How turf care decisions are made (or why are carts on the path?)

The green department is responsible for the care and conditioning of the golf course and grounds.  We understand all the factors in play for every decision we make.  From daily mowing and other cultural care, to how will the course play for members each and every day.  We are on the property walking, riding, conferring about the turf 7 days a week, nearly every day of the year.

When a storm or other weather related event occurs, we know the conditions on the ground before, during and after a storm.  We evaluate these conditions multiple times a day, and discuss the impacts.  We base our evaluations on safety to the members and staff, damage to the course, time of the growing season, and effects on play.  We also understand the time and effort it takes to recover from unnecessary damage, the effect on playability, and on the budget.

We know better than most, the members desire to enjoy their rounds of golf using carts.  We do not apply rules to punish those members, or to demonstrate our control of the process.  The one thing we do not factor in is the tee sheet.  These decisions are based on sound management practices.

Over the course of a year, there are approximately 6-8 days that require us to make a judgement call on restricting cart traffic.   My team is constantly conferring about what we see around the course.  We use all available information to determine if conditions will continue to improve or deteriorate.  Our combined 16 years of experience on this course help us base our decisions in the best interest of the club.  In many cases, we feel that one more day of drying conditions will make the course better and safer for all the members in the future.

We know these decisions are not always well understood and certainly not popular, but it is our responsibility to make these decisions in the best interests of all the members.  

The 5th Green

Once again here we go with tearing up and working on a green that seems fine.  In a nutshell your right, there was nothing wrong, except for the grass and the mix and maybe the size, but it worked right?  Well yes it did, but in our search for the best putting green grass for our course we continue to experiment with different surfaces.

Similar to the nursery project we continue to evaluate and search of the best combination of grass and putting surfaces for our course.  We have the luxury of having two greens on this hole to let us experiment.  In this case we again sodded the green to a new species of grass.  Two years ago we sodded the left green to a variety used in this area by many clubs, A1/A4, this combination has proved to be a good putting surface.  As with most things research and genetics work to improve turfgrass for putting greens.

The 5th right green has now been sodded to Luminary.  This grass is one of the new breeds that has shown great performance in the USGA and university trials across the US and especially in our region.   We are the first in our area to have a green with this grass.  The 007 variety on the 8th green was first released in 2007, and has been becoming a dominant player in course upgrades.  We wanted a chance to see how Luminary compared to 007 since it has been receiving higher marks across the board in trials.  Only by using it in real world playing conditions can we see how the performance stacks up to the other grasses.

In addition the sod was delivered in small strips, similar to what we normally see, so we had a chance to observe the process of using small strips versus the large rolls in establishment.  It is too early to tell anything about performance but we are excited to get your feedback once the green opens for play in the late spring.


Below is a little video discussing trees on the course, provided by the USGA:

USGA on Managing Trees

Lots to catch up on

Its been awhile since I've posted and I'm sorry about the delay but many things are occurring as we enter fall.  First and foremost is the upcoming vote on the golf course renovation project.  As you all know this important vote has many ramifications to the club and the use of the facilities, and if it passes how will the new course will look and play.  

As all those things get sorted out, we turn our focus to the details and decisions that may need to be made.  Selection of grass types to be used for greens, tees, fairways and roughs.  What type of bunker sands and how will they look and play.  Should we install liners to help longevity of the bunker sand from heavy rains, do the costs support the use.  Which sod farms can handle our needs and specifications.  These and a 1000 small details start to emerge.  

So where do we start?  The first step we have made is to build a new turf grass nursery to the left side of the 10th fairway.   Over the years we have struggled to find space to grow sod which can be used when a problem arises, and/or to test new grass strains or treatments within our environs. Depending on the time of year and also the amount that is required, we can have a difficult time getting what we need and can also be forced to pay exorbitant prices for small amounts. This nursery will mitigate, and in most cases prevent these issues.

In the past we have located turf nurseries in a variety of places: to the left and in front of the 6^th tee, left of the 7^th fairway, and in the back left of the driving range. All these options were less then optimal due to either visually impairing the golf course, too low with bad drainage, and/or too much shade. The area to the left of the 10^th fairway should overcome all the aforementioned issues. 

