Ida

 

View from 14 green looking back to the tee

Water almost up to 7 green

Ida Destruction

 

7.2" fell yesterday afternoon and evening leaving a complete mess at the course.  Cant do much until the Sprout Brook recedes by the Garden State Parkway to allow our course to drain out.  We will have our hands full fixing paths, bunkers, cleaning debris and cutting up trees.

Stay tuned for more pics throughout the day.

The Mulherns to the Rescue!

 

Aeration week is a stressful week for all superintendents.  A big part of the process is getting finished on time before members return.  Our fairway topdresser belt had finally failed this summer before the aeration process and with assembly and shipping delays throughout the country, Pat and Mike Mulhern were able to quickly make us a duplicate belt and ship it to us just in time for us to install it and get all the fairways topdressed before the weekend.  A big thank you to them for helping us this week!

Trying To Change Bent to Poa on 11

 

We know our 11th green is a newer green that is mainly bentgrass.  We know over the years poa has been creeping in at a slow pace.  I prefer a poa putting surface for our management programs so we decided to start taking plugs from our poa greens and spread them on the surface.  Once we coat the green we will aerify on top of them, trying to work plugs and poa seeds into the holes to allow them to germinate later on this fall.  We will keep you posted on our progress.

Rough Contamination

 

In a year where our rough has remained really healthy due to the frequent rain events it is easy to see where our issues will be in the coming years.  Our green surrounds were sodded to kentucky bluegrass and tall fescue starting in 2011 when we renovated each and every hole.  In the picture above you can see how bentgrass and poa (our fairway grass types) have contaminated the surrounds.  Bent and poa have different growth habits and colors and stand out.  Also, at our height of cut, they become puffy and get scalped when mowed down.  For the Arcola Cup we had our rough at 6" and have since taken it back down to our normal heights but you can see these puffy patches are not happy.  These are also more susceptible to dollar spot before the KBG, especially in a year like this.  Best case scenario is to strip it out and resod and make sure we get all remnants out of the soil.  The little things like this will go a long way in keeping Arcola looking good for years to come.

New Rollers Here

 

It has been a trying year so far with deliveries and product availability due to Covid.  We got our new roll and gos last week which has helped us get the greens rolled quicker.  We are still waiting on 80% of our new equipment, but each time we get new pieces, it makes our jobs a bit easier.

17 Tee Before and After