April Showers

As I'm sure you know, it's raining. Hard. In the last 48 hours we've had 1.6" of rain come down and it is lashing down as I write. The good news is that we have growth regulation on greens, tees, fairways and a lot of the rough and that, coupled with the cooler weather, means that the grass isn't growing too fast. So, when you do play it will be wet, but hopefully the grass won't be too shaggy. The bad news is that we have rain in the forecast through Saturday.

When it does finally quit raining, we will be in the bunkers adding sand to get them ready for the season. The hope was to have this done for men's opening day, however the weather didn't allow us to get it done this week. The sand that will be going in the bunkers is already here, awaiting transport from the employee lot into the bunkers on the course.

While we won't be needing irrigation for a while, today we got the system charged up and our acid injection and fertigation systems setup for the season. It may seem premature to do this, but this allows us to find any leaks that developed over the winter and fix them before we really do need the system in the summer. While we do our best blowing out the irrigation system in the fall, if there is any water left in the pipes it can freeze and cause breaks that are only found when the system is pressurized again in the spring. The last few years we've had minimal leaks in the spring, however we also haven't had winters as bad as this last one either.

We'll do our best in the next few days to get the course in great shape for opening day on Saturday. I hope everyone has fun this weekend and a great start to the 2014 season!

What's with the brown spots in my lawn?

All of a sudden, there are small brown patches in everyone's home lawn and in the rough height turf on the course.  They were caused by the very cold spell that we had early last week.  The turf began to grow and become very lush.  Then when the cold hit, it burned the tips of the turf.  Because there is still plenty of green tissue, all indications point toward complete and fairly quick recovery.  The recovery will happen quicker if the weather warms up, although the forecast shows no high greater than 58 degrees in the next ten days!  Enough already!

To view a video that explains more about the brown spots click here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPTAKTy9IxM

Solid tine aerification

Yesterday we aerified the front nine greens and practice green with solid tines. We then top-dressed to fill the holes. This process is much less disruptive than when we pull plugs, not only for the greens but for your putting. The greens that have been aerified and top-dressed should heal in about 10-14 days and even while they are healing, they really shouldn't disrupt your game too much. Tomorrow we will finish the back nine greens and then fertilize them to help the healing process along.

This is how small the holes are right after we aerified.

We then topdressed the greens.

And then dragged the sand into the holes. As you can see, they are small and filled in, so the surface is still smooth and shouldn't affect the roll of putts. 

Soon the holes will be filled in and the greens will be firmer and healthier because of this process. 

Ian 

Please excuse our mess!

The volatile spring weather continues to keep us on our feet with a bit of snow today. The good news is that we will be warming up (of course that's relative as it's currently 29) soon and hopefully back to the great golfing weather we had last weekend. Before the rain yesterday, the course had actually dried out quite a bit thanks to the warm weather and the very strong winds. So, hopefully we'll get a bit of wind as we warm up and dry out again, but for the near future it looks like we will be on the cart paths for a while.

This wet spring weather also means that we haven't been able to clean up the course as quickly as we'd like to. On the days when it's wet, we really can't get our vehicles into the rough to grind stumps, or clean them up and fill them with soil and on the days when it's dry enough to do that, we need to be mowing so we don't fall behind. This has led to a frustratingly slow clean up and I do hope that it hasn't affected anyone's enjoyment on the course. I assure you we will get things cleaned up as soon as the weather affords us the opportunity. We continue to add people to our crew and should have more flexibility with our clean up schedule in the near future.

I see that there is a sign up board to commit to playing a faster round of golf outside of the pro shop. So, I thought this article may be of some interest. The real cause of slow play. In this article, John Paul Newport talks about a few different reasons for slow play and a study the USGA is doing to better understand the problem. Now, on the maintenance end of things, I'm guessing none of you want the greens slowed down, so that's probably not a good option. However, what we can try is to cut cups in holes preceding par threes a little tougher and make the par threes less challenging. This may result in less waiting time on par threes if we can do it right. What do you guys thing? Please let me know, we cut cups every day in the summer which means we have plenty of opportunities to try different setup options out that may help speed you guys up. If we find some that cut a few minutes off the length of the round, we can use those on days when we know we'll have a lot of play.

