Maintenance Update 12/16/2011

Good morning all,

Well it hasn't taken much time (just some much cooler weather) for the grass to go dormant and the leaves to finally fall.  The last couple of weeks of sub-freezing nights robbed the turf of the rest of it's color.  And after this summer's drought forced trees into hibernation (causing them to hold leaves longer than normal), they have finally shed their leaves.  Unfortunately, with the wet weather we've recently had, we have been unable to get out and pick up all the leaves.  We have worked to keep the greens, tees and fairways blown off, but any wind just scatters them back out.  We will resume picking them up as soon as we can get the tractor and sweeper back on the course.

Tomorrow's "Ulitmate Scramble" marks the end of the 2011 member tournament season.  If you haven't played in it before, it can be quite a fun time.  One of the highlights of the tournament (and why I call it the Superintendent's Revenge tournament) is that I get to put hole locations anywhere on the putting surface.  This includes any and all areas that would otherwise be deemed 'not legal'.  I know there are often times that my set-up guy puts a hole location in suspect spots (and I diligently work with him on this), but imagine all 18 hole locations in the middle of slopes or too close to edges.  Nathan and I went out this week and picked all of the hole locations and, with the current speed of the greens being rather quick, will have to invoke an automatic three-putt rule.  As of this morning, there are only nine four-man teams signed up.  Without a few more entries, Nathan will cancel the event.  While it's going to be a little chilly at the start, the skies will be clear and it should be a beautiful day to have the event.  Contact the pro-shop today to get signed up!

With the turf on the greens going dormant and the final tournament passing, we will be going to the three-hole cupping system next Monday.  Weather permitting, we will change one hole Sunday, one hole Monday and the last hole Tuesday.  Two of the three cups will have covers and we will rotate them based on the amount of play.  Also based on play, after two to three weeks, we will change all three cups.

We are also entering the time of year when it may be necessary to cover the greens.  My general rule of thumb is that if the temperatures are going to remain at or below freezing for more than a 24-hour period, we will cover the greens.  We have already seen overnight lows in the lower 20's, but the highs the previous and following days were in the 40's.  If the situation arises where we have to cover, I will be sure and let everyone know on this forum.

This week we made an application of iron to the fairways.  While the turf is dormant, there is little delineation between the fairways and rough.  The iron does nothing more than "stain" the turf a darker color so that the fairways stand out from the roughs.

In closing, it's been a tough year for golf courses all over the state, but I feel our staff has provided a good product throughout the year.  We do the most with what we have to keep the conditions as consistent as possible.  While we are still about ten inches behind normal precipitation for the year, we are hopefullly nearing the end of one of the toughest droughts in decades.  As Christmas and the New Year approach, I hope you all enjoy time with your families as well as safe travels.

Happy holidays!
Chuck

Maintenance Update 10/18/2011

Howdy all,

I sincerely apologize for not getting any updates out in a while.  It has certainly been a whirlwind past couple of months. 

With the recent changes in weather, it looks as though we will be heading in to the winter with relatively healthy stands of turf on the entire golf course.  Just as it was looking pretty grim, we seemed to receive fortunate and opportune rainfalls.  We received a small amount just before Diamond Cup, which really helped to green a lot of the course up for that event.  We have received right at about 6" over the past 10 days, with the last half-inch coming in late last night. 

Here are some of the things we have and will be working on:

• We repaired the cartpath entering the bridge on #10.  The old slab had sunk about 10 inches, pulling the rebar out with it.  We broke the old section out and drilled new rebar into each adjoining side and re-poured.  Certainly makes for a much smoother entrance.
• I recently re-painted the edges of all of the tee boxes.  Using ropes and stakes, I was able to make sure the edges were straight and the front of the tee was as wide as the back of the tee.  Some tee boxes were made a little wider, some a little smaller.  I also corrected the alignment of many of them so they are directed toward the center of the fairway.  We are currently in the process of verticutting them and anticipate spreading overseed this Thursday.  We will also be seeding the driving range tee and target greens much like we did last year.  Once the seed is down, we will be running watering cycles a couple of times during the day, as well during the evening, until the seed is established.  That being said, the teeing areas will be a little wetter than usual during the next couple of weeks.
• Once the seed comes up on the tees, we will begin mowing at roughly 5/8" and slowly move the height down to 1/2" over the winter.
• We will be changing out all of the flowers around the club this month with cool season color.
• As the cooler temperatures come around, the leaves will be falling with a flurry; especially with the dry conditions we had all summer.  We will work diligently with the blower and sweeper to keep the course as clean as possible of leaves and debris.
• I will be spreading the fall pre-emerge fertilizer this week on the majority of the golf course, excluding areas where we plan on spreading seed.
• We will be marking areas under trees to re-seed with fescue in the coming weeks as well.  Once we put the seed in these areas, we will put ropes around them to keep cart traffic out until the seed is established. 
• The current mowing height on the fairways is 1/2"; intermediate rough is 1" and primary rough is 1.5".
• The mowing height on the greens is 1/8" (.125).  Depending on the weather outlook for this winter, I may adjust a little higher.  Right now the greens are very thick and dense and I feel we are very healthy going into the winter.  The green speeds are a little slower than I would like, but the recent rains have created some fat leaf blades and its difficult to increase the speeds without lowering the height and/or verticutting. 

