Sprays, weevils and seeding.

Today we were able to get out and spray fairways for the first time in nearly a month, and normally with the weather we've been having we would have a lot of disease. However, the last time we sprayed we tried a new product called Xzemplar and had great success. I'm not sure if you guys noticed, but the fairways are very clean. It's nice to have a product in our rotation that lasts for such a long time. However, the 28 days of control are up so we had to go back out and get them again. Hopefully this clean start to the year will continue. 

On the range tee today I found an Annual Bluegrass Weevil larvae in the thatch layer eating away at our grass. Now, we've been monitoring these guys and have sprayed for them already, but the fact that we found a few weevils doesn't really mean anything, except they somehow survived the first spray we put out for them. If we have a few weevils out on the course they won't do enough damage to disrupt the stand of grass or the playing surface. The only reason why I found it was because I was trying; at a glance you can't really see any damage. We have one more application of insecticide to put out for them and that should give us control for the rest of the year. As you can see below, they don't look like much, but if you let them go unchecked they are capable of doing a lot of damage. 

Finally, after seeing the success we had in the short rough with the bluegrass germination, we decided to try seeding some other rough areas that are heavily infested with bentgrass. The two spots we started with were at the beginnings of 3 and 5 fairway. Hopefully in a few months the bluegrass will have taken hold and start out competing the bent. Below is the beginning of 5 fairway. The lighter spot is all bentgrass and we used a slit seeder to get the seed down in there. Now, we will wait and hopefully watch the bluegrass take over. 

Ian 

Post Bear

I hope everyone that played in the Bear last weekend had a great time and played well. Luckily, we missed a few rains that could have put a damper on the weekend. The last few weeks of nice weather allowed us to get a lot of things done and deliver what I believe was a pretty good golf course. Now that the Bear is done we are back to work trying to improve the course. 

You may have noticed on a few of the holes that yardage tags are starting to appear on the irrigation heads. Mark ordered new tags a few weeks ago and they just showed up last Wednesday. Joe has been putting them out as fast as he can, but it is a slow process. Hopefully he will be done in a week or two and then you'll always know how far you are from the center of the green. 

There are a lot of small things that need done right now, but we're in the part of the year where we really just maintain the course and do small projects as they are needed; we will continue to repair bunker faces, we still have to finish leveling and seeding the stump holes, weed need sprayed and some flower beds still need some mulch. Basically, we're just trying to fine tune the course until the fall when rounds fall off and we start doing more invasive projects that disrupt golf. Hopefully I'll have more to say next week! 

Ian 

Sod work and short rough germination

The last few weeks of nice weather have allowed us to get a lot of work done. The bunkers are looking a lot better after adding sand, the course is green from fertilizing and we are caught up on all our mowing. In fact the weather was so nice and dry that we were happy to get the rain that came Sunday. We are starting to look like a real golf course again, but there is always more work to be done.

Along with adding sand to the bunkers we had one of our guys, Gilli, go around and sod out the worn out bunker edges. The impact is immediate and drastic, and not only does it look better but it makes for a better playing surface around the greens. Bellow I've added a picture of #5 bunker after it was fixed and you can't even tell where it was damaged before. This may look like an easy sod job, but it is tricky and Gilli did a very nice job on all of them.

Now there are some more places where we still need to do some sod work, but we started with the most damaged ones and are working our way down the list. The remaining ones really aren't that bad, but we just want to address them before they get any worse.

Last fall we ran a slit seeder in the rough around the collars to get some bluegrass seed into the soil. We did this because the bentgrass is growing into the rough in some spots and it is a nasty grass to play out of at rough height. Next time you are around the greens, take a look and you'll see the bluegrass seed coming in nicely. The bluegrass we used is a very aggressive cultivar that will out-compete the bentgrass at rough height and give you a nice stand of grass to play out of when you are around the greens.

The dark green patches of grass are the bluegrass coming in.

We'll continue to get everything in the best shape we can for the Bear this weekend. Good luck!

Ian

Weekend watering.

Now that the weather is getting warmer and we have started watering I thought I'd better explain what we're doing when we come back to water on the weekend, as I'm sure you've seen us running around the course. When we come back to water in the afternoon, our goal is not to actually water the grass, it is simply to cool the plant down enough to get through the heat of the day. The plant cools itself through transpiration and on days when it is warm, sunny and windy with low humidity, the plant loses a lot of water. If it loses too much water, it starts to wilt. What we want to do is help the plant through the day, so when we come back we only want to cool the plant down, not actually water it. It's as if we're letting the plant run under a sprinkler or jump in the pool to cool down. You may be wondering why we don't just water more at night, and that's a reasonable questions. We could water enough to get through the day, but the course would be too wet to allow for good playing conditions and I'm guessing that 18 holes of a soggy golf course would be pretty frustrating. While we are doing this we try to disrupt your round of golf as little as possible, however there are times when we may be around while you're golfing, and for that I'm sorry. Just know that we do everything we can to work around you, and while we may bother your group, we will do our best to only do it once.

In order to avoid some frustration for you own let me explain our thought process while watering. If I find a gap in play on the course (usually there are two or three on the course at a time), I'm going to run a lot of heads on those holes before anyone gets there, and then I'll keep returning to that gap as the lead group keeps moving through the course. I always keep the trailing group's pace of play in mind when I'm running heads. For example, say I have a gap from #2 to #5 and you're on #1 fairway. I'm only going to run the heads on #2 for a total of six minutes, and the heads on #3 for a total of fifteen minutes and so on until I reach the lead group. I generally allow for 10 minutes per Par 4/5 and 6 minutes per par 3. So, if you get to #2 and the heads are still running, just know that they are probably about to go down. I try to avoid making you guys have to wait on irrigation, but sometimes you guys play quicker than I anticipate and sometimes I just flat out get the timing wrong and for that I apologize. Now, ff you are just out for a quick few holes keep this in mind because jumping in front of the hole that is getting water is only going to make you wait longer, as I will have heads running ahead of you, or there will be a group where the gap ended. Also, if I'm trying to run say 9 stations, I'll run 3 at a time for 3 minutes each which means that heads will be popping up unexpectedly and if you're jumping ahead of play or irrigation on a previous hole, you may get wet if I'm not around to stop the program I set up.

So, that's what we're up to on the weekends when you see us running around. I'm the guy watering on Saturday afternoons and the other assistant, TJ, handles Sundays.We both handle watering the same way and do our best to make sure we're not disrupting your round of golf. Thanks a lot for your understanding!

Ian