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

Verticutting and topdressing greens

Today we verticut and lightly topdressed greens.  These processes are vital to the long term success of our TifEagle ultradwarf bermuda greens.  TifEagle has characteristics that make these processes important: grain, organic matter and thatch production.  The verticutting will help to thin out the green surface encouraging more growth and a tighter surface as well as fighting the grain.  The topdressing fills in the verticut lines as well as diluting the organic matter and thatch the greens produce.  Diluting the thatch and organic matter with sand is important because thatch and organic matter tend to hold water like a sponge instead of letting the moisture flow through it.  When water can flow through the top layer of the green the surface dries out and firms up faster.  This process results in a firmer, smoother playing surface.  The pictures below show the process.  After the sand is applied, it is drug in and the green is ready for play.



verticutting the green






green after verticutting




topdressing the green



green freshly topdressed

Sunday

Superintendents Revenge
I had a good time setting up for this MGA tournament.  I hope all who played had fun with the crazy set-up.  Back to normal today.  No more cups in the collers for at least a year.

Pre-emerge application
The pre-emerge application that got started and rained out on 2/13 is almost finished.  Thanks to all the members who on one of the busiest Sundays I have seen in a while, put up with having an application made on the golf course.  This was the best option we had for completing the application.  The purpose of a pre-emerge herbicide application is to kill the weeds before they are seen.  When it works out as planned this application greatly reduces the amount of weeds on the golf course that have to be treated post-emergent, or once they are visible and an eye-sore.  Pre-emergent herbicide does not have any effect on weeds that are already established.  Those have to be treated with different products, which we are doing when the weather allows.