Again, I apologize for the delay since my last update.  As always, if there are ever any questions, concerns or suggestions you may have, don't hesitate to contact me.

Have a great rest of October!
Chuck McCaskill, CGCS
aggieturfman98@gmail.com

Maintenance Update 08/17/2011

Good afternoon all,

What a blessing we received this last weekend in the form of a half-inch of rain.  While it's not very much, it was over the course of about four hours and was able to soak in nicely.  It was also enough to fill up the creek and give us some much needed irrigation water.  Hopefully we are nearing the end of the brutal summer heat!

We succussfully aerified the greens this past Monday for the last time this year.  I know it seems like we do a lot of aerifying, but it is very much needed and very beneficial.  When I started last year, the greens had an incredible amount of thatch and grain.  You could run your hand one direction across the surface and they would feel smooth, but go back the other direction and it was just the opposite.  By aggressively aerifying, routinely verticutting and topdressing, we have managed to get the grain and thatch under control.  My staff has been doing an incredible job staying on top of the greens this year.  I have done what I can to teach them that you can't treat all 20 greens the same.  Each one is in it's own little micro-climate.  One may need a little extra water; one may need a little less; one may need a little extra sand; one may or may not need to be verticut.  They have taken very well to this idea and have done a great job of doing what is necessary on each green.

We will be closed this coming Monday (Aug 22nd) to aerify and verticut the approaches.  Having to water the greens and surrounds every night, the approaches have become very thick.  Aerifying and verticutting will help thin the stand of grass so we will be able to maintain our mowing height.  I asked that the club be closed while we do this so we will be able to accomplish it all in one day, instead of dragging it out over the course of a week.  I would expect the approaches to be healed in just a few weeks.

We will be opening all of the newly sodded tee boxes this week.  We rebuilt the green tees on #9 and the white tees on #14.  We placed new sod on the red tees on #1, the back of the tee on #7 and the red tees on #10.  I realize there are several other tee boxes with bare areas.  I will be marking and measuring these areas so we can get more sod to repair them.  I hope to have this process completed in the next two weeks, depending on when we can have some sod delivered.

I have also received questions about the bunkers and if we are going to be adding more sand to a few of them.  In my opinion, the bunkers have plenty of sand; it may just be in the wrong place.  I will be looking at each bunker and checking the depth.  If sand is excessively deep in some areas and thin in others, we will move the sand around.  If I determine that sand needs to be added, we will do so as well.  I realize that two of the three practice bunkers around the chipping green are literally unplayable.  The drain lines exiting both of these bunkers are completely sealed up with either tree roots or mud or both.  I hope to be able to tackle this problem in the near future.

With the extremely hot weather, my staff has started working at 5:00 a.m. each day.  This has helped us get the course ready prior to play (for the most part) and enables my staff to go home before the major heat of the afternoon.  I realize some early birds may catch up with us mowing and changing cups and I apologize for that.  Some days we have a lot more going on than others and we are just doing what we can with the resources we have to provide the best conditions possible.  If we end up getting in the way, I appreciate your understanding.

I had a member make a comment to me about the yardage markers on the driving range tee, mentioning that they were difficult to read.  We responded quickly and re-leveled and re-painted all of the them.  Like I always say, I appreciate any and all comments and if there is anything we can do to remedy a situation, we certainly will!

