Deep Tine on Fairways

 

Normally this practice is done often on greens and on a few of our wetter fairways, but we are trying to get all the fairways deep tined to a depth of 4-8" depending on soil.  If we can make it through this application without much damage to our turf or the machines, we will try and do this twice per season to help with drainage.  Over time the more we do it, the deeper we can start to go.

Yikes

 

The past 3 weekends, we have seen substantial rainfall, ranging from 1.5-3" each event.  Yesterday was the conclusion of the worst one, with 3+" of rain with heavy wind gusts.  What we are left with is washed out bunkers, washed out cart paths and debris that will take a while to clean up with a skeleton crew.  We had just finished temporarily fixing bunkers about 10 days ago and we will be back at it again so they are somewhat playable for winter play.   No rest for the weary.

Investment Paid Off

 

We purchased the Sandfiller above right after Covid to help save on labor.  You can see the machine verticuts, drops sand in the slit and cleans up the thatch in one pass.  As you can see it is basically a 3 man operation with 1 operator and 2 guys filling the hopper with sand.

This is 10 green and back when we aerated greens, we were leery to verticut this green before aeration in fear that with lack of roots we would get damage and not be able to pull cores after.  Once we aerated we saw no damage so we decided to put our Graden out today to do this one green instead of hooking up the Sandfiller.

The results were very good but it required 5 men about 2.5 hours to verticut, fill the hopper and blow off the green after.  Compare that to the Sandfiller, 3 men and about 30 minutes to do a green, and a much cleaner product.

Successful Aeration

 

Greens aeration is in the books and it was quite successful.  We started by using the sandfiller verticut machine and then went in with 1/2" tines and pulled cores.  Cores were dragged around to use current sand profile to backfill holes and cores were shoveled off and spread on our practice greens, 11th green and alternate 16 green.  Greens are rolling smooth the day after.  One caveat is we will be topdressing again in early December and going in with a 3/4" deep tine to help in winter drainage.  This will be the final cultural practice in 2023.

Fairway Topdressing

 

Now that fairway aeration and verticutting is completed we will be burying the fairways in sand.  Once we drag the sand once to fill in aeration holes, we will leave the remnants for the fall and winter months ahead.  By spring, the sand will work in nicely and we will do it all over again.

Matting Starting to Blend In

 You can see after only a short period of time that the grass is beginning to grow through the mat on #6.  The same is happening on 10.  By next spring once grass really starts to grow, the mat will almost be invisible and the wear and tear spots should be gone.

Greens Aeration Finally Underway

 

We are finally underway aerating greens.  The rains yesterday postponed our start until today.  The staff will stay until 5pm to get as many done as possible so we can get back on schedule.  The machine on the right verticuts (removes thatch) and leaves sand in the slits.  The machine on the left is the actual aerator that pulls cores out of the greens.  Our greens desperately needed this as water puddled instantly during recent rains, meaning they are sealed off at the surface.  In another month we will go with solid tines and punch deeper to help water move through the profile during the winter months.  We do this process each and every year which allows us to keep our greens open all 12 months.  We will do less disruptive aeration in April except for drill and fill now that we are doing this.  I do not foresee us pulling any plugs next spring.

Tent Area Cleanup

 

We know the tent was up for a month and basically the turf below was dead when removed.  We had to move fast as the pumpkin picking was scheduled for 3 days later.  If you do not know, this area was created for entertainment back in 2019 such as concerts, fireworks and members hanging out.  More importantly it also acted as our white tee for #10.  Since 2019, this has probably been renovated 6-7 times, meaning sod stripped, area floated and new sod put down.  Over time, we start to see low areas from foot traffic in the tent etc so Brad from Downes came in at no charge and laser leveled the tee for us.  This will probably be the last time we can do this before we have to go in and address drainage and add new mix, but long story short in 3 days the area was back to normal for pumpkin picking!  Without the creation of this area by my staff, the club could never host the big events they do now.