Next we start to visit other clubs in the Mid Atlantic and the Research Universities to see what varieties of turf are working best and try to equate those to our growing environments.   Many members are interested in a greens variety  called 007; many local clubs are using this grass; Burning Tree, River Bend, Chevy Chase Club, Baltimore CC and soon Bethesda CC.  Another variety called Pure Distinction is being used in the renovation underway at Caves Valley.  Many clubs in the area including Congressional use A1/A4.   Another variety that we plan to use in the new nursery is Luminary which has seen outstanding results in all the trials.  We will make visits through all the seasons of the next year to see performance under all conditions.

 This combined with testing fairway/tee grasses would be enough, but that still leaves sands, liners, topdressing, construction methods etc... you get the drift.  A lot has yet to be determined.  The budget now seems like the simple process.  We have started a dialog with our USGA agronomist concerning all issues construction related.  If you have a chance you should read our latest site visit report, located on the clubs website, under the greens tab, which will help shed light on the many decisions facing us as we go forward.  A strong discussion about trees will need to happen, I will be updating several articles in my next post to help frame these decisions.

A quick look at the developing nursery under construction.  We hope to have about 1500 sf of greens grass and ~1200sf of fairway grass to test.  With luck we will wrap this up in the next two weeks.  A big shout out to both Trevor and Kevin, they are the two guys working hard to make this happen.  

Some of the debris pulled out of this area

Grading to ensure proper drainage and surface smoothness for greens mowing

Now we are still focused on the course; and you will see us getting a handle on the vine problems right of the 15th green.  Over the last 2 ½ years our staff have been preparing the hillside between the 15^th and 17^th greens to transition to a natural grass habitat. The area had become overgrown with vines that had been attacking the trees as well as being infested with poison ivy. It has taken several years of treatments to rid the area to a point that we are now able to lay sod. The sod provides the necessary base we require and in the coming years we will slowly transition to a mix of longer native grasses. Think along the lines of wispy grasses with a green base underneath.  Next time you play the 15^th I suggest that you walk to the right of the green and take in the views from the top of the hill.  It is truly one of the prettiest places on our course with views of 7 of our holes….a very unique place.

Similar to what you see take place at 15/17 we will begin a similar effort to the left of the 13th green.   The issue of invasive vines is a problem all around the area.  You can see these plants taking over parts of the washington parkway.  Once established they are difficult to eradicate without intense and expensive effort.  Fortunately on our staff now we have a master naturalist, Leigh Pickering, who has taken this as her personal project.  Using practices we used successfully on the 15/17 hill we will begin the long process of creating lifesaver rings around several of the trees to reduce the invasive vines creep on the trees.  This effort will take several years, but the long term results worth the effort.

As for the rest, aeration went well, with all greens, fairways and approaches completed.  Two applications of fall fertilizer have been applied to the entire course and the rough has been over seeded once if not twice in specific areas.  A few drainage projects are still planned for later in the fall, but we have been fortunate to accomplish a lot this fall to date.  I will post more pictures of the completed projects, the new nursery and some site visits as they occur over the next few months.  Enjoy the warm fall weather!

Answers to your rough questions

Last week I was asked the following question by a member: “Why are all the lawns in Country Club Hills green and healthy, but the grass on our course is not?”  Answering this seemly basic and innocent question has multiple benefits to the membership; 1) it is a fair question and no doubt on the memberships’ mind; and 2) it brings to light one of the long term issues we have with the course. I hope the following provides both an answer to the question, as well as what we are doing to address it.  

There are a couple of major differences between the course and a private lawn:

1)  The majority of the private lawns do not have the multiple strains of grass that our course has as well as the height tolerances we cut them. Though there are no doubt multiple grass types in private lawns, it is not to the extent and variety that has been introduced to our course over the decades. In addition, our grasses are exposed to a lot more treatments and growth regulators than are "domestic" lawns, thus the plants are under a higher level of stress.

