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!