Hope to see you on the course!
Chuck

Maintenance Update 07/26/11

Good morning all,

We are right in the middle of what is turning out to be a scorching hot summer.  I believe we are in a stretch of 20+ days of seeing temperatures over 100 degrees with this week being the hottest.  We have not seen any measurable precipitation since early June.  The golf course is holding up relatively well to the conditions.  We have been relying heavily on the two wells to produce our irrigation water.  One well has been producing about 120 gallons per minute and the other around 60 gallons per minute.  The tee and green complexes are watered each evening, but the rest of the course only gets watered every two or three nights.  I have eliminated irrigating the out of play areas and am concentrating on keeping the tee to green corridors in good condition. 

One negative impact of using well water for irrigation is what it does to the soil.  Based on the chemical composition of water pulled from the Paluxy aquifer, which provides water for most wells in this area, compaction occurs much more easily.  Despite the amount of water we apply to the course, it is still quite hard.  We have been treating the greens and tees via mechanical and chemical means to combat this. 

Here are some things we've been doing over the last couple of weeks:

• All of the tees were aerified and holes filled with sand.  The sand will help aleviate some of the compaction along with gypsum applications.  After we aerified, the remaining ryegrass from this past winter died, leaving several bare areas on the tees.  We totally rebuilt the green tee box on #9.  It was elevated about six inches with sand and we coated it with aerification plugs from a few of the approaches.  It has started greening up nicely and we should be able to open it back up in the coming weeks.  We have also resurfaced the entire red tee on #1, the back of #7 and the entire red tee on #10.  Depending on the materials we have left, we will do some modifications to the white tee on #14.
• The greens were aerified one week ago today and have healed up very nicely.  We removed 3/8" cores and filled with sand.  With the extremely high temperatures and the need to water frequently, the turf on the greens tends to get quite "puffy".  Before we aerified, the walking mowers were causing some scalping so we turning to just using the tri-plex.  After aerifying and aggressive verti-cutting, we are back to using the walking mowers.  We will continue an aggressive verti-cutting program along with topdressing with sand to combat the scalping.
• This past weekend, we lost a big tree on #4 (which happened to be one of the most penal trees on that hole).  With a little bit of wind, the trunk just snapped.  This is quite common under extreme drought conditions. 
• Mowing heights are as follows:  Greens are at .120"; Approaches, fairways and tees are at .450"; the intermediate rough is at 1"; the primary rough is at 1.5"; the fescue is at 3". 

I have heard a lot of great comments about the course.  I always appreciate hearing that and I certainly pass it along to my staff.  As always, please contact me if I can be of any assistance.

Thanks,
Chuck

Aerifying Tees 06/28/2011

This morning, we started the process of aerifying tees.  The process will be much like the greens.  We will aerify, blow the plugs off to the side, topdress with enough sand to fill the holes, and drag the sand in with a metal drag mat.  Since the sand is still very wet from the rain last week, we will need to let the sand sit on the surface for a few hours to dry, which will allow it to be dragged more easily.

Since we will be doing this while play is occurring, we will only do about 6 holes per day.  We are doing our best to impact play as little as possible.  This morning, we aerified 4, 7, 8, 9, 16, 17 and 18.  Wednesday morning we will aerify 1, 2, 3, 10, 11 and 15.  Thursday we will finish with 5, 6, 12, 13 and 14.  Friday morning I will be spreading fertilizer on the tees and watering.

Again, I apologize for any detrimental impact to play we may cause, but this will be very beneficial in helping alleviate the "hardness" of the tees.

Thanks,
Chuck

News and Notes June 24, 2011

What a great week it has been!  Mother Nature blessed us with almost three inches of rain over Monday and Tuesday nights.  After the rain on Tuesday evening, Fossil Creek rose to just over the bridge on #10, which means it came out of the banks onto #'s 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 18.  The damage was minimal, as there was just some debris washed up and a little bit of mud washed into some areas, but the fairways are open and the majority of the mess has been cleaned up.  While we were fortunate to receive the three inches, I spoke with the Superintendent at Fossil Creek and he mentioned they received five inches, which explains why the creek rose like it did.

I have received lots of comments about the "hardness" of many of the tee boxes, particularly the green tees.  I can assure you this is not from lack of water.  Of all the areas of the golf course, the tees receive the most amount of irrigation.  The problem with many of the green tees is that the majority of them are just cut out of the rough, meaning they are composed of pure native soil, which has a very high clay content.  With the hot and windy weather we've been seeing, it's very difficult to keep this soil wet.  The rain helped out immensely.  To combat this, we will be going out next week and aerifying all of the tees.  We will clean off the cores and topdress heavily with sand to fill all of the holes.  This will be a tedious process and will more than likely take several days.  I apologize in advance if it will be an inconvenience, but it should be a great benefit.  As modern golf courses are constructed, tee areas are shaped with native soil and capped with four inches of sand, which prevents them from getting overly hard.  We will continue to do what we can with what we have to provide the best playing surfaces possible.

