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!

Drain Leveling

 

Staff starting to address low drain boxes on fairways.  Over time, from organic accumulation and topdressing the turf around drain boxes and sprinkler heads become too high, leading to playability issues, scalping and possible damage to equipment.  Here my staff has to remove the box and install a new basin to the level of the turf.  This will look great for the next year or two and will need to be addressed again.  Sprinkler heads are the most time consuming and will be the next area we address further.

Even Tees Need Love

 

We focus so much of our attention on greens and fairways that tees often get overlooked.  They take the biggest concentrated beating on a daily basis so it is vital that we vent them occasionally during the summer months to allow them to breathe and to alleviate some compaction.

Roll With the Punches

 We were starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel yesterday with green speeds back to normal and areas finally starting to firm up.  Hit or miss thunderstorms rolled through this morning, halfway through our morning mowing routine and spraying greens in preparation for heavy rains this weekend.   The curveball that was thrown at us forced us to have to change up our entire Friday preparation for the weekend.  Now that most of the mowing was not completed, additional workers will have to come in on Saturday to mow to keep growth in check.  Monday morning is a 9am shotgun, so again, we have to be off the course before 9 and with the weather, grass will be exploding.  This is called the "domino effect" where one thing (thunderstorm) effects several things for the next few days. 

Instead of preparing for the Senior Club Championship today, we were pumping, squeegeeing and repairing bunkers.  Now, a lot of mowing will have to be completed on Saturday afternoon when we have dry conditions to mow fairways, intermediates and rough.  By the end of today, the course will look and play great but its the hours after the deluge we are working hard to get play out as quickly as possible.

Weather Dictates Everything

 There was some chatter back in May and June that the greens were too fast and the fairways were too tight.  Clearly, the weather was the contributing factor in our greens rolling in the mid 15s to 16 for a few weeks and our fairways yielding more than 30 yards of roll following tee shots.  This is not normal for Arcola and while we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the course play to its full potential with little inputs, we knew eventually it would come to an end.  

Growth regulators help control growth.  They are a key part of most golf courses' management plans.  They also help the greens retain speeds longer during the day, slowing growth down a bit.  For fairways, we use growth regulators to reduce growth, but more importantly slowly lessen our poa populations.  Certain regulators are harsher on poa than others and you have to be very careful with what chemicals you mix with them so you do not over regulate the poa and possibly eradicate it altogether.  When humidity rises and rainfall is more often, growth regulators often become less effective due to grass remaining more lush and having less time to dry out.  While we enjoyed several weeks of no clippings and firm conditions, we are now looking at lush green grass everywhere, regardless of our management practices.

The pile of clippings you see is from 1 and 9 fairway only.  They are still tight but out growing the regulators we have on them.  Extra clippings mean excess growth, so we will ride out this weather stretch until growth slows down and things dry out.  We have put very little water on them in the past 14 days, despite the hot temperatures of late.  You will now see a reduction in ball roll off the tee and on the greens.  More rain and humidity forecast for this coming weekend, so no light at the end of the tunnel just yet.

Rains Are Finally Over

 

We were fortunate the past 2 weeks to dodge many of the storms that came through NJ.  Friday we were able to get the Arcola Cup in without delay and Saturday we saw a quick afternoon burst soak the course.  Yesterday looks to be the last of the rains for at least a few days as the course got hit pretty good in the evening.  With high humidity remaining this week and temps in the 90s, we decided to vent the greens today.  The greens have a bit of algae forming in spots and we were able to spray the greens Friday evening to help alleviate it and venting them will help them dry down a bit over the next few days.  While I complained about no rain for most of the spring and how our irrigation inefficiencies were highlighted, I would take that over constant rains and humidity with no control over managing moisture in the soil.

Arcola Cup in the Books

 

Crew mowing 18 green at 3:45am on the morning of the Arcola Cup.  A split shift of 3:30-7:30 in the morning and return for 11:30-2:30 to set up again for the second round.  A lot of moving parts in one day to make it successful, but this preparation started at least 2 weeks prior.

Going from extremely cool and dry conditions in May and June where firmness and speed was not an issue to flipping the switch to hot and humid conditions the past 10 days plus.  We were hearing complaints that the greens were too fast and fairways were too tight and now everything is too lush.

You know it is humid when you cannot see the first fairway from 20 yards away and this is an indicator that the atmosphere is saturated.  This was Wednesday morning before the Arcola Cup.  This means less water, and much more spraying is required.  On top of that, Thursday afternoon hit 95 and the humidity dropped to 35% in a few hours, drying everything down quickly and getting everyone on hoses to keep things hydrated.

Here is what was done  to prepare for the Arcola Cup in the past 2 weeks:

-greens verticut to thin canopies

-greens vented last week to air out surfaces and be able to take water in the event of a t storm

-sprays made to protect all fine turf for this week

-penetrants applied to greens to help with water penetration in the event of a t storm; on the flip side, this wreaked havoc on the afternoon with 95 degrees as the greens were drying too fast

-made an extra nutrient spray to our roughs to make sure it was thick enough, since green speeds and firmness were not going to be able to defend the course

-trying to get all the rough mowed in advance during a holiday weekend and then allow it to grow out in time for the Arcola Cup

-making an extra growth regulator spray to help slow growth even more on greens

As a wrap up, the greens were stimped at 5am and 1pm during the Arcola Cup and were rolling 14' 6" both times.  Firmness was not where we wanted it due to the rapid dry down on Thursday afternoon with the shift in the weather.  Rough was definitely penal and healthy.  Fairways were a bit softer and that was mainly due to the extreme humidity the past 7 days and they were not effected by the rapid drop in humidity on Thursday afternoon.

While we had the best plans in place for the past 14 days, some things panned out and others did not.  At the end of the day considering everything, the course was shining again even though it was not showing its teeth!

I Told You So

 My favorite line I like to use with my wife is "I told you so".  In my most recent update, I said once we get measurable rain and humidity, the turf is going to explode.  We have had no growing weather all spring and nutrients had been applied throughout to get turf going.  Without natural rainfall or temperatures, the fertilizer is not being used to its full potential.  This past week we saw higher humidity and now we have had 2 good soaking rains, with more on the way.

During the week, we will mow fairways 4 out of 5 days, so we have not mowed fairways since Friday due to the holiday weekend.  The clippings in the fairways are out of control.  That means tomorrow morning we will be making a growth regulator application to fairways to help slow the growth.  This weather is beneficial for us to make the rough a bit more penal for the Arcola Cup this Friday, however, the roughs will be labor intensive next week when we are able to mow them again since we will not mow Thursday on.  

The upside to all of this humidity and rain is no irrigation.  We have not irrigated at night for almost 2 weeks.  While this is great for the turf it is not good for firm and fast conditions.  Green speeds have dropped to 13.8-14.2 with the weather and if the rain continues they will continue to drop.  We will keep you posted with any changes.