Actually Damage is Good

 

During fairway aeration we decided to verticut into the stepcuts.  You will see by the picture above quite a few areas got shredded.  Basically these are bentgrass patches that at 1" get really puffy and the verticutter rips through it instead of slicing through it.  Bentgrass performs great at 1/2" or lower and anything higher gets puffy and unplayable.  While this looks ugly, we are going around to seed these areas to get more rough grasses in them so this does not keep happening.  In this case, I am actually not upset by seeing this, especially in November.  By next spring these areas should be healed for the 2024 golf season.

Fixing Up Traffic Issues

 

This is the area near 10 green where all carts are funneled to the cart path.  There is a maple tree located to the left of the mat, so that funnels traffic even more.  This area is unsightly with cart signs and stakes and thin and bare turf, so we are experimenting with matting that will allow carts to drive on but protect the grass below.  We basically stripped the poor sod, put new sod and then will lay the mat on top.  The new sod will be protected and the mat will not be noticeable once the turf grows through it.  We tried it on 10 and the walk up to the new tee on 6 as 2 sample areas.  If this works and holds up, we may consider doing more in the future.  Will keep you posted.

Aeration Underway

 

What a perfect day to start fairway aeration.  A year like this is when we really need to do this procedure, especially in October.  After all the heavy rains since summer the ground becomes compacted from mower and cart traffic.  In August, we deferred this practice until October so the soil and turf needs to be punched for plant health and to set it up for next year.  Originally, this was to be a perfect week for this with no events, but we have a few rescheduled tournaments from the past few weeks that will have to play with less than ideal fairways.  The weather looks perfect for us to get as much done this week as possible and it is likely it will carry over into next week when we begin greens aeration.  Short term pains, long term gains.

Important Maintenance

 

Here is #5 green following a rain event.  Yes, it has XGD drainage in it, however the green is made to surface drain water off the front and back.  Over time from topdressing and organic matter accumulation, the low areas begin to build up sand dams where water constantly runs off greens, eventually raising the grade enough to trap water on the green.

The only solution is to sod cut the areas that have been built up over time, manually remove the material carefully and put the sod back as accurately as possible.  Once we complete this, we will lightly topdress the sod seams and roll the sod.  This green will get tested this weekend as another 1-2" is forecast.  We will address all greens that this is a problem on this fall.

The Never Ending Spray Season

 2023 started off as a carbon copy of 2022, droughty and cooler.  Playing conditions for much of the spring were ideal with firm and fast being achieved without much effort.  Then came July.  Since July, rainfall and humidity have been plentiful.  Certain weather patterns favor certain diseases.  This spring it was just being able to apply water to extremely dry turf.  When temperatures and humidity are high, coupled with rainfall, Brown Patch and Pythium Blight are possible.  When temperatures are moderate and humidity and rainfall are high then dollar spot is probable.  From July to this week, it has been ideal for dollar spot, no matter if it is in the rough, fairways or tees.  Our greens are not susceptible due to daily mowings first thing in the morning, our pesticide and fertility programs and our cultural programs.  Normally, we make 3 to at most 4 rough applications per year, but this year we have had to make 5-6.  Fairway sprays usually last 14 days at the least on a normal year, but this year we were getting 5-10.  The picture above is our 17th fairway 5 days after a dollar spot spray that probably should have lasted 17-20 days.  This was our 3rd spray in 30 days and we just made our 4th today.  This disease has been rampant all year and it is almost laughing at our sprays.  You do not really notice it because we will make immediate follow up applications if there is breakthrough.  What may begin to happen now is that we can start to get resistance to certain chemicals if we over use them.  We also have some very old bentgrass patches on fairways that are more susceptible to the fungus than others.  We started rolling fairways on days we do not mow them to take the dew off first thing, but with the recent fog and humidity, the dew is back on them by 7am.  We will continue to fight the fight and will look at all avenues to address this moving forward.  Next year depending on weather we may not even see it, but indications are this may be our biggest nemesis moving forward.  This is why fungicide budgets begin to increase over time.

