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