Bunker Renovation Update

     Our bunker renovations are being pushed back one week to October 11th.  Schaffer-Meyer has had some technical problems with some of their equipment on job they are finishing.  I am hoping this will be the last set back we see.  We have been having some great weather for construction hopefully it continues into October.

9 white tee

     9 white tee has been leveled and seeded with new Pure Distinction Bentgrass seed.  We will use the front 1/3 as our white tee and the back 2/3 will be our bentgrass nursery.   No more plugs and sod taken out of the west end of the putting green.  Seed should germinate in about 5 days.  Tee will remain closed until next spring.

 Tilling old tee.

 Schafer-Meyer laser leveling.

New leveled tee seeded waiting for water.

Fore The Golfer: Etiquette Towards Course Maintenance Personnel

Great video by the USGA.

What's up with 9 white tee

     You might have noticed we have been removing sod off  9 white tee and fixing some of the collars that were damaged from this past summer heat wave.  The plans is to strip the entire tee.  Not all the sod is good.   We will level the front 1/3 of the tee.  We will reseed the entire tee using the front portion for the white tee box for  #9 and using the back 2/3 portion as a nursery green.  This will allow us to use sod from this green instead of the  putting green.  We will be using the latest bentgrass variety.  The newer seeds are much more heat, drought and disease and insect resistant than our older variety we currently have on our greens.  They are much better to putt on when they mature.  This will help out tremendously no more messed up putting green on the west end.

 9 white tee.  Sod removed from left side

 Repaired collar # 14.

Aerification update

     Here are a couple of photo's of our greens 4 and 5 days after we aerated them.  I am very happy with the results.  4 days after holes are almost filled in. 5 days after we have almost 100% recovery.  We mowed all greens today. We had to dump baskets after each green.  Green were quite hairy.  Below are 2 pictures of greens on hole 5 and 17.

 #5 green 5 day after aerification

#17 green 4 day after aerification.

Aerification completed

     We have finish our fall aerification.  It was a bit of a struggle but we got it done.  Mother Nature did not cooperate with us this year.  Hot and humid was not ordered by us, but we got through it without anyone getting sick.  We aerated all greens except #12.  We will do this green around first week of October.  The hot weather gave us some problems with greens drying down after we aerated and before sand was applied.  Brushing the sand in the holes with the high heat caused some bruising  of some of our greens on the front nine.  You will see some tan spots that were injured a little.  They should grow out of it.  The rain we received the last 2 days will help along with cooler temperatures.  We also seeded all greens again with our new Bentgrass seed.  We  spiked the greens after seed was applied to give the seed as many channels to germinate in.  The only down side to all the
 rain we  receive (4.75 inches) is it can float the seed up and out of the green if greens were covered in water. We only got wash on #11.  All other greens look good.  We might have to reseed #11green again.  Below are a few pictures of the process.

 Dan aerating greens we can do all greens in less than 8 hours.

Picking up cores

                  A cleaned green waiting for sand

Applying sand

    Dragging sand into aerifying holes   

Dan seeding green             

                                                                        Tim spiking greens.                                             

Rain

     Yesterday it started raining around 9:30 a.m. by the time I left work around 3:30 p.m. we had over 1 inch of rain in the gauge.  This morning when came in and my rain gauge was almost half full.  My gauge will hold 11 inches of rain.  I dumped 4.75 inches out of the gauge.  Needless to say Golf Course is soaked.  Water running everywhere.  We did lose a tree on #12.  Big Oak tree in the right rough fell over crossing the cart path about 30 yards from forward tee.  Too much weight hanging towards cart path.  With all the rain tree up rooted. We did get it cleaned up so carts can get by.  We will finish cleaning up the rest of tree when it dries down.  Below are a few pictures of how much water we got and the downed tree on #12.

# 10 Lake water going through emergency spillway.  Notice the Locust tree water boiling up against it.

This is looking back down # 10 towards bridge.  Water is up in 10 rough.

 

Oak tree # 12

My crew cleaning it up.

Green Aerification Time

 

 

 It is that time of the year for our fall aerification.  I know this is not a popular cultural practice.  It is not popular with my staff either.  It is hard work for everyone.  It is one of the most important cultural practices we do.  With out aerifying greens would slowly deteriorate.  They would become spongy, would not hold golf shot, and ball roll would be very inconsistent.  Maintenance wise Isolated dry spots would increase disease and insect damage would go up. That means more money spraying chemicals to control all these problems that would arise from not aerating.
      Bentgrass is a huge thatch producer and the only way to eliminate thatch is to core aerate.  When we core aerate we remove the core and open a channel into the root zone of the green.  This allow air and water to flow freely to the root zone.  Turf needs air for two thing, 1.  Turf needs oxygen to grow it absorbs oxygen from the root system.  2.  Air  help dry the roots system out which encourages deeper roots. Deeper roots firms greens up to accept golf shots.  A dryer root system has less disease and insect pressure. 
     We will aerate all greens except 10, 11, and 12 on 9/6/16 and 9/7/16.  Greens 10, 11, and 12 will be done at the end of September or early October.  I want to give these greens more time to heal and fill in.  We have been very busy seeding and plugging.  Seeding is taking but in the bigger voided areas seed is not as dense as I would like to see. At the time of aeration we will again over seed all greens.  We are introducing a new bentgrass variety into our older bentgrass/Poa greens.  The newer bentgrass varieties are a lot more heat, disease and insect tolerant.
     If you remember in the spring Rob Bardot made a new tool for us.  It helps open up the aerification holes after we aerate greens.  This new tools enables us to punch more holes with a smaller diameter tine.  The results are a quicker heal time for our greens.  Within 10 days you could not tell we even aerated greens.  I know some of you hate aerification time. It will be over before you know it and our greens will thanks us.

Here is video our new Greens broom.  This helps open up aerification holes.