Oh, and don't forget to get your taxes filed if you haven't already.

Ian

Weevils, bunkers and course clean up.

This last week has been productive considering the amount of rain we received. A little more than an inch fell early this week, which washed out the bunkers that were just fixed. However, the guys got around the course today and fixed them up so they are ready for play. On that note, the bunker on #6 was fixed today so that is no longer ground under repair. Besides that we have been cleaning up sticks and stump grindings from the winter and trying to get the course ready for play. Also, Laurena is working on all the beds around the clubhouse and on the property. I think you'll be impressed with the colorful display of flowers she planted.

On Monday we found the first annual bluegrass weevils in our trap at the driving range. This isn't a surprise because we found larvae in the chipping green collar last year, but with the traps this year we will know when their populations are increasing and be able to time our sprays accordingly. Our other two traps haven't yet caught any ABW. As you can see below, they are just little guys, but they are not to be taken lightly.

When you get to #3 tee you'll notice the trench lines from last year's irrigation project are covered in a blue fibrous mulch. We re-seeded and fertilized that trench line and the mulch will retain moisture and hold it in place, hopefully resulting in a good germination. I know that the trench gets very close to the cart path in spots, but please do your best to not drive on it until the grass has filled in, it will really help us out a lot! 

Ian 

Pins are in the greens

Today we put pins in the greens and opened the course. The weather is great and a few of our members are out on the course. If you do make it out to the course, you may notice that there are aerification holes in the greens. This is from a deep tine aerification we did late in the fall. This helps to improve both air and water flow through the soil profile, giving the grass better rooting conditions. These holes will not affect the roll of your putts, and will heal over quickly.

While preparing the bunkers yesterday, our guys found a wash out spot where the drainage was broken and allowed some of the sand and gravel to wash through. The area isn't very large, but it is right where many people would enter the bunker. The pipe is currently full of sand and gravel, so we will attempt to flush that through with a hydra seeder. We can't tap into our irrigation system because it isn't charged up yet. If we aren't able to flush the sand and gravel through the pipe, we will have to dig the pipe up and replace it. If we do that we will probably just pull out all of the old drain pipe, gravel and sand and start over. It would be very similar to what we did to the bunker at 18 green last year. This bunker will be ground under repair until we are able to properly fix it.

This is the drain after Joe dug down to see what had happened.

When this was installed, the 4" pipe was dropped into the 6" pipe below it, however the proper fittings were not used, so they used expanding foam to fill the gap. The 4" elbow that dropped into the 6" pipe broke free, allowing sand and gravel the wash through.

As you can see, the pipe is currently sitting full of water.

Ian 

Spring weather

With the improving weather we have been able to get the spring clean up moving along, cleaning up sticks, blowing leaves and preparing the flower beds for the season. Today we mowed greens and started cleaning out and raking bunkers; just doing these two things makes the course look much better right away. The fairways are slowly starting to lose their winter brown color, and the more sunshine they get the more they will green up. However, despite all this nice weather the course is still very wet, so if you are out and about on the course, please keep your carts on the paths.

Also, we roped off the new sod at the chipping greens and ask that you stay off of it until it has healed in a bit better and we have taken the ropes down. We fertilized it yesterday and rolled it today, so it's looking very good but it still needs time before it is ready to be played off of. 

Finally, I was out and about last weekend and saw something that would never happen at Barrington. Two geese decided to nest right in front of a store, and it seems it was a good spot, because the store owners put cones up to protect the nest. I wish our geese would nest in such obvious spots, it'd make it all the easier to control their population level.