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