2)  Compaction: Soil compaction is by far our largest enemy in the fairways and rough throughout the course. Our course has very little topsoil which lies on top of a clay foundation. During the summer we get heavy rains followed by severe heat, since the roots of our plants are very shallow due to soil depth, they are basically “boiled” and put under a great deal of stress. This leads to a plant that dies, or is very weak and susceptible to disease. 

       a)  As you can surmise, as the topsoil layer is compacted into the clay level we are left with a very shallow growing area for the roots of our plants. Lawns do not deal with the constant compaction of the soil and thus the restriction/depth of the root base. Believe it or not, golf carts cause more soil compaction then the mowers. The mowers have very large tires that spread out the weight, much like a snow shoe. Further the mowers do not run over the same areas over and over again as they are scheduled to cut multiple patterns.

b)  Another part of the compaction issue is the small footprint of our property. The carts are all funneled to the same areas and as you can see the stress on the course is very prevalent on hillsides that are near cart paths. The vectors of the golf carts and gravity put a lot of stress on the grass (e.g. #3). Further, areas where people drive constantly have compacted the soil to such an extent that grass is unable to grow (e.g. exiting 6 fairway to the 7^th tee area next to the cart path). 

c)  Due to the topography of our course, balls funnel to the same areas (e.g. #3, #4, etc.); therefore cart and walker traffic funnels to the same areas focusing compaction as well.

There is some good news in dealing with the above issues:

1)  The previous sprinkler system’s piping was in many cases only 4 to 8 inches below the surface; therefore we were limited to but a few inches to aerify the fairways and rough in order not to hit the irrigation piping. The value of aerification is two fold: a) it brings much needed air down to the roots which promotes growth; and 2) we are able to introduce sand deeper into the ground which assists in expanding a better growing environment for the roots. This coupled with topdressing builds up and expands the area where the roots of our plants can grow, thus producing a stronger plant.

2)  When we installed the new irrigation system the piping was set at 18 inches below the surface. In addition, last year we purchased a deep tine aerifier that could go down as far as 10 inches. That is the good news. The bad news is that we simply can't start pounding the ground downing to 10 inches to reduce the compaction, increase the root growth area and the air circulation, thus promoting deep root growth in one season...we have 30 to 50 years of serious compaction. Therefore, we go a little deeper every season and introduce more and more sand in order to build up the base, it is a slow and arduous process.   

3)  A very important part of the Master Plan is to strip the sod, loosen up the soil, reduce the compaction that will enable the root growth to push deeper and reduce the issue of heavy rains followed by severe heat boiling our shallow roots. The ability to loosen up the surface soil and in the coming years focus on deep tine aerification will help a great deal in the expansion of growing areas for our plants. We will always have the challenge of our clay based soil, but by loosen the soil, top dressing, using the deep tine aerifier, and focusing on one type of grass for the fairways and one type of grass for the rough we will form a stronger agronomic basis for the foreseeable future.

This is not a sprint, it is not even a marathon; it is a constant battle. One of the largest benefits of the Master Plan is freeing up the compaction that is the supporting structure of the entire course. A tree may have the ability to grow in Brooklyn...but you can't grow grass on concrete: compacted soil produces shallow roots...shallow roots produce weak plants....weak plants are very susceptible to disease and severe weather changes.  Just like our greens, the foundation of the course is tired. There is no doubt excitement about Tom Doak and the possibility of new "greens," but one of the greatest benefits of the Master Plan is refreshing the base and the compaction reduction of the course throughout....it isn’t exciting....but neither is the foundation of your house.

If we choose not to go forward with the Master Plan we will continue the process of deep tine aerification, top dressing, and attempting to alternate cart traffic throughout the course to reduce focused compaction. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me.

And Here We Go!

Well July was some month and August is starting off with more of the same.  The only good thing is the night time temperatures usually start to relax mid month and we can start to get aggressive with programs to kick start some of the problem areas.