The greens are really doing great and are rolling very well.  Since they have healed nicely from the last aerification, we will be double verticutting them every week, including this past Wednesday.  This will help keep the canopy thin, keep the surface smooth and hopefully keep the speed where it is.  We continue to use a combination of walk mowers and the tri-plex riding mower.  One thing we have added to the walking mowers is an out-front broom.  The tri-plex is already equipped with this.  As the mowers go across the greens, the brooms help to stand the grass up before being clipped and we see a much better cut.  This will also help to knock down worm castings prior to mowing as well as keep the grain down to a minimum.  Our mechanic was able to take the head from a standard push broom and attach it to the bucket of the walking mowers.  The picture below shows his handy work:

All other areas of the course continue to do well.  There is a large population of dallis grass in most of the rough areas of the course.  I have been spending as much time as I can spot spraying each plant.  Dallis grass is very difficult to control.  As the plant gets mowed, almost any part of the clippings can create a new plant, which is why you seldom see just one plant by itself.  The chemicals used to control dallis grass have a burning effect on bermuda, but will not kill it.  Therefore there will be many brown spots in the roughs where I sprayed.  In a matter of a few weeks, the dallis grass plant will disappear and the bermuda will fill the void.

The following is a list of our current mowing heights:

• Greens height is set at .110"
• Tee height is set at .375"
• Approach height is set at .375"
• Fairway height is set at .450"
• Intermediate rough height is set at 1"
• Primary rough height is set at 1.5"
• Fescue and native rough height is set at 3"
• Note 1/8" = .125; 3/8" = .375; 1/2" = .500

The extended forecast looks like we are in for much of the same of what we've been seeing: hot, dry and windy.  I hope you get a chance to come out and play early to beat the heat and enjoy the course conditions. 

As always, have a great weekend and don't hesitate to contact me if I can be of any assistance.

Chuck
aggieturfman98@gmail.com

Maintenance Update 05/2711

Good morning all,

I apologize for not giving an update in some time, but my blog host has been down and I have not been able to access the site.

We have had a lot going on in the past several weeks.  Mother nature has been very kind to us and blessed us with some much needed rain.  I believe we recorded just over two inches this week alone.  While it was necessary for us to be cart path only for a couple of days, the course handled it well and the grass is really growing.

We have started to get pretty aggressive on the greens.  I realize they have been putting slow, but with the weather the way it has been, they are really growing.  To combat this, we have verticut twice this week as well as run the brush and groomers on the tri-plex everyday.  In addition to the tri-plex, we have been mowing a second time with the walk mowers each day, essentially cutting the greens twice.  Hopefully you have noticed they are much smoother and the double cut each day provides a little more speed than just a single cut.

We are scheduled for our second greens aerification on Tuesday, May 31st.  Much like we did last month, we will pull a core with a half-inch coring tine, clean the debris, mow, fill the holes with sand and apply a granular fertilizer.  I realize the club championships are quickly approaching and we will do everything we can to ensure the greens are ready for those events.

On May 17th, I fertilized the entire course with our annual granular fertilizer application.  This was a unique product in that it was coated with a polymer and the fertilizer is slowly released over the year based on temperature.  Looking at the annual temperature averages for our area and with the amount of fertilizer we applied, this application will last through the entire growing season.  So regardless of the amount of rain we receive or do not receive, the fertilizer will still be hanging around for the next several months.

Also with the recent rains and fertilizer application, the roughs have really started to thicken up.  We got around this week with the rough units set at 1.25".  Next week we will raise the unit to 1.5" and keep it at that height through the summer.  We also started mowing the intermediate cut around the fairways, bunkers and greens at 1".  That height will remain the same.  Once the roughs fill in at 1.5", we should see some great definition between the fairways, intermediate and roughs.  The fairways have been raised to just under half an inch and will remain there as well.  Tees and approaches are still at 3/8", but will be raised in the coming weeks to match the fairways.  And finally we are mowing the greens at .120, which is where we will keep them.  An eighth of an inch is .125 so we are just under that height.

Finally, we will be pulling the rope up from holes #1 and either #7 or #8.  One of those holes (7 or 8) will remain cart path only at all times and we will rotate between the two on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  I also plan to keep up traffic rope on #1 to keep the usual areas under the treeline from getting too worn out.

