Slooooow Going

The irrigation project continues to rock and roll.  Literally rock in this case.  We strive to install roughly 20 heads per day if possible.  The first two days on Hole 3 were slowed by striking old ductile iron main line pipe several times.  The effort requires digging up around the pipe large enough to get a saw in place, cut the old pipe out, cap it to reduce the chance it floods and seeps water out later on, and then repair the area and continue on.


This process happened 4 times on Tuesday.  We thought the worst was over when we happened upon the left side of three around 220 yards from the green.  Rock... lots and lots of rock.  The twenty head rule was thrown out the window and we managed around 20 feet of pipe installed.  We knew we would encounter some issues along the way, but this illustrates the difficulty in accurately predicting when we will finish.   Although we are roughly on schedule to be done by the end of March, many issues including weather still remain in our path.  In addition many months of follow up work, to level valves, repair settled lines and general clean up will still be required once done.

We look forward to the day when everyone has vacated the site and we can resume normal operations, but until then, keep you eyes out for bumps and holes and check back here for any updates.

Our Weeds Are Tough!

Many times people wonder as we clear out areas of underbrush and vines why we don't rush in and re-plant material.  Comments have been made that it was nice that we cleaned this or that up , but how about making it better looking.  Well as this photo shows the weeds and underbrush here are tough plants.

Years of unchecked growth and good habitat for them to thrive have made formidable foes.  Throwing some round up at them is not enough.  The number of times we have seen plants that are unfazed by roundup have come back stronger than ever are too numerous to count.

That is why once we clear an area, we wait 1-2 years before we attempt to plant again.  It gives us time to continue to knock back the aggressive plants and minimize the risk that we lose the area we struggled to get under control.


As the picture shows, this vine along 3 creek was so determined that a little concrete was not going to deter it from finding it's way to freedom.  So when you see us "clear cut" an area, give us some time, our goal is to continue to beautify the entire course, some areas are just a little more stubborn than others.

Wow Is It Dry!

We have been blessed the past few months of work on the irrigation system with nice dry weather.  In fact I don't think any of us expected to see the weather this nice.  As good as it is, the dry weather has some drawbacks.

A few weeks ago we made the decision to sever the old irrigation system with the thought the cooler weather and fall/winter rains would cary us through.  Unfortunately the lack of rain is starting to affect the seed and sod we have used to repair the damage from the irrigation system and the scars of summer.  It won't be until spring that we see what has survived but we are praying that we see some of the rain due to us at this time of year.  In the meantime, use this nice weather to try your luck on the fast 12th green!

I've been working on my Tempo

Work on 3 Continues

Last year we started the clearing out of the hillside to the right of the 3rd hole.  This process will take a few years to clean out all the unwanted vegitation and vines that populated this area.  While we continue to clean that up with the hopes of planting some flowering trees, we have begun to improve the creekside.  We removed the vines and poison ivy and have sodded a low input grass called fine fescue.

It requitres very little fertilizer or water and likes shady environments.  We don't need to mow it but a few times a year.  It should grow around 6 inches but flow over and cover the slope. This new variety that we have planted is roundup tolerant, so we can hopefully manage weeds a little easier.  If this works in this location, look for us to follow up and try to establish this turf along many more of our creek banks in the future.

1 Down 17 To Go!

Today we started our second hole of irrigation installation.  Hole 6 was successfully installed and is ready to go in the spring.  There are still some details to take care such as removing all the old valve boxes and sprinklers.  This type of work will be performed later in winter when weather slows progress on the main installation.

The new pump station is due to arrive in the next few weeks, so we will be busy preparing the site below the 7th green to make room for its arrival.  We know there will be quite a few rough areas when we are finished in the spring.  It will take a whole year to get things back into the shape we expect, with some sodding needed well into the spring.   As we get familiar with the new system, we hope you will see some of the benefits of the new system.

To Range or Not to Range

The irrigation of the driving range is currently being discussed.  The original plans did not call for installation of irrigation at this time, but provisions were made to make future installation easily accomplished.  The main piping that feeds holes 9-15 pass through this area so connections at a later time are simple.

The reasons for neglecting to add it at this time are the future plans for the range are under development. The five year plan includes the driving range redevelopment in 2015 and it made sense to not perform work and install piping that more than likely would be demolished in this work.