To recap the last 30 days I refer to the stress index compiled by PACE turf laboratories for our location.  The left colored column is a composite of the stress on cool season grasses from air and soil temperatures.  As you can see only red days with a few scattered yellows in the last month.  Conversely those same days were excellent growing weather for Bermuda (warm season grass)

As we try to survive the last of the summer heat, I want to stress the impact carts have on the turf.  We try to avoid being both too wet and too dry which is difficult on this greatly sloping and multi environment course.  But sometimes we are trying to overcome the damage carts impart to the turfgrass.  The first example is just taking a very tight turn.  We often see this in an attempt to identify a ball or sometimes just get closer.  Please pull up to the correct side to play and take the time to get out and look at the identification.  This type of damage now requires us to overwater to avoid this area becoming what we see in the following picture.

Below is the 4th fairway landing area.  A section that can be too wet on occasion, but when left to dry down, excessive cart traffic scars the turf and creates a situation where we will again have to overwater to ensure the turf survives the heat of the late day.

Well enough of the woes of summer heat.  I want to touch on divots and the healing process.  Many always ask what to do when taking a divot and why there is not seed in the mixture.  Simply put bent grass seed in a fairway divot works best in the cool spring on our course.  

At that time of year the seeds stays moist enough to germinate without excessive water, and with no leaves to blow, stays in place until it matures.  In the summer unless the divot is sufficiently large and deep it is best to fill with sand and level off with your foot.

This makes the surface smooth and won't dull the mowers that pass over the sand.  The example below show someone who replaced the divot properly, but due to us trying to dry down fairways the divot died due to low moisture.  This is a difficult balancing act.

A sand filled divot below shows how the bent grass will creep over the scar and fill smoothly on its own if properly filled.  This will not create a depression and will become a smooth playable surface again.  Again using seed in the summer usually only creates another expense, rarely germinates to become viable turf.  Better results happen on tees, which are level and receive more water to continually germinate seeds, and the wetter conditions do not affect play.

In the fall we still rarely use seed since blowers trying to clear leaves, blow the seed in to the rough which creates another type of rough grass to deal with.  Bent grass makes a terrible playing surface when mowed at anything over 3/4" inch, and even worse when mowed at normal rough height of 2 1/4".  

We will begin seeding into rough in the next week or two to re establish the grass that disease and heat took out in the month of June and July.  In most areas the only grass left (hole3) is tall Fescue and Bermuda.  We will be using improved Tall Fescue varieties in this process.  But that discussion of grass types for rough is for next time.

A shout out to my friend Scott Furlong at Robert Trent Jones, who did a magnificent job combating all the early rain to present a tournament course in great shape during a very stressful summer period.  Congratulations to him and his staff for a job well done.  Not sure anyone saw a 61 coming at RTJ especially those who have played the course.  They make it seem like a different game.

July Blues

Well after a long extended period of wetness, now the heat and humidity of normal July are about to return.  We are battling a few issues, mostly related to the elements.  One I've mentioned before is disease  in the rough (every where actually).  Due to the mixed bag of grasses in the rough, at any time multiple diseases are attacking multiple grasses.  I mention this as the picture below shows the difference between a pure stand of tall fescue and the heinz 57 we have.

Above on the left is pure tall fescue, no disease;  same as below left which is new tall fescue sod around the fairway on 15

Whenever I talk about summer and poa annua it always comes down to roots.  High temperatures and saturated conditions mean this shallow rooted plant struggles to compete.  The wet conditions created a situation where the plant had no reason to drive roots deep, so they are even shallower than normal.  The exception seen below is where we have an aeration hole and sand.  That drier condition allowed the plant to put down a few more roots.  It can even be seen that they are very white and healthy.

 This past year we purchased a deep tine aerator that we use in the fairways.  This great picture of some fairway turf shows the effect of an aeration hole and rooting.  Although we have only been able to perform minimal aeration, the results are amazing when air can get into the ground.

Uuuuugh.

Well since my last post there has been another 2+ inches of rain, every day of July so far.  This will not be another pity us blog, but I do want to point out a few things that concern us, but also alert members to some issues that we have no control over.

First, the many issues of being too wet I mentioned in the past post, but here is an example of uncontrollable disease.  The picture below show how affected the rough is to this type of weather.  We do very limited spraying of the rough, but because of our heinz 57 mix, almost any grass can be attacked by any disease in this type of weather pattern.