I hope everyone has been enjoying the great weather along with the course conditions.  Please contact me anytime with any comments or suggestions.

Thanks and have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Chuck

Greens Aerification

We successfully aerified the greens today and had some great weather to get everything done.  We used a small 3/8" diameter aerification tine to pull a core so the healing time and disruption to play should be minimal.  The following is the series of steps we employed to ensure a successful process.

Step 1.  The greens were aerified with our Toro Aerifier.  This process provides four main benefits:  compaction relief; thatch and organic matter reduction and removal; gas exchange; and root zone modification.

Step 2.  Using our pull behind blower, the debris brought to the surface was blown off.

Step 3.  Using the tri-plex mower with the brush attachment in the downward position, the greens were then mowed.  The brush helps to "lift up" the grass blades for a smoother cut.  This also helps to remove any remaining debris.

Step 4.  We applied sand in a criss-cross pattern.

Step 5.  Using a drag brush weighted with a pallet, the sand was worked around the surface to fill all of the aerification holes.

Step 6.  After the sand was worked in, we applied a granular fertilizer and watered everything in.  This is the finished product.



We will water the greens pretty heavily tonight.  Tomorrow I will determine if we need to add more sand.  We will only be rolling the greens Tuesday with our tri-plex roller and, if all looks good, will be back to walk mowing on Wednesday.  Given we only pulled a 3/8" core, I would anticipate the greens will be back in great shape in a short period of time.

City of NRH to Begin Creek Work

On Monday, April 11th, the City of North Richland Hills will begin work on lowering the water line in the creek in front of #10 tee.  This is the large blue pipe that is currently exposed.  A path will be made to allow access just to the right of the ladies tee.  The blue pipe will be cut and a new section put in place to lower the elevation of the pipe.  Once this is completed, the rip-rap rock will be extended from its current position to beyond the blue pipe, so no further erosion can occur in that area.  I have asked the contractors to remove as much of the unused abandoned pipe as possible.  I'm not sure of the extent by which they plan to modify the creek floor, if at all.  But I applaud the efforts of the city of doing away with what has been an eyesore for some time. 

The contractors have 45 days to complete this project.  Depending on the weather, they expected to take not much more than two weeks.  During the phase of repair, I will need to place the tee markers on the other side of the creek.  I will get with Nathan and we will decide if it will be better to play #10 as a par 3 or place the tee markers at the beginning of the fairway so it can still be played as a par 4. 

This is a "before" picture of the project.  I will keep you updated with their process.

Maintenance Update April 7th

What a whirlwind the last couple of weeks have been.  We have been very busy on the golf course.  The weather has been outstanding, although the wind has been pretty tough to deal with.  Here are some things we have going on:

• The drilling company has finished the majority of their work behind #13 green.  They are now in the stages of repairing damage.  Most of the cart path has been replaced by #13 green and #14 tee.  The rest of that area should be poured today.  They will then concentrate on repairing the cart path by #12 tee.  They said they expect that area to go a little slower, since they cannot get a dump truck very close.  The spoils will have to be carted down the makeshift trail to the south of #12 tee.  They still expect to excavate the damaged path in one day and pour the next.  They will also do the installation of irrigation that was removed within the sound barrier.  Once that is completed, the entire area will be sodded with bermuda.  Since the company is doing all of the work themselves, we will unfortunately not be able to construct a nursery green in that area.
• We have been paying a lot of special attention to the greens and the areas that have had a tough time coming back from this past winter.  We are out frequently spot topdressing and hand watering the thin areas.  While many greens look great and have come out of dormancy just fine, we are not seeing very speedy recover on #8, #9 and #16.  I have contacted Champion Turf Farms out of Bay City, TX and they will be sending us a small amount of sod to patch a few areas on these greens and wherever else we may be able to utilize the sod.  They typically cut their sod on Mondays then ship it via FedEx.  I expect to receive it by the middle of next week.  Once we get it, we will have to lay it all out and get it watered.  We will then proceed to the patchwork. 
• We are scheduled to aerify greens on April 18th.  We will be pulling a 3/8" core out and filling with sand.  So long as the weather cooperates, I expect a successful process. 
• I have re-marked all of the fairways and approaches this week.  Instead of having just a straight edged fairway, I have added some contouring.  While some areas got a little wider, you will probably notice more narrowing.  I have already heard some concerns with this making the course more difficult.  I don't expect that to be the case, as what narrowing there is is quite minimal.  We also expect to keep the rough a little more playable this year than last year.  Because of frequent rain events last year, we had to bump the height up to over two inches just to keep it maintained.  We will do our best to keep it under two inches this year.  We are currently mowing at 1.25" and will stay there until all of the roughs are actively growing.  Once they are a little more thicker, we will resume mowing the intermediate rough around the fairways and greens at .75". 
• We received right at one inch of rain Sunday night.  Although it came pretty fast and a majority of it just ran off, it was still beneficial.  This has also been the only measurable precipitation since the last snow received in February.  While I won't ever complain about getting any rain, we could sure use a slow soaker!
• We have several new amenities in play on the course.  Our new 50th Anniversary logo has been transferred on to new flags.  I have purchased new flag sticks, new laser prisms and new pin indicator flags as well.  In the past we have had quite a bit of problem with theft, leaving us with a hodge podge of pins and flags.  Thanks to Nathan and the cart staff, the flags are now picked up every evening.  Also, to prevent the laser prism from coming unscrewed from the top of the pins, I applied threadlock to make sure this would not happen.  In case we have an event that requires different flags, we have a backup set of pins with just a regular nut on top.  We also have new tee markers.  I have a friend that does metal work with a plasma cutter.  I was able to send him a pdf of the leaf logo and we designed the new tee markers.  Once they were cut out, they were powder coated.  We replaced the blue, white, green and red markers.  The tips will still be the original stone markers.

