Driving Range Mat

     We have installed new Driving Range Mat.  The Fiberbuilt system.  This is a new and improved mat system.  It is built on a frame.  The mat is off the concrete surface about 1 inch.  This allows water to drain below the mat.  We have 2 types of artificial grass to hit off of.  1 strip of longer grass that has an adjustable tee placed into it.  You can also hit off of the standing area mat if you wish this is the same material and height that our old mat was like.  We have 7 double sided hitting areas and one spot is for right handed hitters only.  This is a huge improvement from our old mat.

 Laying down the base.

 Base is held together by pins

 Laying mats down in base.

Finished

Soggy

     

     What a year it has been.  As of today we are at 54'' of precipitation since 1/1/19.  We still have 2 months left in the year and I believe we could reach 60''.  The record rainfall in a years in St. Louis is 61.24'' we might be flirting with a record before this year ends. The average rainfall for a year is around 43''.  Since 2009 we have average in the low to mid 40's except for 2012 we had 33'' and 2016 we had 55'' .  

     The good news was we were able to keep our cost down for electricity.  We did not need to water the golf course as much  and we did not need  to fill our lake up. It did stay dry enough for us to get 3 green perimeters sodded last fall.   #7 cart path  and the drainage issue at the Black tee was fixed.

      The bad news is we had a lot of projects on the books that we could not get done because it was so wet.  Drainage work in our fairways.  Limb trimming throughout the golf course.  Renovating #4 fairway bunker were the three biggest projects that have been pushed back until this winter. We also had some winter kill of our fairways and some tee's.  I had to order 2 truck loads of zoysia grass sod to fix our # 9, and # 12 fairways.   #13 red/gold, #16 white/blue  and #18 white tees also needed sod.  Another problem we are facing is our local sod farms lost most of there sod from the flooding.  They ran out of sod this fall.  I had planed to finish sodding our remaining green perimeters on holes 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 16.  That project will  now be pushed back to next year.

    It was not a bad year by no means.  The golf course is in good shape.  Membership is growing and rounds of golf are up.  The future looks bright for Franklin County Country Club.  It will dry out and projects will get completed.  Temperatures are a little on the cooler side this fall.  Hopefully it won't last and you can still get out and enjoy the Golf Course. 

Aerification time

     September 30th. and October 1st. is our scheduled dates for this falls green aerification.  This is a very important cultural practice.  We will be using 3/8'' tines on 2''x 2.5'' spacings.  Aerification helps our greens in many ways.  Thatch reduction, water movement down through the root zone, and air exchange in the root zone.  We want oxygen around our roots and co2 out.  Too much co2 will cause our root system to die.   In about 7 to 10 days you won't know we poked any holes in the greens.  The green will respond positively to the aeration.  They will grow and have a new glow to them.

Bermuda grass update

     We have 3 applications of our Herbicides to control Bermuda grass on all fairways, two applications on tee's and 2 applications on our green surrounds.  If you have  played golf  you will notice some brown areas in our tees and fairways.  Our green surrounds you will see white leaves on some of the grass.  The brown and white grass is the Bermuda grass being hurt by the Herbicides we are using to eradicate this invasive grass.  We will continue this practice until all Bermuda grass is completely out of our greens, tees and fairways.

White leaves of Bermuda grass #15 perimeter

Bermuda in #9 intermediate cut.

Bermuda grass eradication

   

     We have applied our 2nd application of herbicides to remove the Bermuda grass contamination in our fairways and tee's. We are using Fusilade II at 6 oz. per acre and Turflon Ester at 28 oz. per acre on fairways.  Tees we are using Acclaim extra 24 oz. per acre and Turflon ester 28 oz. per acre.  The reason for using different herbicide on tees is because I do not want to hurt any cool season grasses that surround the tee's.  Acclaim will not damage the cool season turf.   This is a slow process, we will continue monthly applications into the fall.

Bermuda grass on the right side of picture is off color.

Course update

    July did not disappoint.  Hot humid and nearly 7'' of rain. We went out 2 times this month and solid tined all greens. Air in the root zone very important when temperatures are in the mid to upper 90's.  Bentgrass need oxygen and the root system is how they get it.  Our nemesis was back again this summer Nematodes.  They always show up when temperatures are hottest.  We have been using 2 different nematicide to control this pest.  They were not 100% effective but they did keep damage down.  Any thin areas will recover.
     We did get few projects completed.  # 7 cart path has been replaced from black tees down to red/gold tees. All the water that ran down the path has been eliminated.  Please be careful running down the path we have new sod along both sides of the new path.  The large white oak tree before 8 greens has been cut down.  We still have to get the log removed.   We had 28 stumps removed.  We are working on filling, seeding and strawing the holes.
    Weather has been fabulous the past week.  It will warm up a little then move back down into the mid to low 80's.  Great time to come out and enjoy the golf course.

Solid tining greens.

 Taking out old # 7 cart path.

 Halfway finished

Completed

White Oak #8 on the ground

10 Irrigation leak

     10 fairway developed a wet spot couple of months ago.  We thought it was a valve since all the water was coming out of the valve box.  After digging it up we found out the valve was good.  Water was following the irrigation line.  We found the leak on a 8'' mainline tee.  This line comes directly from the pump station.  We had to order parts to fix the tee.  Our local distributor does not carry parts for anything larger than 6''.  The entire tee was covered with concrete about 12'' - 14'' thick.  That was the most concrete I have ever seen on any irrigation project.  To isolate the leak we had to turn off  3 valves.  This made it difficult to water turf on the back nine. Water had to come all the way from # 4 fairway past Clubhouse down 18 fairway back to 17.  The further you got away from 4 the weaker the pressure was.  Back down in 12 and 13 fairways we could not get fairways heads to run properly.  We could only run greens 1 station at a time.  We had the water off to the leak for 3 days.  2 days to install the new tee and 1 day for our concrete thrust block to cure. This was the biggest leak I have ever fixed.  I am glad this job is finished.

 Old tee covered in concrete

 The tractor loader is 6' wide.  lots of concrete

 Ready for the new tee.  8'' coming in from right.  8'' at bottom of picture and 3'' at top of picture.

 New tee ready to be lowered in hole

New tee installed.