing around 18 green. 

Finally!

My anxiety is getting the best of me with this never ending project.  We had one sunny day this week to get the drainage in the green and now today we will be installing the gravel blanket.  Mother Nature has surely not made this project easy with several snow events along with a 3" rain this past week and another rain event yesterday.  We have a little help today from Donahue Contracting to get the cart path base in so at least we can get carts to and from the range.  Weather looks good next week and we are going to hit it hard.  Have to install all new irrigation on 18, new practice green and the clubhouse area and get sod prepping done.  Not to mention all the new bunkers have to be reshaped and a lot of drainage and sod.  Once this is done, we head up and remove our current practice green.

Must Be Spring

Controlled chaos in April like most years.  Construction, dryject and verticutting fairways keeping the crew busy.  Most of the major agronomic programs are done, leaving just aerifying tees left to do.  The fairway verticutting will be done by tomorrow and then we will topdress them for the weekend.  The construction of the new practice green and 18th green complex we are hoping to have completed by the first week of May.  Once we get the okay from the architect we can start finishing things up.  We are looking at probably 6 loads of sod to get everything buttoned up.  The practice green will be sodded as well and will open by our Invitational the first week of June.  Once this project is completed we will move up to the clubhouse and remove the old practice green, level the area and create a nice lawn area for events.

Keeping the Tree

The white pine between the 9th hole and the barn hole was damaged by the snow storms in March and we were going to cut it down until we noticed an active hawks nest at the top.  So for now we pruned off all the damaged branches and while it looks like a broccoli stalk we will keep it around for a while.

Irrigation Is Up and Running

The irrigation system is up and running for Monday.  Besides these 2 breaks start up went easy.  Looks like both swing joints were cracked and unfortunately we didnt see it until 2 craters were created.  Just another headache of many this spring.

Practice Green Project

The practice green project is underway.  While we stockpiled the necessary fill the past few weeks to complete the project, today was step 1 before we start shaping.  The cart path located behind 18 green was removed, all irrigation around 18 green was removed and the bunker sand is being pulled out along with liners.  The next step is to strip all sod around the green and we can start to shape in the new bunkers, green expansion and new practice green.  We decided to tie the new practice green into the surrounds of 18 green so it makes sense to finish all the work in this area now to avoid doing work twice and to keep costs down.  While this will keep us really busy the next 4-6 weeks, the finished product will be very good. 

Update

Depending on weather, we will try to start to aerify greens this Thursday.  Green surfaces should be clean by then as long as the greens are not too soft.  We will keep you posted on our progress.  Most likely the golf course will reopen on Friday afternoon or Saturday.

Come On Spring!

Aerifiers are ready to go!

Mother Nature....ISNT!

A Breath of Fresh Air

The old hemlocks along the parking lot were damaged this winter and were loaded with scale and were thinned out.  With the removal of these we now get sunlight on the parking lot which is big during the winter months and we open up a nice view of the clubhouse. 

Give Me A Break!

The sky is gray and the temperature is cold, perfect for another snow storm.  In the meantime, we are trying to get this 6" pipe run across the 17th fairway, back filled and sodded before the end of the day and the snow starts.  On top of that we will be aerifying a few more fairways so we are ahead of the game when the snow melts......again.