Drought??????????????

We recieved another .90 inches of rain yesterday returning the course to CART PATH ONLY for at least a day.  Yesterday's rain brings our "year to date" total to 19.10 inches.  There is certainly good news with all the rain we have recieved over the past 6 months.  According to the National Drought Monitor our current drought status is "None" which is quite a change from the "Exceptional" status we held on to for the final 7 months of 2011.  "Exceptional" is the worst drought status there is.  Compare the current Drought Monitor Map of Texas with the map from early October. 

 

 

Hole #5

As of today carts are allowed back on hole #5.  The grass on the mounds has made a great comeback through the winter and early spring.  The combination of little to no cart traffic, rain and a little extra fertilizer really helped the mounds to recover.  Traffic controls are in place along the cartpath to direct cart traffic around the mounds to continue allowing the best conditions for recovery.  Thank you for your understanding over the last few months.

Verticutting greens

I have mentioned verticutting in a couple of posts and thought I would explain more in depth.  Traditionaly grass is cut horizontally by cutting the top of the leaf off with either a rotary mower, the style used on most home lawns, or a reel mower.  On the golf course we use reel mowers on the greens, tees and fairways and rotary mowers in the rough and clubhouse grounds.  A picture of a reel mower unit is below. 


reel mower

 When we veritcut greens we use a unit which has multiple blades that look like circular saw blades.  They cut the grass vertically, cutting the stolons and rhizomes, also known as runners.  This helps to thin the grass canopy and encourages new stolon and root growth.  It is helpful to verticut greens before a topdressing to open up the grass canopy to give the sand a place to settle.  An example of a vertical mowing unit is below.


vertical mowing unit

 

Rain

Rain has been the theme of the year so far.  Today we recieved 1.75 inches bringing our total for the year up to 16.35 inches, which puts us 6 inches more than the year to date average of 10 inches.  Fortunately we did get the greens verticut yesterday.

Blue Paint Lines

Over the last few days and in the coming weeks you will notice blue paint lines around collars and fairways.  We are currently going through the process of evaluating our mowing patterns in both the fairways and collars and the blue lines represent the new patterns.  In the fairways where an area is growing, the rough will appear scalped as we get it mowed down to fairway height.  Once the new mowing heights are established we will discontinue the painting.  Over time mowing patterns change making this process necessary to return character and design to the patterns.  We are taking course design, history, playability and contours of the course into consideration when making these changes.

Saturday AM rain

Since Thursday night we have accumulated 2.25" of rain, 2" of that since yesterday afternoon.  CART PATH ONLY