As always, I appreciate any and all comments.  Feel free to contact me anytime or just stop me on the course.  Have a great weekend!

Chuck McCaskill

Verticutting Greens

Just a quick note that we will be verticutting the greens in two directions and applying a light topdressing this Thursday (3/17) morning.  We have started utilizing a different sand this year, which has been thoroughly filtered to remove large particles.  This sand is recommended specifically for Champion Bermuda greens.  Because the larger particles are removed, the sand is able to fall into the canopy and not be such a hindrance to play.  While the vertical mower lines may be visible, ball roll should not be affected.

This morning (Wednesday) we successfully solid tined several areas of the greens that needed compaction relief and just a general "airing out".  We did the following greens: all of #1, the back hump on #5, all of #6, all of #8, the top shelf on #9, the back edges of #'s 11, 12, and 13, the front edge of #15, and all of #16 and 17.  Once we were done with the aerifier, we mowed the greens with the walking mowers.  The holes themselves are barely visible but very beneficial.

Also, as of Wednesday afternoon, we have aerified all of the fairways except for #3 and #5, which we will do Thursday.  We mowed some of the fairways today that we aerified on Monday and they look much cleaner.  I anticipate having all of the fairways mowed and cleaned off before the weekend.

Aerifying Greens, Fairways and Roughs

With the upcoming great looking weather, we will begin the process of aerifying fairways.  After a long winter, the fairways are really compacted and still very thin in the more shady areas.  This will help relieve some of the compaction as well as help promote new growth.  We will be doing the process on 3-4 fairways per day.  This will allow us to run the aerifier over the fairway, give time for the plugs to dry, then take our rotary mower over the plugs to pulverize them.  We should finish this by Thursday of this week and aerifying a few fairways per day should minimize the impact to play. 

We will also be going out to "spot aerify" some of the greens this week.  We will be using a solid "star"  aerification tine and the process will be hardly noticeable.  Several greens have thin areas on mounds and edges from the harsh winter and punching with a solid tine will help speed recovery.  We will not actually pull a plug until April 18th, in which case we will pull a 1/4" plug.

In the coming weeks, we will also be aerifying all of the roughs between the cartpaths and fairways to help relieve compaction.  Once we begin this process, we will remain "Cart Path Only" for a couple of weeks to give the turf a chance to thicken and fill in.

As always please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments!

Thanks,
Chuck

Maintenance Update

Good morning!  It's been a couple of weeks since my last post, so I would like to update everyone with what we have going on at the course.

