Drain Added to New Short Game Area

A wet area emerged this past week in the new short game area so we decided to install a drain to dry out the area.  This should help dry it out.

Old 7 Coming Along

The cart path is in and the rock wall is completed in front of the green.  The hole is coming along.  We will finish sodding on Monday.

Gearing Up to Attack Old 7

Since the new greens were constructed and seeded back in May, we have been nibbling away at the new alternate 16th green and the new par 3 hole we have created.  The new greens are now being mown at .095, so they will be able to get down to our normal greens heights by the end of the year.  We are now preparing to install bridges, create the new alternate fairway, install the new cart path and seed the large fescue area behind the greens.  We have been on hold since we cannot do much until the current cart path that goes from 16 green to 17 tees is removed and we can get carts around the area.  Over the next few weeks you will notice significant progress.

Great Progress

Several weeks ago we decided to let the Annual Bluegrass Weevil eat the poa on our old tees and our fairways.  While at first I was getting nervous by the amount of damage I was seeing, I figured it would be short lived.  Here is the cleanup pass in front of the 16th fairway.  This was really thinned out 2 weeks ago and while nobody will every play from here, look at how much bentgrass is taking over the absent poa.  Between our growth regulator program and the ABW our fairways have made huge improvements over the past few years, almost to the point where we can allow this to happen more and more without effecting playability.

Club Championship Weekend #1 Finished

The top photo shows morning prep for the club championship this past weekend.  High humidity on Friday and Saturday hampered green speeds a bit even though we were mowing 3 times each day and rolling.

Sunday the temperature broke in the late morning and the course started playing how we intended it with green speeds in the mid 13s and soil moisture levels at or below 10.  Today the greens get a rest and get a nice hydroject application along with a nice nutrient and growth regulator spray.

By Wednesday we begin the preparation again for this coming weekend, with mowing heights going down further and mowing and rolling frequencies going up.

With this beautiful weather upon us, we wont have to push things to hard to achieve the tournament conditions we want.