Club Championships Completed

 

All the club championships have been completed for the 2023 season.  Congratulations to all winners.  Mother Nature threw a wrench in to start but she gave us great weather to finish both the Men's and Women's flights.

Fall Is Near

 

You can always tell when fall is near when our fescue/native areas begin to transition from the golden look during the summer months to the purples and oranges in the fall.  The purple colors are from the little bluestem plants that are not as dominant in these areas during the summer until we get to late July and August.  They are a blue color during the mid to late summer until fall when they turn purple.  The broomsedge plants right now are still somewhat green and will turn tan in a few weeks.  It is like having 2 different native areas depending on the time of the year.  In a few weeks we will mow them all down a few times, make some herbicide treatments to eradicate any weeds and this will set them up for the spring next year when we do it all over again.  When you think of the minimal cost to maintain these areas and what they offer to the course makes a good argument to add more of them and start to eliminate rough where applicable.

What's Wrong With This Picture

 

Can you guess what is wrong with this picture?  Besides the ball marks that you can see that were sand filled, there is nothing glaring to find.  What is wrong is that the green is still open in late August after a major tournament.  We have not had a year since this green was built that we did not have to use the alternate par 3 green to give it a rest.  After the US Am last year, we had to close it for a few weeks to allow it to be somewhat ready for the club championship.  The year before we had little to no grass on it for the Preview event for the US Am.  This year we have endured some tough weather patterns and we have had our share of big events where this green was treated like all the others.  Is it our spray program, is it the poa we have incorporated into it or is it because of us lowering the pond level?  Probably a combination of all, but the green is heading in the right direction.  With the abuse imposed on the greens for the Met Open during a wet humid spell shows that this green may finally be acting like the rest of ours.

@#$% Worms

 

After a successful Met Open on Thursday, heavy rains hit us on Friday morning, leaving saturated turf throughout.  We did not mow any fine turf areas and by Saturday, worm casts were everywhere.  The weather never really dried out this July and August and we never got really hot either, so worms could stay near the surface all summer.  Normally mid September is when they wreak havoc on playability and mowers, but that has not been the case.  In the picture above, you can see what a unmown fairway looks like the morning after the night crawlers do their thing.  Mowers get damaged and you almost have to play winter rules.  On this particular day, we had to bring the staff in to mow that afternoon so the fairways were playable on Sunday morning.   

Met Open Completed

 

Another successful major tournament in the books.  The 108th Met Open was completed on Thursday afternoon, with the winner posting a 4 under score for 3 days.  Only 4 players broke par out of the 135 that started, meaning the course held up to the best players in the Metropolitan area.  My staff once again came through big leading into the event and during the event and the more than 13 volunteers were critical in allowing us to showcase Arcola.  We were fortunate the rain held off long enough for the course to firm up and challenge the players.  2024 looks to be a quiet year and we can use it after the US Am and Met Open in back to back Augusts.

Relentless

 

A "pop up" storm came through last night at 5pm dumping almost a half inch of rain in a short period of time.  The course just received 1.5" the previous 24 hours, making it very soft and difficult to mow.  With the humidity back up and constant cloud cover, the course is drying down much slower than we would like.  In weather patterns like this, even the best fungicide programs may not always work.  Lucky we had our fairway aerifier still hooked up from July so only thing we can do is punch holes to help them dry out quicker.  Even though we started punching at 7pm, we got a few areas done before night set in and will continue this morning.  Will it help or hurt the turf, who knows but we are running out of options.

