Rough

     I know some people are rough around the neck with the height of our roughs this spring.  I would like to say when I was hired as your Superintendent 11 years ago one of the biggest complaints I got was the roughs were very inconsistent.  Over the years we have over seeded, fertilize, applied pesticides for grub control, broadleaf weed control, crabgrass control and disease control.  We have also implemented no carts in the roughs.  Most of our roughs have no irrigation and still thrive year after year.  If we did not do these things we would not have roughs, we would be playing off thin turf  or bare ground in many areas around the course.  I take great pride in what we have accomplished with the roughs. 
     Spring is always a big growing time for our cool season turf in our roughs.  They have been asleep all winter with all the stored food they saved up from last season.  When the temperatures rise they begin to wake up and grow when the optimal temperature is met they  grow like no one business.  Add some spring time rain, thunder and a little fertility from our Pre emergent crabgrass control.  It can get out of control at times.  It really gets out of hand when we have mower problems.  We can mow the entire golf course in 2 days with 3 mowers running.  The golf course roughs get mowed 2 1/2 times per week.  This should be ok, but if it rains too much in the week or we have an outing that closes the course or we have a break down some roughs only get mowed once per week.  This has been the case in the past 2 1/2 weeks.   We have had 2 mowers down, it has rained and we had an outing.  Things have gotten better we have one of our mowers back so we can mow the entire golf course in 2 1/2 days.  I am hopeful the 3rd  mower will be back next week.
     At the present time we mow our rough at 2 1/4 inches.  It stays at this height all year.  11 years ago we mowed our roughs at 2 3/4 inches.  We have trimmed 1/2 inch off height of cut.  We have denser and healthier turf now.  We are going to start spraying some growth regulator down on the roughs that grow the quickest.  We can slow growth up  by 50%.  We will start spraying next week to help us get through the spring growth.  After spring mother nature gives us her own growth regulator and that is summer heat.  We will work very hard to give you the best product possible.  I hope this answers some questions you might of had about our roughs.
Thanks,
Ed Wachter