• We started walk mowing the greens on Feb 21.  Since we currently have a limited staff, we will walk mow the greens during the week and continue to tri-plex on the weekends.  The walkers are able to provide a little better surface than just the tri-plex.  The greatest benefit is the weight of the mower.  The walking mower weighs about 200 pounds.  All of that weight is right above the drum roller and cutting unit, providing much more pressure (in essence acting as a roller to smooth the surface).  While the tri-plex mower is much heavier, all of the weight is distributed across the three tires and not the cutting units.  As we begin ramping up our staff for the growing season, we will work to utilize the walking mowers as much as possible.
• We are officially done with the 'temporary' cups on the greens!  We took plugs off of the edge of the chipping green to replace the additional cups on the greens.  We will resume the original rotation of cup changing.
• You can really tell a difference in the way the greens 'greened up' versus the rest of the course.  There was no magical product we applied.  This is merely the difference of the greens being covered during the severely cold weather.  The fairways and roughs are starting to turn green, but it will be a much slower process.  While the greens are actually green, they are not actively growing.  The temperatures have just been warm enough for the grass to begin respiration and photosynthesis, which makes it green.  A general rule of thumb (and has actually been scientifically proven) is that bermuda will not reach peak growing potential until the day time high and night time low add up to 150.  For example, you will need to see a high of 80 during the day and a low of 70 at night.  This is also useful information when applying fertilizer to your yard.  Unless you are seeing the 150 number, any fertilizer you apply to your yard will not be utilized. 
• We started mowing the roughs at one inch.  This is done to remove all of the dormant material and get sunlight down inside the canopy.  The dormant grass doesn't just turn green again.  The green grass is actually new growth.  Removing the dormant material will help make way for the new grass.  We will also lower the height on the fairways for the same reason.  We headed into the fall mowing the fairways at a height of 5/8".  We will lower the height to just under half an inch and maintain that height for much of the growing season.  I apologize for the mess it makes in the rough.  As we get around mowing, we will do our best to follow with the blower and disperse the clippings.
• Our staff has been busy trimming up trees.  While we aren't utilizing a lift, we are using a 'pole' saw and ladder to get small limbs and suckers up to about 15'. 

As you can see, we are getting into the very busy part of the year.  I hope this information is helpful in explaining a little of what we do and why we do it.  As always, if there is anything I can help explain further, don't hesitate to contact me!

Thanks,
Chuck

Striping on Greens

As I'm sure many have noticed, there is some pretty substantial 'tiger striping' on the greens.  I'll explain this best I can.  I've called many courses in the area and all are seeing the same thing.  When the greens were covered, the covers were wrinkled in many areas, mostly from the high winds.  Then the covers were frozen with ice and snow.  The dark lines on the greens display where the covers were not in contact with the turf, as there was a pocket of air between the covers and the turf.  This pocket of air warmed up much quicker, which explains why these lines on the greens are greening up faster than other areas.  The other areas are greening up, but at a much slower pace.  As we did with the fairways, we will go out early next week and apply iron to the greens.  This will help darken the turf which in turn will attract more heat and hopefully, as it continues to be warm, the greening-up will even out.  Below are a couple of examples of green #15:



I have also heard concerns about the fairways.  I believe a local radio golf show stated that, with the long period of freezing temperatures, golf courses across the area would see dead fairways this spring.  I certainly do not feel that is correct.  While the very cold temperatures may slow down the spring green-up, I don't believe we will have 'dead' fairways.  If the freezing temperatures were not associated with quite a bit of moisture, I may be concerned.  But all the ice, snow and freezing rain only helped to insulate the soil.  You can go to any spot on the course, dig through the dormant material and see green material.  As I mentioned, I would just anticipate the spring green-up to be delayed and much slower.

Winter Blast Update

Good morning everyone!

What a winter blast we are currently in.  The forecast has more severely cold weather moving in this week.  With a little break today (Monday), we will uncover the greens to allow them a chance to 'breathe', and recover tomorrow (Tuesday).  We will still not be open for play until Saturday, given the forecast.  The covers will still be very heavy due to last night's rain, so we are planning to just pull the covers off to the sides to allow the turf a little fresh air.

If the forecast holds, we will uncover the greens on Friday, clean off debris, mow and change cups, which will take the majority of the day.  Saturday looks to be a great day and we should be able to open first thing that morning (depending on frost).