The range requires a substantial amount of work to make it a more enjoyable area for use.  The landing areas needs better targets and currently filled with gullies from washouts due to poor drainage.  Large areas have been overrun with weed grasses, and the lower range structure has a poor hitting area.

All this is being reviewed under the new planning, but in the meantime we are debating the need to irrigate range at this time.  The facts are that irrigation can help the turf on the range in the short term, but cannot overcome all the issues we face.  The drainage and the rutting that is present will continiue to be major issues in having a presentable range.  The targets will not become better with irrigation and the sloping hitting area does not change.  We most likely will lose about 2/3 of the cost involved when we reshape the landing area.  The sprinkler heads themselves will be saved but little else.  It is just too costly and time consuming to work around existing underground wiring and piping.

We have the resources on site to make this a easily doable at this time, the costs are yet to be determined, and of course the range planning and funding are always variable.  Short term gain or long term vision is the debate and both have merit and accomplish something for everyone.  Right now the new irrigation is going well and we hope to move foreward before winter sets in.

Why Bermuda?

We are changing the grass type at the par 3 tees at 9 and 14 to Bermuda grass.  As many know, this grass is prevelant down south and can be an excellent grass there.  In our region it is more commonly a weed and more known for it's off color apearance all winter.  We are truely at the transition zone for this grass, hot enough in the summer but cold enough in the fall/winter to sometimes make things very dicey.

The tees at 9 and 14 are both extremely small for the short holes they represent.  Normal design characterstics call for 200 square feet of useable space for every 100 rounds on this type of tee.  This equates to a tee space needed of around 3500 square feet.  Since both 9 and 14 are in less than half that size and most of our play is in the heat of summer, we decidied to try a grass that will perform better during the summer heat.

Both teeing areas take an intense amount of injury.  Bermuda can be safely fertilized all summer which wil encourage recovery, unlike the cool season grass it replaces.  Bermuda also does not suffer from summer disease and pest that we have to constantly treat for on this injured tees.

It must be remembered that most of the tees here were designed with a much smaller membership and number of rounds played.  Many of the tees that were built were also done when little tree canopy was present.  Combining these two attributes and the need for better surfaces year round, we are always looking on ways to maximize space and improve conditions with what is present.

Some may not like the look of square tees, but in the same space they provide a much larger area for us to move tee markers.  The very back of a tee is not used and the sides see very little wear no matter where the markers are placed, so we are challenged to keep the tees in good conditions in the limited teeing area.  In our experience most of the damage nowadays is from foot traffic. With the new shoes with a multitude of spikes both replaceable and molded into the shoe, coupled the twisting motion of most swings, the shearing of grass is more damaging than any a club makes.  With most play from the same spot, the grass is literally sheared off and not fixable like a divot.  Thats why you see larger patches of missing grass,  all caused by twisting foot traffic.

Since we always fight the same areas, we decided to change up the grass.  If it works, we hope to provide a better year long experience.  If not, we will again try something else, looking for the best fit.  Our wonderful course is not static and always requires us to look for answers to the problems that arise.

Sandy and the Lake

Well again we have another weather event that nature throws our way..... Sandy.  Although it could have been much worse, it still packed a wallop and hopefully was the final punch to a stressful year.  Kind of like the children's tale,  Earthquakes,  Derachos, and Hurricanes.. Oh my!  Here at the club we had winds that peaked around 50 mph and the rain gages averaged around 7.2 inches.

This combination with leaves and limbs has made a mess of the course.  We lost one white pine between the 7th and 8th hole and created a new lake behind the 14th green.  While pretty to look at is still is not enough to water the golf course.

We are diligently working to open the course with playable conditions.  Many times in events like this the view from the club is beautiful, but the unseen holes are a mess.  Most likely when we open the bunkers will still be washed out.  Decisions are made on where to spend man-hours and the removal of leaves, limbs and water are more important.  I would rather make it easier to find a ball by working on leaves than spend two full days raking bunkers.

We are always sorry when we have to close the course to play and we don't take it lightly.  We hope the efforts put forth by the staff will result in an enjoyable round of golf than a frustration in ball hawking.  In the future we would like to rebuild the bunkers with a material that will significantly reduce the time spent repairing bunkers after events like this and thunderstorms, but that topic is for another day.

Spectacular Starts

This was the other morning as we started aeration of the 16th and 18th greens.  It rained on us later that day, but boy was the start a beautiful time of morning and great view to wake up with!

