Water Tower view

I was watering #2 green this morning and looked up and took this picture.  What a view

Lightning Strike

Yesterday afternoon we had some strong storms roll through the area.  Lots of lightning and thunder.  The Hickory tree next to 18 blue tee was struck by lightning.  You will notice the bench right behind the tree.  Just a reminder it is not worth it to stay out on the course during a storm.  This is the second time in the last two months we have had trees struck by lightning.   Most likely this tree will not survive, we will keep a close eye on it.

Hydroject update

Here is picture of holes from Hydroject one day later.  You can see holes have fill in considerably.

 day of Hydrojecting

24 hours later

Hdrojecting

Our last Hydrojecting was completed today just in time for the hottest week of summer.  This could not have been planned any better.  With the 2.5 inches of rain last week and now mid to upper 90's and the humidity going up this week we will need to dry greens out.  Green are in great shape for this time of year.  This Hydrojecting will help keep them that way.

 

 Hole spacing is 3x3.5 inches.  Depth is 5.5 to 6.5 inches deep

 Hydroject green on left

Rolling green after Hydrojecting

Up Date # 6 Fairway

The past 2 months we have been running a experiment on our 6th fairway to eliminate the Bermuda grass growing in it with the Zoysia.  The Bermuda grass is a weed.  I have been spraying a combination of Turflon and  Acclaim two herbicides that that attack the Bermuda but have little effect on the Zoysia.  We have two applications down and have one more application to make later this month.  We are looking at getting 85% control of Bermuda grass after the third application.  Below is a picture of #6 fairway.  The brown grass is the Bermuda being hurt by the herbicide applications.  Once the Bermuda is killed the Zoysia will creep into the voids.

Drainage issue 15 approach

After the 2 inch rain the golf course received last week we had some issues with the approach to 15 green.  two big wet spot developed in front of the green and water was running down the hill into the fairway.  After eliminating that it was not an irrigation leak.  We located the drain lines coming off the front of 15 green that travel down hill to south of 15 of green and fairway.  We discovered the drain line was clogged with tree roots.  The green could not drain with the amount of rain we received so drain pipe filled up with water and came out at the connections that were in front of green. Below is some pic's of our fix.

 Area south of Green

 Tree roots in drain tile

 Trencher

New drain tile installed.

New Rough Mowers

We took delivery of two new Ventrac 4500 P rough mowers yesterday.  This will help us out tremendously keeping up with our roughs.  These mowers are very safe to operate and can go places our older mowers could not go.  They are very easy on our turf as they do not rip or spinout.  We can purchase a number of  accessories to add to the tractors;  stump grinders, blades, sweepers, blowers, aerator, trencher.  These are very versatile machines and should serve the club well for years.

 Tractor with contour deck

 

  Decks are 84 '' Rear discharge

Tee Aerification

We have the fairways aerified now we are working on the tees.  Tees take lot more people and a lot more time.  We are core aerating which means we pull plugs  from the tees just like we do when we aerate our greens.  The plugs are used to fill in ruts and holes throughout the golf course.  After the tees are cleaned up we will topdress with sand.  This will give a smooth surface.  Below are some picture of the aeration process.

 Rob running our aerator purchased in 1993

 #6 Blue tee

 Nick cleaning up plugs

Hole pattern is 2.5x3.  We get 3 to 4 inch depth