We would have to spray on a 5-7 day schedule to stop this

 This large limb shown below is from the large Oak at the 7th tee.  This was not storm related, it just dropped one day.  I point this out to be careful when your out there.  The tree and the limb seemed healthy with no obvious signs of distress.  Many of our trees are aging and most were planted at the same time, so as we see some decline around the course, we anticipate others will follow.  Especially trees that see this much traffic around them are more susceptible.  Again this is just to warn you to where you park, or stand.

I mentioned in the last post about the puffy tees.  We performed a heavy verticutt last week to remove excess thatch and apply a sand topdressing.  You can see from this picture how much material we pulled out of the tees.  Again this is not a great time to do this, but the scallping was becoming an issue.  We hope to see these heal in the next few weeks.

Lastly a little information about our lower area below the range parking lot.  It has been mentioned several times that we should reduce the size of the lower area to make the spot more attractive when leaving the 4th tee.  This is a picture of the trucks that deliver sand and compost.  They not only need space to access the area, but also turn around and leave.  A real challenge given our small entrance and tight quarters.  I struggle to find another location that is accessible for these size trucks, which has become the standard for the companies suppling our materials.  We will continue to look for solutions, but you can see we need to plan for these essential supplies.

Rain Rain Go Away...

I remember this little rhyme from grade school and it has never been more appropriate than now.   This is a year of guessing what month are we in now.  April was one of the coldest on record, May the hottest and driest ever ( that 158 years of record keeping) and now June goes down as the wettest ever.   We are switching gears every day on what to do, where to mow and how not to damage what we have.

Just this past 10 days we have witnessed 6 inches of rain at our course.  With old soil greens that do not drain that means dealing with the issue of mowing.  Seems simple, but the weight of the mowers pushes into the turf and causes the mower to scalp the grass, resulting in critical damage to the plant.   Again it does not take much to hurt a tender grass grown at 0.115" tall, in a hot and now very humid environment.  So please be patient while we raise cutting heights, maybe roll some days instead of mow, all in the attempt to reduce damage so when the pattern changes we can return to normal conditions.

As many heard me at the town hall, the 4th green has already started it's slow decline that we witness yearly.  All the rain water from the surrounding homes, draining onto a flat, slow draining green built in a low area surrounded by trees and tall houses is a recipe for problems.

What happens first are the roots start to die back from excessive wet soil, then the water heats up during the day and slowly cooks the roots.  Soil temperatures last week reached over 95 degrees in the soil..  roots stop functioning at 80 degrees, so not hard to guess what happens at 95.

Next algae starts to fill in and suffocates the pore space, leading to the thinning of the grass.

The above is a shot of the roots as seen through our microscopes.  We look at the root hairs to see if there are any other issues, such as disease or nematodes that may be affecting the plant as well.  To give you perspective, the white round things are individual grains of topdressing sand.

We will begin a series of treatments to improve the health of the grass if the weather cooperates.  Then begin an over-seeding program of new bent grass varieties to see if we can get some growth back.  All of this is made more difficult during the hottest and most stressful part of the year, but doing nothing will only lead to more dieback and I hate waiting; doing nothing.  

In addition to the greens we also see this excessive heat and humidity leading to other issues.  You will notice some tees with a scalped look along the edges.  The first, fifth and 13th tee all exhibit the look you see below as well as a few others.   When the humidity raises to high levels, the bent grass becomes puffy causing the mowers to sink into the top and scalp the grass.  There are a multitude of reasons but all of them are related to the humidities effect on the turf.  We can attack this problem better in the fall, but will try a few ideas at some selected spots in the meantime.

The most disappointing effect of all this excess water is the damage to the 15th fairway.  Over the winter we hoped to improve the end of the landing area.  We widened the area, planted bent grass and had hoped to install new drainage.  Unfortunately the winter froze us out of completing this part of the work.  As you can see all the water sits in the new widened fairway area, which has drowned most of the bent grass.  Persistent shade, excessive water and damage from carts and mowers has rendered this area unplayable.

