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.

Better Late Than Never

 

With some much needed rain in the forecast we started to apply some compost material to our stressed out rough areas.  The areas that are stressed are from cart traffic, inaccurate irrigation and the lack of topsoil in the ground.  The compost will act as a supplement to help combat all the issues above.  Ideally we should do this either late fall or early spring, but we never had great growing weather this spring to try and incorporate into our roughs.  We will provide pictures of how good it works in the next few weeks.

Another Invitational in the Books

 

What started as a lousy week with smoke filled skies and chances of rain turned into a beautiful 3 days for the Invitational.  Cooler and drier weather allowed us to have the course play the way it is meant to be played, firm and fast.  A culmination of great agronomic programs, weather and our staff had the course set up similar to a US Open.  By Saturday afternoon the course finally needed to be hydrated significantly but all in all the turf held up well.  A big thanks again to my staff for getting the course in top condition despite no rainfall and less than ideal growing weather.  Each year we see the course take another positive step in the right direction.  Once a new irrigation system is installed, it will be less stressful on the staff trying to keep the course looking and playing consistent.

Successful Project

 

The fruits of our labor are beginning to show.  When we embarked on the project to improve sunlight on 10 green, a lot of poor trees had to be removed, understory growth had to be removed and we knew we would create some short term visuals of the neighboring strip mall and route 4.  Now that our screening plants are maturing and our hydroseed is growing it is evident by the amount of sunlight on 10 green and how healthy it has been that this was a successful project.  This green gets ample sunlight until mid afternoon, a huge improvement from the past.