Irrigation Update

Well we are slowly heading into fall and the irrigation system is moving into Phase II.  By the end of next week all the mainline piping will be in and buttoned down.  Despite a lot of mess and construction, we are ahead of schedule and on budget at this point.  This is not to say we haven't found a few items along the way.  Old milk bottles, unknown pipes and drains and sometimes bigger items that change the plans on what we do that day.  The picture here shows what happens when you run into a 48" concrete pipe a little over 18" in the ground.

The mainline pipe was already welded and ready to be put into the ground.  Unfortunately we can't slide the pipe under it, it's just too big.  So we needed to dig 7 feet down and splice our pipe under this obstruction.  Many times when we plan out our disturbance for the day, we try to take into player movements and timing, but others like this just ruin all those plans.

We appreciate the patience while we perform this exhaustive task, we hope the disruption has not been too painful.  The hole closing will begin later next week if the weather holds.  Remember we will be closing one hole at a time to keep 17 open.  Once we have completed the work, we open that hole and move on.

Too early to tell when completion will be, but this has been a great start to a very large project.

Aeration and Weather

There are many reasons for the aeration of greens.  Many articles on it's importance have been written and the practice is one of the most discussed among golfers.  Needless to say it is vital to the health of greens and if we were in charge it would be a practice done even more frequently.  But the point of this discussion is the weather impact on aeration and how it effects playability.  To gain a better understanding I will outline our procedures:

1.  Greens are mowed, since we do not mow for several days afterward to reduce the impact of damaging mowers and grass from the abrasive nature of sand.

2.  Aerifier is run across greens,  pulling cores and using shovels to remove them off greens.  We use a hollow tine with an inside diameter of 0.38".  We effectively pull over 240,000 cores on an average green.  This seems like a lot but actually only affect 4.72% of the surface area on the green.   Of course they are all in the way between your ball and the cup!

3.  Sand is then applied across the green. We will use somewhere between 25-40 tons of sand in this process. The sand must be very dry, if not we can severely injure the green while working with the wet sand.  It is difficult to fill that many holes without the sand bridging across the top,  which happens when using less than dry sand.  It gives the appearance of a filled hole until the first rain, then the sand falls to the bottom.  Our goal is to fill more than 85% of the holes to be effective during this large tine aeration at the edges of the season.  Dry weather, dry greens and low humidity are the keys to helping this process be successful!

4.  We next send a full brigade of staff to blow off excess sand or apply smaller amount to fill areas.  After this we apply any fertilizer or minerals that are needed and water in.

5.  We attempt to roll the green but we need to wait until the surface is dry so as to not pick up the sand and products we just applied.  This is why we wait for several days before we begin mowing to allow all this to settle.

6.  Pray for good weather to allow the healing to begin!

Why was the range closed......

The range area was closed this week due to the need to cross the entrance road with the mainline of irrigation.  The line was one of the larger pipes to feed the course from three up to the upper booster station.  As you can see we never know what we will encounter digging under the course.  In this case a large section of rock was found right under the drive in at the gates and we had to employ as jackhammer to get the pipe in the ground.

We moved the location of the mainline to follow the property line to make way for future renovations to the members parking area.  Currently the main irrigation piping goes directly under the parking area, and if we had done the same we would have needed to move this line in the future to facilitate any attempt to improve the range parking lot.  We apologize for any inconvenience during this time.

Rock under driving range entrance

Annual Bluegrass Weevil

The annual bluegrass weevil or known to us turfheads as ABW's, is a new pest to our area.  It's one we have studied for years as we have seen it destroy turf in the Northeast region (New York and Connecticut).  This little pest was known for it's ability to survive winters and attack Poa annua on shortcut areas (greens, tees, edges of fairways) in the spring and early summer.  The adults would lay eggs, the nymphs burrow into the turfgrass stem causing damage then move into a larva stage and act like a small white grub feeding on roots until it's time to move forward into an adult.  All three stages are seen above.

Usually the damage is light and seen when the temperature rise.  We have been on the lookout for the past several years on the edges of our poa greens and never seen any activity.  As they have progressed down the coast a new issue has become evident.  This pest now has adapted to bentgrass as well as poa grass.  In addition, poa is attacked in the spring, but bentgrass is the choice in our summers.