We are trying to install a quick fix, by doing some minimally invasive drainage then installing new sod.  Trying to do so without disruption to play in the height of season is the challenge we are working on now.  We will begin to play this area as GUR soon and hope to have it back ready to play as soon as the sod knits.  This winters work might have succeeded without the weather extremes of mother nature.  The shade issue will need to be addressed for the long run, but for now we are trying to get this back into a playable condition.

Fairways and Color

Many have noticed the golden glow of our fairways recently.  No, we did not forget how to make them green!  Just look at the greens, approaches and tees.  Just like greens we continually combat Poa annual invasion.  It's no small coincidence that with the rough so full of poa that all the other surfaces are slowly being invaded.

After the last two cool years, we have seen a steady rise in poa annua and poa trivialis in the fairways.  It invades in areas of high traffic, low and wet, or shade.  Worst is a combination, see right side of 3 beyond the posts.  The fairway mowers increase its invasive tendencies along the fairway edges from the mechanical damage when mowing on a slope.

Since the time I arrived we have been on an aggressive program to hold it in check.  We and all the other clubs use a variety of growth regulators.  These help strengthen the plant, reduce clippings, and have a tendency to be hard on poa.  After several years on a program we decided to try another tack and used a mixture of regulators.  The effect was immediate, the growth slowed, all varieties of poa were stunted and the bentgrass was fine.

Unfortunately the regulation affect was magnified by the weather.  Abnormal heat in early May coupled with no rain created a brown tint to the grass.  Since the growth has slowed its not fast enough to mow off the brown.  The positive is the bent grass is very good, the poa has been severely set back, and water requirements were less.   The downside is the color.  Playability has not been affected, in some cases slightly firmer conditions.

We will have to back off the regulator just to ensure the poa we have survives the summer (thats a lot of grass), but we know the direction we want to go in the fall, when we will resume applications and begin to inter seed bentgrass.

Here is picture of the rough we sprayed as well.  You can see the distinct line the width of the sprayer in the loop around the fairway.  We have a lot of poa!

As always if you have any questions, please stop me and ask, beware I like to talk turf.  I can also be reached by office phone and email.

Pesky little bugs

In the turf world no year can start off worse than a spring thats 2-3 weeks late and Memorial day early.  Time is very compressed when these two thing occur.  Anyway, golf season is well in hand and the course is beginning to take shape.  Many of you have seen some of our work from the winter, such as the new wall from the 3rd green to 4th tee, the new steps to the range, or maybe the thinning out of some of the trees.

We saw the decline of Bremuda used as a test on the par 3 tees, sod that was frozen for most of the winter and the opening of the new tee at 2, complete with new concrete cart path.  Of course by now you have heard of the master plan being developed by Tom Doak and Renassiance Golf Design.

For us on the turf side, our winter was spent almost exclusively learning about a new, small turf pest called the annual blue grass weevil or ABW for short.  This little pest has been plaguing the northeast for a while.  We always dismissed it as a northern problem, much like many of our issues are never experienced by them.  Well unfortunately this pest has come roaring into our area, and since we have a large population of annual bluegrass, it is something we are very concerned about.

First this little weevil is small, about 8-10 can fit on the head of a penny.  Secondly, it has about 4-5 adult generations per year, which each generation produces a larvae (grub) that feeds on roots.  Lastly there is no perfect timetable to monitor its advance and no great products to kill the larvae stage.

With so many generations in the mix, it is very hard to predict which stage we are witnessing.  Much less trying to find this little pest to start with.  Although eradicating adults can be done, research has shown that even a few sprays applied to control them may make the species resistant to future applications, so we have to be very carful in our planning and monitoring to be effective.

We start by using a vacummn to collect samples from areas we believe to be susceptible and look for adults.  We then continue to collect for several days in these areas to assess if the population is moving and building.  Next we apply products that target the adults, but not all will be contianed.

Next we begin to take turf samples and flush them with a salt bath solution for over an hour and look for the very small larvae.  Think a very small grain of rice for a size reference.

After this salt bath, we attempt to determine which of the 5 stages of the grub are in the plant/soil.  The first two stages are not affected by any pesticides.  They are still in the plant, but only for a few days.  Once they move from there to the soil, they will feed on roots for 10 days before they pupate and begin the transformation into the next generation of adults.