Maintenance Mondays

 

Every once in a while we need those days to get things done uninterrupted.  This past Monday we were closed to get some much needed maintenance done and we were welcomed with almost an inch of rain in the morning, delaying all of our much needed work.  Fortunately we were able to get most of our work completed including hydrojecting greens (below picture).  It usually takes 2 machines 8-10 hours to finish all the greens and with the weather delay Juan stayed to finish our in play greens until 6:45pm.  Getting sand applied to approaches was needed as well as more rain followed washing it in.  Timing is everything.

Turf Improvements

 

You may have noticed some sod going down on Thursday afternoon and basically we are replacing old  fine fescue sod with Kentucky Bluegrass and Tall Fescue sod.  These areas were sodded to fescue years ago and were left to grow naturally and since, we have started to maintain them.  The fescue is very susceptible to certain fungus and cannot tolerate traffic so we felt it was wise to remove it.  We did this on the mound on 8, the tee banks on 15 and 17 and the rear of the ladies tee on 5.  We also removed all the cattails on the pond bank left of 7 green and replaced with KBG sod.  This opens up the view of the pond as you approach the green instead of the wall of cattails that overtook the entire area.  Small changes that many of you may not notice but go a long way in improving the overall appearance of the course.

A Rough Stretch!

 What can I say, we went from droughts to deluges.  The grass has never been happier but yet it is still under extreme disease pressure with the constant humidity and pop up t storms.  Before we were dragging hoses to keep turf hydrated now we are sitting on sprayers and blowers.  While the emerald green look makes for a great postcard, it does not bode well for playability and turf health.

The picture above shows how much the fairways are growing with the amount of clippings you see after the mowers finish.  They even have baskets to collect clippings, but cannot make a full pass without the buckets over flowing.  This is with 2 shots of growth regulators in the past 3 weeks as well.  If you look at the bottom of the photo, the tan spots are Dollar Spot fungus, that popped up after all the rain on Sunday night into Monday morning.  Many of the fairways have this right now and while we sprayed for it on Tuesday, we will have to make a follow up application next week some time if things do not improve.

This photo shows what our roughs look like after mowing.  Piles of wet clippings, even though the rough mowers are out every day including a day on the weekend.  Between dodging rain storms and the humidity it is tough to keep up with mowing, not to mention having to send four blowers out daily to clean up the clippings.  This is labor that is usually used for other things that now cannot address.  Crazy summer!

Drain Leveling

 

Staff starting to address low drain boxes on fairways.  Over time, from organic accumulation and topdressing the turf around drain boxes and sprinkler heads become too high, leading to playability issues, scalping and possible damage to equipment.  Here my staff has to remove the box and install a new basin to the level of the turf.  This will look great for the next year or two and will need to be addressed again.  Sprinkler heads are the most time consuming and will be the next area we address further.

Even Tees Need Love

 

We focus so much of our attention on greens and fairways that tees often get overlooked.  They take the biggest concentrated beating on a daily basis so it is vital that we vent them occasionally during the summer months to allow them to breathe and to alleviate some compaction.

Roll With the Punches

 We were starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel yesterday with green speeds back to normal and areas finally starting to firm up.  Hit or miss thunderstorms rolled through this morning, halfway through our morning mowing routine and spraying greens in preparation for heavy rains this weekend.   The curveball that was thrown at us forced us to have to change up our entire Friday preparation for the weekend.  Now that most of the mowing was not completed, additional workers will have to come in on Saturday to mow to keep growth in check.  Monday morning is a 9am shotgun, so again, we have to be off the course before 9 and with the weather, grass will be exploding.  This is called the "domino effect" where one thing (thunderstorm) effects several things for the next few days. 

Instead of preparing for the Senior Club Championship today, we were pumping, squeegeeing and repairing bunkers.  Now, a lot of mowing will have to be completed on Saturday afternoon when we have dry conditions to mow fairways, intermediates and rough.  By the end of today, the course will look and play great but its the hours after the deluge we are working hard to get play out as quickly as possible.