Why is this so important, well these pests are the reason for the damage to the approach to 8 green as well as the tees at 9 and 14.  What we took for wilt and heat stress was weakened turf from the weevil damage, which is prevalent when the temperatures become extreme and the turf under a lot of stress.

As you can see from the size, it is like finding a needle in a haystack.  We have been advised that subsequent years are worse than the initial infestation.  We are taking preventative measures by adding control programs to the budget for next year, but in many cases it's just hard to beat nature when it comes to defeating all the variables thrown at you.   These issues are heightened when we get summers that exceed normals and turfgrass is pushed to the limits of it's recuperative potential.

Why is the rough so Rough?

This has been the year of years for rough grass.  Almost all the issues for the rough are tied to disease.  This happened over the past 4-5 weeks and was caused by one of three primary agents.  The shorter cut rough around collars and fairways was die back from Grey Leaf Spot on ryegrass.  Largest outbreak since WGCC abandoned ryegrass fairways and switched to bent grass.  The kentucky bluegrass and tall fescue of the rough was taken down by  summer patch and brown patch.

In all cases these diseases were widespread not only at our course but many across the area.  Almost no one was immune to the loss from these three diseases.  I know of some on preventative spray programs that suffered loss due to shortened residual activity due to the extreme environmental pressure.  This year was the hottest on record and the 3rd driest, so combining that with an unusually humid August set up a whammy that many of our older variety of grasses could not survive,   I have submitted a budget that includes preventative sprays for some of the diseases in the rough next year given that we may be able to better help the grass there with irrigation.  

Many of the shortcut areas that survived are sections that we began planting to newer varieties of rye and tall fescue that are bred with some disease resistance.  Our plan for recovery is to start next week with wholesale seeding of newer varieties into the close in rough to establish better tolerance and try to manage these with chemicals and irrigation.  Overseeding is only 20% or so effective when trying to seed into existing stands, but we hope with time to introduce these better varieties into the rough.  The area sodded to the right of 3 fairway past the bridge is some of the newer varieties of tall fescue and it maintained it's integrity extremely well, even mowed low in the short cut.

Many question why we did not spray the rough.  The short answer is that unless you are on an active preventative program the timing and products are too late to be of much help.  In a way, we just eliminated a lot of very weak grass that we can replace with a stronger variety.  We are not alone with this issue and I have some information of the WGCC website in the USGA section detailing issues with the various grasses in our region

The tees at 9 and 14 are different matters, as is the approach at 8.  All these areas were affected by an insect known as the annual bluegrass weevil (ABW).  This weevil is new to Virginia and extremely destructive.  It has been a Northeast pest that primarily attacked Poa annua, or at least that's what was presumed.  Sometime in the last few years, this pest has mutated to attack poa in the spring and then turn onto bent grass as a source of food in the later generations.  With 4-5 generations a year this pest keeps giving and giving.  Anyway,  outbreaks can be a nuisance and controlled, but unless preventatively controlled, outbreaks are not seen until large scale damage has occurred and this is not typically severe unless long periods of heat and drought are in effect to also weaken the insect laden turf.  We are also proposing a strategy to combat this pest next year with preventative sprays.  As in all previous cases once established this pest has outbreaks stronger in the following years.

In addition, both 9 and 14 tees are extremely small with heavy divot pressure.  We are looking at using some of the newer varieties of bermuda sod in both these areas to help hold up to the heavy traffic and heat in these small spots.

The clubhouse viewing area has been overrun by bermuda, so the hotter and sunnier the better.  Unfortunately that look will not be so green come winter, in which painting might be the best answer to be presentable, but when summer sun and heat arrive it looks great.  There are no known remedies for Bermuda control in cool season rough except extreme chemical measures and those are mostly used when a complete stand of tall fescue is sodded and you can start fresh.

What happened to 8 green!

Many of you will notice that there is a large scar across the back of 8 green.  It seems like something is always happening at this green.  After the thinness of last year from being a immature surface and the effects of traffic especially along the walk-on and off areas, we decided this green needed a little push.  By this I mean we needed to get a cushion built up to absorb the everyday foot traffic that our older greens have generated over the years.  This mat layer developed nicely over the winter and the green has held up well to this point.

