Flag stick prisms.

This Saturday one of our members told me that the prisms were falling out of the nuts on top of the flag sticks and as a result about a half dozen of them were not working when golfers were trying to find their distance from the pin. First of all, I'm very sorry we didn't notice this earlier. We've never had this issue before so I know that I never check the prisms when I'm changing cups and none of the other guys do either. We will be keeping an eye on this moving forward. 

Over the past few years we have been using a prism that had metal threads to attach to the flag pole. The problem was that this metal reacted with the metal on the flag stick and the nuts would seize onto the poles and we couldn't get the nuts off to change the flags. We even tried putting the flag poles in the table vice and using channel locks, all that did was destroy the pole and the nut still didn't budge. So this year, to avoid having the nut seize onto the flag pole, we went with a new, less expensive nut that has plastic threads. These new prisms went out with the new poles and flags in early May. I'm not sure when the prisms started falling out, but it probably wasn't soon after based on how many of them are missing. 

We contacted the sales representative we purchased the prisms through today and he got in touch with the manufacturer. They said that they had a problem with the glue that held the prism inside of the nut and have had many customers calling telling them the same thing. They are sending us new nuts with a different glue to hold the prism in and they assure us they will not fall out. We will make sure to check the prisms as we do cups each morning to ensure that this glue is holding better than the first batch. I'm not sure when we'll get the new prisms but the sales rep we get them from usually has stuff to us in a few days. I am sorry we missed this for so long, it sounds like it frustrated a lot of people. 

Prism not in the correct location. 

Ian

Disease pressure, trees and running irrigation.

Over the last week we've had some pretty high disease pressure, specifically for dollar spot. We have been able to keep it in check on greens, tees and fairways there are some areas in the rough where it is pretty impressive. There are certain things we can do besides spraying to minimize disease pressure, one of which is to drag the dew off of the plant. Dollar spot requires periods of extended moisture on the leaf for it to thrive, therefore, when we knock the dew off the plant it cuts down on the time that it has to develop. Mowing also does this but, we don't mow everyday. So, if we have a morning with really heavy dew and we aren't going to mow we send out the drag mat to knock the dew off the plant. This is a quick, easy way to reduce pressure on the plant. 

Dragging dew. 

Dollar spot up close. The white growth is mycelium; it's only this thick when conditions are ideal for growth.

This week we received some trees for the driving range. There are 40 in total and are a mixture of different spruce trees. We already have all but a few planted and they really make the range look better; things were looking a little bare after all the work we've done up there. These will fill in nicely and help to screen the range off from the entrance and keep balls from from flying toward the road running in front of the clubhouse. 

A few new spruce at the entrance. There are more along the back of the range and on the ridge running on the right side of the range. 

While it was only last week that we had a flooded golf course, we are now ready to run the irrigation again. This may seem quick but, we have had a few really nice, drying days this week which has firmed up the course. We've even seen wilt in spots. With temperatures in the mid to upper 80's this weekend we want to water a bit before we fall behind, which can happen quickly with the amount of wind we get on the course. Because collars are always the first thing to wilt we were out with hoses today preemptively watering them along with a few of the fairway spots that are always the first to show water stress. You may notice a foul smell if you drive past a running irrigation head the next day or two. This is because that water has been sitting in the pipe for six weeks or so. However, as we run the system and pull fresh water into the lines that smell will go away. 

The grass bordering the cart path from 10 to 11 has been low ever since the paths were re-paved a few years ago. We have wanted to re-grade the path ever since but have been unable to due to a lack of sufficient fill. Well, thanks to the spoils dug out for the parking spots at the range we now have enough. We will grade this off, grass what we can with salvaged sod from the range and then seed the rest. It will be a nice improvement. 

Ian 

Impressive rain.

On Tuesday we received over 4" of rain in an hour. It was an overwhelming amount of rain for the course to take in such a short period of time. The bunkers bore the brunt of the damage but there were some other spots where we had issues. However, I think the course handled the rain pretty well considering how much fell in such a short period of time. We are still dealing with some damage, but things will be buttoned up again soon and hopefully we don't see another rain like that, well, ever.

#15 Green side bunker.

#11 fairway. This was not sod. The force of the water just peeled everything back.

#7 bunker.

#2 fairway. There was so much water in the drain line that it pushed the sod up.

#1 green. This was about 2 hours after it quit raining. It drained down by the next day.

One of the biggest draw backs to all this rain is how it interrupts our mowing schedule. Today, we were able to mow all 18 fairways for the first time in 8 days, normally we mow every other day. The rough hasn't been mowed at all this week. It's just too wet. Thankfully the rough isn't growing very quickly so things aren't out of control and we will be able to catch up once we can send a few guys out. We also haven't been able to stay on our spraying schedule and, as a result have fallen a little behind on tees. In fact, we went out and hand sprayed the tees yesterday in order to stop some dollar spot that was starting to show up. It took quite a bit longer but if we waited for it to be dry enough to drive on them we would have been eaten up by disease.

If you were on the course today you may have noticed that grass really likes when the sun is shining. It seems like we haven't had two consecutive sunny days for a month and as a result the grass was off color and just didn't look right. Well, today it was glowing green and looking a lot healthier and the only thing that changed was the sun came out. Hopefully it stays out for a while.

Ian

When will we dust off the irrigation system?

On Monday we were closed for the first time in a long time and we didn't waste the opportunity. We ran our PlanetAir over the greens to open up the surface and allow for some air exchange on the putting surfaces. Ideally we would do this every two or three weeks but with all the outings this is the first time we've done it since late May. I suspect some of the reason the greens didn't look quite right is because they needed to breathe a little bit. The PlanetAir not only slices the green but it also acts as a roller, so it's not very disruptive at all, in fact I'd guess some of you didn't even notice we did anything.

Right after PlanetAir. 

On Monday morning we also found a lot of dead spots on 18 fairway, which is a direct result of the crowd that gathered for fireworks Saturday night. It appears that some bottle rockets were shot off, leaving burn marks in the fairway and there were a lot of people who applied bug spray or spray on sun screen. This is likely just a foliar burn and the plant will quickly grow out of it but, if possible please apply your sprayed on bug repellent or sun screen on the cart path in the future. 

Notice how my feet fit perfectly into the spots where the grass isn't damaged? 

I'm not surprising anyone by telling you that we haven't used our irrigation system since May. However, we haven't used our system in so long that it's literally collecting cobwebs. I found an irrigation head this morning covered in them. There's a first time for everything. 

Ian