The Truth About Venting

 

This morning we vented greens, which normally gets done on Monday mornings.  With our busy outing schedules and early outing shotguns, Mondays are not an option until we get to August and September.  With the Arcola Cup on July 8, the US Am Preview on the 12th and a Member Guest on the 14th, it is now or wait another month.  The pictures above show the process, a tractor punches pencil sized holes in the greens and it is followed by a roller to smooth the surface.  For good measure, we did a stimpmeter reading following the practice and we rolled 15'.4".  No impact on speed, trueness or smoothness.  The only thing now is the the greens will dry down much quicker over the next few days but it is a good trade off after the heavy rains of late. 

Final Preparations Underway for Invitational

 

Venting was done last week, this week we are doing a little verticut on greens before the Invitational on Thursday.  This will help thin the surface a bit to allow for firmer conditions and smoother greens.  The forecast now looks like heavy rain Wednesday night, so looks like more bunker work on the horizon.  Was hoping to get a break from the rain for a week to provide the best possible conditions for the event.  Staff will somehow getting everything back together before Thursday afternoon.

Bunkers Needing Attention This Week

 Deja vu all over again!  Two straight days of 1"+ thunderstorms after a weekend of 2.5" rains and the staff has had their fill of repairing bunkers.  Most of the bunkers drained great and some sand had to be pushed back up on faces.  One of our proactive practices is taking this vibrating aerifier and going into the bunkers to loosen up the floors.  Heavy rain after heavy rain and our already firm sand becomes way too firm and this has been a great tool to allow us to get them back to great playing conditions relatively quickly following the storms.  

Pond Treatment Coming

 

The Curly Leaf pond weed has taken over the pond on #7.  Our pond contractor will have to come and make several treatments to get it under control.  This is going to take a few weeks to control since the pond is shallow and there is quite a bit of fish activity.  Also, once the weeds begin to die, they will take up a lot of oxygen in the pond, which can affect fish.  This is why you hire pond professionals to make these treatments.

Before and After #5

 

An Improvement That Most Likely Will Go Unnoticed

 

This cart path looks no different than any other out on the course.  However, this improvement is so much more than what you see in the picture.  In this location there were 4 asphalt paths going left to the range, right to the dump and a dead end piece in the rough.  All of these were eliminated and sodded over and this new crushed stone path now connects to the path on the hole.  A simple fix, but a lot of work for Pedro and a crew of 5 guys who finished it in about 6 hours.  Sod was taken from the range where we will convert an area of maintained sod to fine fescue, so the cost was minimal.

Planting New Trees

Our tree replacement program continues into 2022 as we have selectively replanted a few lost trees from the past few years.  Here this large London Plane will replace the twin oak that split last year between 16 and 17.  While the oak was in the middle of the rough it did protect from the wayward tee shot and this new tree will do the same, as it was planted within 10 feet of the oak.  We also added a large red oak to the right of #8 that will also protect the wayward shot on a short par 5.  Over the next few years I believe this trend will continue at Arcola as many of our older trees are beginning to decline and in some cases fail.