News and Notes

• With the next winter blast of 2011, we will be covering the greens again for the third time.  After speaking with Nathan and Gregg, we will be closing the course on Monday to get the covers out.  The current forecast has severe weather moving in late Monday and lasting through Tuesday night.  We are then expected to see the temperatures staying below freezing until Thursday or Friday.  It's difficult to anticipate when we will take the covers off, but right now it's looking like either Friday or Saturday.  I know it's a substantial inconvenience to close on a nice day, but with the chance of precipitation moving in, it's imperative that we get the covers out.  Once they get wet, they become much heavier and we would not be able to move them.
• We made a herbicide application to the greens last week to take out what poa annua there is.  The population we have this year is substantially less than last years, but it's still visually unappealing.  The chemical we used is very slow acting, so it will take a few weeks before you won't see the plants on the greens.
• We made an application of ferrous sulfate (iron) to the fairways also.  The iron simply 'stains' the turf and makes it much darker to allow for visual distinction between the fairways and roughs.  Below is a picture of #9 to show an example of the distinction.

• As far as pin placements go, we will change cups again on Monday, February 7th.  We will use hole locations 1, 2 and 3, as noted on the hole location maps.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any question or comments!

Thanks,
Chuck

Cart Path Only Holes

Good morning all!

We will be roping off holes #1, 7 and 8 to keep cart traffic from further beating down the fairways and roughs.  With the wet weather coupled with cart traffic, the turf coverage on these three holes has really diminished.  Last year, roping off #1 through the spring green-up really enabled the rough to fill in on the right side under the tree line.  With as much shade as these three holes have, it's a challenge keeping the rough nice and thick, and with the turf currently dormant, it thins out even quicker with any cart traffic on it.

I know this is a hindrance and potentially adds a little time to the pace of play.  It's not my intention to negatively impact anyone's round whatsoever.  I'm keeping the best interest of the course and it's conditioning in mind.

Also, please keep in mind that the par three holes should remain cart path only at all times.  I will be looking at permanent signage to place on holes #2, 6, 12 and 16 that state these holes are cart path only in the near future.

Thank you for your understanding on this matter and I look forward to seeing you on the course.

Chuck

Uncovering Greens Thursday 01/13/2011

Judging from the most recent forecast, the lows Thursday night will only be right around freezing.  That being said, we will spend Thursday uncovering greens, cleaning off debris, mowing and changing the 3-cup rotation.  We will plan on opening for play sometime Friday morning, depending on frost.

As I discussed before concerning the cups, we have had cups on hole locations 1, 2 and 3.  When we change cups Thursday, we will change to areas 4, 5 and 6 as noted on the hole location maps.

Covering Greens

Good morning all!

With the first winter blast of 2011, we will be covering the greens this morning, Monday (January 10th).  With the Weather Channel currently forecasting Monday and Tuesday night below 20, we will keep covered at least until Wednesday.  Whether we uncover Wednesday or Thursday will depend on what the low will be Wednesday night.  If it hovers right around freezing, we will probably uncover on Wednesday.  I will keep this site updated as to which day we will uncover.

There were several area courses that shut down on Saturday to cover.  This was done merely to avoid being out in the cold on Monday.  The moisture we received Sunday helped greatly to insulate the ground.  Plus, being covered for an extended amount of time leads to a greater possibility of disease.  I felt it was a better idea to fight the elements on Monday and only be covered for a couple of days than to shut down on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and be covered for 5 days.

While some neighboring courses have covered their greens already this season, I haven't felt it's been cold enough to warrant covering.  Night-time lows play a big role, but so do the day-time highs.  If the day-time high temps stay around freezing to mid-30's coupled with lows around 20, we will cover.   

January Chemical Applications

Happy New Year to everyone!

Beginning the first week of January, we will be making a wall to wall application of winter weed pre-emergent herbicide.  We will also be adding some Round-Up to the application to kill off any existing weeds.  While making this application, we will have blue spray dye indicator to allow us to see where we have sprayed.  So if the course has a blue tint to it, this is the reason. 

After making the application, the Round-Up must stay on the plant for at least a 24-hour period, as the mode of uptake into the plant is via the vegetation above the ground.  In contrast, the pre-emergent chemical must be watered in within 10 days to get down to the soil.  Once in contact with the soil, it binds with the soil particles to form a layer.  As weed seeds emerge in the soil, they hit this chemical layer and die off, never making it to the surface.  In theory, the pre-emergent chemical does nothing to existing weeds and the Round-Up acts as a "post-emergent" to kill off what has already emerged.

At some point this month, we will also make an application of a more "poa annua specific" herbicide to the greens to clean up any weed populations.  This chemical works very slowly over the course of a couple of weeks.  I've noticed a small accumulation of poa annua on some of the greens.  Once we make this application, the poa annua will simply disappear.

If you have any questions about this process or anything else, don't hesitate to contact me via this forum or my email.

Thanks and have a great start to 2011!

Chuck McCaskill