Relentless

 

A "pop up" storm came through last night at 5pm dumping almost a half inch of rain in a short period of time.  The course just received 1.5" the previous 24 hours, making it very soft and difficult to mow.  With the humidity back up and constant cloud cover, the course is drying down much slower than we would like.  In weather patterns like this, even the best fungicide programs may not always work.  Lucky we had our fairway aerifier still hooked up from July so only thing we can do is punch holes to help them dry out quicker.  Even though we started punching at 7pm, we got a few areas done before night set in and will continue this morning.  Will it help or hurt the turf, who knows but we are running out of options.

Maintenance Mondays

 

Every once in a while we need those days to get things done uninterrupted.  This past Monday we were closed to get some much needed maintenance done and we were welcomed with almost an inch of rain in the morning, delaying all of our much needed work.  Fortunately we were able to get most of our work completed including hydrojecting greens (below picture).  It usually takes 2 machines 8-10 hours to finish all the greens and with the weather delay Juan stayed to finish our in play greens until 6:45pm.  Getting sand applied to approaches was needed as well as more rain followed washing it in.  Timing is everything.

Turf Improvements

 

You may have noticed some sod going down on Thursday afternoon and basically we are replacing old  fine fescue sod with Kentucky Bluegrass and Tall Fescue sod.  These areas were sodded to fescue years ago and were left to grow naturally and since, we have started to maintain them.  The fescue is very susceptible to certain fungus and cannot tolerate traffic so we felt it was wise to remove it.  We did this on the mound on 8, the tee banks on 15 and 17 and the rear of the ladies tee on 5.  We also removed all the cattails on the pond bank left of 7 green and replaced with KBG sod.  This opens up the view of the pond as you approach the green instead of the wall of cattails that overtook the entire area.  Small changes that many of you may not notice but go a long way in improving the overall appearance of the course.

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.