Recently when we started to bring this green down to the heights of the other greens we started to experience a scalp of the surface.  This is an indication that the green has become too thatchy and needs dilution with topdressing.  Although we have been very regular on this program a few weeks of wet and warm weather, the green like the rough came alive and got thicker than we could handle.

Today we double verticut the surface and removed a lot of excess material in that layer.  This was followed by  heavy topdressing and mowing.  In an effort to see if the surface could tolerate the lower heights a mower was run across the surface on the back of the green  As you can see, it scalped the area.  This damage will be visible for a while, but should not affect putting quality.  There is a lot of grass in this surface and coupled with the generous mat layer, this area should recover in a week or two, just about the same time that we should have this surface mowing the same as all the others on the course.

I know it seems that 8 is troublesome, it has after all been rebuilt 3 other times, but I think once we get this area stabilized we will all see what kind of putting surface it can be and how it truly plays.

Rough Times

Well needless to say the topic on everyones lips is "How about that rough".  I want to address the concerns and facts about the rough on our course.

First we do cut the rough.  In fact we spend nearly 160 hours a week mowing the rough.  It takes us 2.5 days to mow the entire course and we do this twice a week every week when it is growing.  We also have an array of push mowers, string trimmers, and hill climbing mowers to accomplish all the other rough tasks necessary to prepare for play.

If we lose time to rain, member events, shotguns etc, we are losing that needed time to get through all the mowing tasks.  Noise ordinances make it difficult to mow on the weekends, as well as trying to keep the one quiet time to play intact.  The amount of mowing that could be performed if allowed would not make much of an impact.

Secondly, we have 6 different types of grass growing at any one time in the rough sections of the course.  Within these types there are many varieties of different texture and density that have been introduced over the years.  This makes the nature of a uniform and consistent rough almost impossible during the spring flush.

That last statement is whats happening right now, a spring flush.  We were unusually dry all spring and the warm weather and soil, combined with a few heavy rain events has made the soil active for growth.  This natural effect is evident by heavy, lush grass found across all varieties.  Some areas the ball sits up and other down all depending on the type of grass; Tall Fescue, Kentucky Bluegrass, Perennial Ryegrass, Poa annua, or Bermuda that different  areas support, and we have a lot of different areas and sun-shade interactions.

The height the rough is cut at never varies during the year.  A uniform 2.5 inches is set across a all the mowers, and as you can tell, when the flush slows down in June and all summer long the rough is never an issue on a normal basis.  This flush that always occurs at this time of year also coincides with the first great weather in the spring.  If we did not get this flush, I would be worried that something is wrong and a long year with sparse grass is ahead.

Many courses in the area have rebuilt over the years and now contain a uniform rough grass of one or two species.  This is not a comparable circumstance to ours, and unless there is a strong push to tear up the entire course in search of better rough grass, this issue will resurface every year, for a few weeks in the spring.  The rough has gotten better and more dense over the years, which leads to better conditions over the entire season, and that is the idea I would like to stress.  We are always looking at an entire season and planning for the next.  Variations will always occur on older properties like ours over time and thats what makes the game so challenging.  It's a natural environment that must be adjusted for every day, otherwise it would be like tennis.

Aeration Follow Up

As I stated before there are multiple reasons to aerify greens, and really all surfaces.  But in our shallow rooted greens the primary reason is to create pore space for roots.  It seems logical to think that all plants require air, but not only does the above ground part require this natural resource but the roots are really starved for this precious gas.

The roots of grass plants actually require oxygen, versus the leaves that utilize CO2 for photosynthesis.  So where am I going with this, well look at the picture below to see the effects a single hole has on the rooting of our pos annua.  The roots compete for space along with water and soil, which gets compacted from the mowings, rollings and general play.  That little pore space is squeezed pretty tight.  So when we open a free hole to air the roots follow.  It certainly seems like a lot of holes are put into the green, but in fact we only affect about 4-6% of the entire surface when we perform aeration.  That little amount is enough to help these shallow rooted plants thrive and begin to store enough nourishment to help it survive the long summer months.

New Additions

We lost a large River Birch during last years storm near the chipping green.  It was one of the last remaining 150 yard markers from the Lee Dieter days.  Although markers, lasers etc had made it obsolete it did provide some protection for those using the chipping green.

