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).