The above picture shows a few small larvae on the blade of the knife.  They are the small white sand size grubs.  This is the only time they are vunerable to pesticide applications.   It needs to be stated that in order for us to effectively kill the grub, the products we use must get to where the pest lives, down in the soil.  This requires us to pre water to soak the soil, then spray and immediateluy water heavy again to make sure the products reach the pest.  This is why you may see us spray and water in the rain.  These products are expensive and short lived, so they need to be put down at a moments notice and irrigaion run immediately or the whole process is wasted.

When missed, they cause damage to the root system of the plant that can be seen here on the 12th green.  This damage showed signs after 2 days; even with a month of monitoring, using vaccumns and salt flushes.  Notice the damage is confined to the poa collar.  They feast on poa first, maybe bent later, but in any case it is one we are becoming experts on.

Below is a picture of a collar damaged from the pests.  The right side is all unaffected bent grass.  The left side is a mixed stand where all the poa has been damaged.

The future of this pest is on the rise, so if we start waving our hands and shaking our heads when the term ABW is mentioned, please forgive us.

Golf Season is almost here!

As we fast approach the golf season you will notice some things going on the course.  The opening of the new 2nd tee will be delayed for approximately two weeks.  As the weather warms up and we get some warmer soil it will start to respond nicely.  So far everything is coming along, but the shear strength of the root mass not as strong as we would like.

What this means is that a divots will be fine, but the twisting motion of those new shoes and spikes (not to mention rusty swings) will tear the sod from the ground.  We are hoping for a few warmer days to get things going and jump start the grass.

There is a new wall leading from the third green to 4th tee.  It was only 40 years in the making!  We also have added some new steps from the parking lot and will try to get this all squared away with some plantings in the new few weeks.  We have planted Vinca all along the wall to hopefully make an attractive ground cover under the existing shrubs.

The grass on the range appears to have taken hold from all the fall planting, so lets hope we can make that sustain all year long.  So far all the drainage work seems to help in the fairways and the new sod at 15 fairway has taken shape nicely.  You will notice more sand on the 3rd, 4th and 15th fairways as we attempt to topdress these areas more often to see if that improves the divot issue.

On that note we have also added another divot bottle holder to the left of the 4th fairway landing area to help those who might have forgotten to take a bottle with them.

The 10th green is still problematic from the winter.  It took a real hard hit from all the high dry winds over the long winter and has been slow to respond to early treatments.  We hope with the increasing sun and warmth it rebounds in time to make the season a great one.  Enjoy the spring, as many times it is short lived in our area.

Winter Issues and the Big Thaw

When the ground starts to thaw out from the long winters sleep, thoughts turn to playing conditions and the golf course in general.  Days like yesterday suddenly arrive and people start to question how we make decisions on opening, general play, and cart rules.

This time of year poses one of the largest challenges to all superintendents in the area.  How deep is the freeze,  how much shade, are you on temporary greens and tees, do you restrict carts,  what's the weather following a thaw, will the sun be out, etc....

There are no hard and fast rules in these conditions,  we can only assess turf conditions on the ground at our facility.  We must weigh the membership needs and wants against the health of the turf, always remembering our most important responsibility is the stewardship of the clubs largest asset.

What starts as frozen and maybe safe conditions can easily turn wet and soft early in the afternoon.  One of the issues we commonly see is frozen ground with a soft wet layer on top.  The dormant roots of a plant are being held in frozen ground, while the top is pliable.  A sudden turn of a cart wheel, spinning in spikes, or a ball mark, causes the turf to be sheared from the tightly held frozen roots.  Since nothing is growing for the next 6-8 weeks this damage will be seen as slowly recovering turf and when we expect the grass to turn green and grow, areas of stunned or damaged turf is left behind.

Cart and foot traffic are some of the biggest reasons for slow green up and we will always error on the side of caution when conditions are vacillating between wet, frozen and dry.  A 68 degree day followed by a week of 30's can be more dangerous than a summers hot and humid day if we don't take precautions.