We looked at moving a couple of trees from the 16th hole, a practice I like since they already are accustomed to the location, but determined it was too late in the season to move the  trees safely.  In order to start a new screen, we had two medium sized Maple trees ( 5" caliper) spaded into place yesterday.  They are a variety known as Brandywine.  They should provide a fall color similar to the October Glorys on the right side of the hole.  The process went smoothly with minimal damage and luckily for us nothing was broken in the process.  They are male trees so we hope to avoid those messy whirlybirds in the spring.

Aeration Is Over!

The last week was spent performing aeration operations to the fairways, tees, greens and some rough.  As many know the process is used to promote air into the soil and reduce compaction.  Nowhere is this process more important than the greens.

Our poa annua greens have very short roots and any chance to get some air and improve the soil before the season is welcome.  You may have noticed that the week before the greens became gradually slower.  In order to prepare the greens for this major surgery, over 150,000 holes per green followed by grinding sand into the surface, we begin to start fertilizing and watering a little more about 7-10 days ahead of time.  This not only improves the health of the green but is very important to the recovery and returning us to true putting surfaces.

We did not get a chance to perform this operation last fall due to heavy rains, which makes this seasons aeration all that more crucial.  As the roots of the plant die off in the summer they begin to clog up the soil pore space below the thatch level.  This slows down water infiltration, makes greens soft and the roots starve from low oxygen levels.  With core aeration we physically remove this organic zone and exchange it with sand.

Hopefully the good timing of doing this later in the season coupled with our practices we improve both the overall health of the greens and the recovery of the putting surfaces.

Spring Continues

We sodded the left side of the 3rd green Friday.  With this weird winter weather we have been able to accomplish many tasks that are usually left on a list of To Do's when we start spring.

How we choose projects depends on many factors.  The size of the project, the location and the availability of resources and timing of weather all plays a part.  Most times we are correcting issues such as drainage or recovery from cart traffic.  We are starting to find the time to improve areas that we feel will enhance the playability of the course.

This area left of 3 green contained many types of grass that performed well only under certain conditions.  By stripping all the offending grass and planing a uniform stand we hope to improve the playability and reduce the chance you draw a poor lie.  Unfortunately it also acts as a path for all the carts with handicap flags as well as the primary walk on and off.  Traffic factors asides we continue to seek areas to continually improve the experience of playing at WGCC.

What under the cover?

The 8th green continues to develop well under the cover of white.  Temperatures under the cover average about 6-10 degrees warmer than normal and most importantly, moisture is trapped helping the turf not dry out under the low humidity of winter.

The picture below shows how lush it is compared to the surrounding grasses.  We are mowing the green about once per week and applying sand topdressing and other minerals on a regular basis as we continue to mature the green.

As many have heard me say before, new greens especially USGA greens take 3-5 years to stabilize.  When I say this, it refers to the below surface conditions. The soil begins to stabilize as organic matter improves while we try to manipulate the surface conditions.  As it ages and matures the surface will slowly follow suit and develop it's own character with the breaks and overall movement becoming more pronounced every year.

We will be a little more careful of the conditioning this year as we try to take a more protectionist approach with conditions peaking this fall, when conditions will again become favorable to grass growth. We hope you enjoy the 8th green and will start to see the character of the hole as the year moves on.  For those wondering when it will open, we are planning on having it ready before opening day with  everything depending on how the end of winter and beginning of spring shape up.

A New Year!

One of the exciting things during this time of year is to find the time to attend educational meetings and seminars to find out what is new in the turfgrass world.  Things are always changing, especially with the environmental regulations.  Almost 40,000 new environmental regulations went onto the law books on January 1st of 2012.  Not all deal with our industry, but this puts a heavy burden on how we maintain our course and prods us to look for other alternatives to the practices we now employ.

The challenges for maintaing poa annua greens in this region will be impacted due to these changes in environmental law in the not too distant future.  Look for us to do more experimentation using natural products and increasing our cultural programs (topdressing and aerifying) to prepare for the day when regulations limit our choices.

At one of these winter meetings I had discussions with Dr. Shawn Askew of Virginia Tech.  He is experimenting with a new chemistry (methozolin) to control and eliminate poa annua on greens.  Because of these discussions we have been granted EUP status (Experimental Use Permit) to test this new product.  Look for an update in April when we start some trials on a few areas to see if we can control or eliminate the poa from our greens.

Although we have been blessed with some great January weather, these past few days have proved we still have some winter left and I post these pictures to remind those that like to wear shorts,  it's not over yet!