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