Weather Dictates Everything

 There was some chatter back in May and June that the greens were too fast and the fairways were too tight.  Clearly, the weather was the contributing factor in our greens rolling in the mid 15s to 16 for a few weeks and our fairways yielding more than 30 yards of roll following tee shots.  This is not normal for Arcola and while we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the course play to its full potential with little inputs, we knew eventually it would come to an end.  

Growth regulators help control growth.  They are a key part of most golf courses' management plans.  They also help the greens retain speeds longer during the day, slowing growth down a bit.  For fairways, we use growth regulators to reduce growth, but more importantly slowly lessen our poa populations.  Certain regulators are harsher on poa than others and you have to be very careful with what chemicals you mix with them so you do not over regulate the poa and possibly eradicate it altogether.  When humidity rises and rainfall is more often, growth regulators often become less effective due to grass remaining more lush and having less time to dry out.  While we enjoyed several weeks of no clippings and firm conditions, we are now looking at lush green grass everywhere, regardless of our management practices.

The pile of clippings you see is from 1 and 9 fairway only.  They are still tight but out growing the regulators we have on them.  Extra clippings mean excess growth, so we will ride out this weather stretch until growth slows down and things dry out.  We have put very little water on them in the past 14 days, despite the hot temperatures of late.  You will now see a reduction in ball roll off the tee and on the greens.  More rain and humidity forecast for this coming weekend, so no light at the end of the tunnel just yet.

Rains Are Finally Over

 

We were fortunate the past 2 weeks to dodge many of the storms that came through NJ.  Friday we were able to get the Arcola Cup in without delay and Saturday we saw a quick afternoon burst soak the course.  Yesterday looks to be the last of the rains for at least a few days as the course got hit pretty good in the evening.  With high humidity remaining this week and temps in the 90s, we decided to vent the greens today.  The greens have a bit of algae forming in spots and we were able to spray the greens Friday evening to help alleviate it and venting them will help them dry down a bit over the next few days.  While I complained about no rain for most of the spring and how our irrigation inefficiencies were highlighted, I would take that over constant rains and humidity with no control over managing moisture in the soil.

Arcola Cup in the Books

 

Crew mowing 18 green at 3:45am on the morning of the Arcola Cup.  A split shift of 3:30-7:30 in the morning and return for 11:30-2:30 to set up again for the second round.  A lot of moving parts in one day to make it successful, but this preparation started at least 2 weeks prior.

Going from extremely cool and dry conditions in May and June where firmness and speed was not an issue to flipping the switch to hot and humid conditions the past 10 days plus.  We were hearing complaints that the greens were too fast and fairways were too tight and now everything is too lush.

You know it is humid when you cannot see the first fairway from 20 yards away and this is an indicator that the atmosphere is saturated.  This was Wednesday morning before the Arcola Cup.  This means less water, and much more spraying is required.  On top of that, Thursday afternoon hit 95 and the humidity dropped to 35% in a few hours, drying everything down quickly and getting everyone on hoses to keep things hydrated.

Here is what was done  to prepare for the Arcola Cup in the past 2 weeks:

-greens verticut to thin canopies

-greens vented last week to air out surfaces and be able to take water in the event of a t storm

-sprays made to protect all fine turf for this week

-penetrants applied to greens to help with water penetration in the event of a t storm; on the flip side, this wreaked havoc on the afternoon with 95 degrees as the greens were drying too fast

-made an extra nutrient spray to our roughs to make sure it was thick enough, since green speeds and firmness were not going to be able to defend the course

-trying to get all the rough mowed in advance during a holiday weekend and then allow it to grow out in time for the Arcola Cup

-making an extra growth regulator spray to help slow growth even more on greens

As a wrap up, the greens were stimped at 5am and 1pm during the Arcola Cup and were rolling 14' 6" both times.  Firmness was not where we wanted it due to the rapid dry down on Thursday afternoon with the shift in the weather.  Rough was definitely penal and healthy.  Fairways were a bit softer and that was mainly due to the extreme humidity the past 7 days and they were not effected by the rapid drop in humidity on Thursday afternoon.

