A Little Venting Before the 4th

Today was a perfect day to vent the greens in advance of 4th of July weekend and the Arcola Cup on July 7th.  The venting will help dry the greens down after this weekends rain and humidity.  This will also help with our upcoming summer patch spray and gypsum application.  Once we rolled greens following the tractor you could not even tell we did them.

Let Them Eat!

In a previous post, I stated short term pains for long term gains and that was related to allowing the annual bluegrass weevil to eat some of the poa in the fairways since we are using growth regulators to help eliminate the poa.  The photos show the 12th fairway about 8 days ago when the eating was at its peak and the bottom photo shows the same fairway yesterday.  The bentgrass is beginning to fill in the voids where the poa is.  Had we applied an insecticide on the entire course to take out the larvae, it would have cost us close to $9,000.  Plus, all the beneficial insects that are in the soil may have been effected as well.  Instead, we spot seeded these areas at a cost of $250 and made an extra urea and potassium app at a cost of $500 to help get the bentgrass to fill in.  While the area is not perfect, it will be in the coming weeks and has had little impact on playability.  Next year, we will have less poa to worry about on this and many other fairways.

Progress on 11

The top picture shows the most recent photo of our 11th green and the bottom picture shows the green about 8 days ago.  We know this green has a hard time getting going each spring so we did several things the past 10 days to help it along.  First, eliminate all rolling.  Second increase nutrients to help increase thatch to allow the green to withstand foot traffic and wear and tear.  Third, lightly syringe throughout the day to allow areas not to wilt out, especially during the hot dry spell we just encountered.  Today was the first double cut for normal play in over a month.  We will continue to monitor plant health and will not roll any longer.  Double cutting will continue daily as long as plant health remains positive.

Short Term Pains....Long Term Gains

You will notice the orange color on our fairways and some areas that are thinned out a bit.  This is damage from the annual bluegrass weevil that effects poa plants.  We are aggressive with growth regulators on fairways and you will see yellow grass, that is the poa plants.  We allow the weevils to eat a little each spring to lower the poa populations and allow the bent to take over.  We also spike and seed bent in some areas where there are lower populations of bent to allow more to eventually take hold.  Our populations of bent have significantly increased over the past few years.   That is why it is better to allow this to happen and our fairways will be that much better in the summer months.

Different Pin Placements

Unfortunately we cannot use the center of the greens every day when changing cups so occasionally we have to use some corners.  After a busy week or two of big events and pin placements for the most part in the center of greens due to green speeds, we have to use some corners to spread out traffic.

Final Prep Work for Member Guest Today

Many thanks to my staff for stepping it up a notch this week in preparation for the Invitational.  A lot of mowing and blowing this past week to get course ready for play.  As usual the guys rise to the occasion and make it happen.  Looks like Mother Nature will do her part as well.

Congratulations to the Hoffman Cup Champs!

http://www.hoffmancup.org/

Hoffman Cup in the Books

On Saturday, we did a quick single cut and roll before the start of the Hoffman Cup finals here and with nice dry conditions and lean turf, the greens were rolling 14.5 - 15 before play started at 12:30.  We did not go over board preparing our greens for this event and this shows why our aggressive aerification program pays off when it matters most.  The nice thing is if the weather cooperates this week, we will not have to go too crazy to keep the greens rolling 13 for the Invitational on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.