While we had the best plans in place for the past 14 days, some things panned out and others did not.  At the end of the day considering everything, the course was shining again even though it was not showing its teeth!

I Told You So

 My favorite line I like to use with my wife is "I told you so".  In my most recent update, I said once we get measurable rain and humidity, the turf is going to explode.  We have had no growing weather all spring and nutrients had been applied throughout to get turf going.  Without natural rainfall or temperatures, the fertilizer is not being used to its full potential.  This past week we saw higher humidity and now we have had 2 good soaking rains, with more on the way.

During the week, we will mow fairways 4 out of 5 days, so we have not mowed fairways since Friday due to the holiday weekend.  The clippings in the fairways are out of control.  That means tomorrow morning we will be making a growth regulator application to fairways to help slow the growth.  This weather is beneficial for us to make the rough a bit more penal for the Arcola Cup this Friday, however, the roughs will be labor intensive next week when we are able to mow them again since we will not mow Thursday on.  

The upside to all of this humidity and rain is no irrigation.  We have not irrigated at night for almost 2 weeks.  While this is great for the turf it is not good for firm and fast conditions.  Green speeds have dropped to 13.8-14.2 with the weather and if the rain continues they will continue to drop.  We will keep you posted with any changes.

Venting Fairways

 

With an extremely dry spring so far, we decided to move up our fairway venting a few weeks and start opening them up now instead of after July 4th.  Mainly due to golf schedule issues, but more importantly our fairways were repelling water.  The second benefit, we have been in a high humidity, cloud cover and hit or miss thunderstorms for the past 4 days.  We figured, once we started getting hit by these storms having holes in the fairways to allow them to breathe would be beneficial.  So far, we have gotten .9" of rain since Friday and another round of storms coming today.  

As you see in the top picture, the holes are small and once we roll and mow them, you can barely notice.  I will be curious to see how the fairways react later this week when the rain is out of the forecast for the next 7+ days.  Most likely if our schedule and weather permits, we will do this process again in mid to late July.

Cart Traffic Evident

 

The pictures above are just 2 examples of how cart traffic effects the playability, health and aesthetics of the golf course.  You can see where all the carts drive and how we must use signs and stakes to direct them away from these areas.  In some areas there is not much we can do, but this is basically happening on every hole.  The yellowing is the constant traffic and the turf unable to grow out of it.  Even though we have fertilized the whole course, the weather has not been conducive to it working effectively yet.  Stakes and signs take away from the course but are a necessary evil.  It is imperative that you stay on the paths by tees and greens.  Pulling into the rough to gain a few extra feet forces us to have to put more signs and stakes out to protect the grass.  These become labor intensive to move and are an eyesore.  Luckily we are a mainly walking club, but May and June are heavy with outings and cart usage.  Normally we are not seeing wear and tear this early.  Once the rain comes alot of these will lessen, but until then we will be having to protect the grass.

Finally!

 

It has been a year coming, but we are finally starting to level sprinkler heads.  Over time with topdressing and organic matter accumulation, turf raises up and eventually sprinkler heads and drain basins become low, effecting playability, safety and efficiency.  Last week the staff checked and unclogged all nozzles on heads and now we will be spending the next week or so leveling heads.  With the extreme dry weather this spring we have had no time to do this but with the wet forecast ahead, we can finally get a jump start on it.

Tedious Maintenance

Now that it finally rained a bit, the pumps can get a break and we can send 4 staff members out to remove the nozzles on every head on the course.  Over time small particles find their way into the heads and alter the coverage of the sprinkler head, leading to discolored or under watered turf.  While this is an extremely time consuming process, it is vital in the health of our turf this summer.  We already found numerous heads that were clogged to some degree.  Without any measurable rainfall for almost 4-6 weeks, the golf course is at the mercy of our sprinkler heads and design to get through the dry spells.