Tire damage even when carts were restricted to paths

Foot traffic wear on dormant grass on a tee.  Notice green grass in front of the markers.

When we try to start earlier than good sense dictates

At this time of year, we don't have much control on what happens on the course due to weather.  The pictures below show the damaging effects from what has seemed like a mild but cold winter.  Snow that leaves areas exposed when cold winds blow, can have dangerous effects like desiccation and disease.  Short grown grasses like poa annua on greens are especially vulnerable to these effects.  You can see how random the effect can be.  This is why many choose to close greens and cover them to reduce the chance of damage from winter.

The 12th green, desiccation combined with foot traffic

The 10th green, notice the green where the snow stayed and then melted keeping the grass moist

The 10th again, notice the 11th tee is bright green.  Different grass at a different height only 10 yards away

Interesting pattern in the rough, lasting effects from windblown snow.

The extent of the issues on the greens cannot be determined at this time.  The ground is still too frozen to take samples and put them in our shop to see how or if they recover.  We try to apply a late season topdressing to protect the crown of the plant as well as a deep tine aeration to help remove as much water from the surface to reduce freeze and ice damage.  All we can hope for is a general warming trend with sufficient moisture to coax the dormant turf back into shape and hope we can mow off the damage.

Poa annua.... some light reading

Since you will hear much in the coming months about our greens and the Poa greens here, I thought you may like to read what some of the best researchers have to say about this grass.  Many of the ideas in this article have been used here with varying success and failure.  No one procedure works, especially when you factor in the different soils, bio types and growing environments around our course.  Again, just some of the information we analyze when trying to determine our upcoming yearly maintenance programs.

poa annua on golf courses




and some more from the USGA on what you see on the greens

Why so Bumpy?

What do you do all winter?

The number one question we get at this time of year is the title of this post.  Once the grass does not need mowing, most think we revert to playing cards all winter.  We could clean up in Vegas if that was the case!

As most understand we take this time to do multiple projects around the course, drainage, tree work, clearing and general course maintenance.  Everything from items bolted down, to machines that run, need our attention before the long season.  Some simple examples are shown below.

Tee markers stripped down and stained 

A few of the over 25 mowing reels pulled off preparing for teardown

Benches, divot bottle holders, birdhouses all require sprucing up.

The picture below is a little quiz.  Can anyone identify how this perfect little trail of sawdust came to be stretched out across the 1st fairway and rough? 

Add caption

I'll provide an answer next week!

No Time for a Long Winters Sleep

As the days shortened and weather turned colder, we moved into action getting work done thats just not possible during the long days of summer.  What started with the renovation of the 2nd tee complex has moved into fairway drainage, the grassing and expansion of 15 fairway, wall building and some tree work.  I will try to cover as much of this as possible to bring everyone up to speed but many projects will just need to be seen as the weather warms and the days get longer.  Spring is on the way!

The 2nd tee proved an interesting and challenging project.  Take a small defined space, add improved cart paths, adequate tee space for a par 3, room for drainage and irrigation, then provide easy access to the 1st green all without walls to prop up the space.  We think we have accomplished all the goals while increasing teeing area and did not alter the layout of the hole.  We hope you like the look, everything in this small area is a trade off and we think we got the balance right.

While working the area we ran into some items that might have caused some of our prior issues.  In the back tee area a stump the size of a small truck was buried 6" under the surface, while on the front tee a boulder larger than any of our equipment was located barely under the teeing surface of the forward tee.  We had to create large burial holes because both items were too large to remove.  We literally had to roll them into holes.

In addition we added a new path inside the pine tree area to the right of the hole that will remove the player from the oncoming tee shot on 18.  This path is a new material, flex pave, that softens the impact of golf ball, and allows water and air to move through so not to damage tree roots.  This area will be playable by opening day.

Large bolder found under white tee

Stump buried under blue tee

Drain lines installed under surface

View from back of 2nd tee

New Flex Pave path to the right of the 2nd hole

After the 2nd tee we started the process of adding drainage to some our most troublesome areas.  The primary effort was focused on the 4th hole.  This hole suffers from a lot of shade,  large amounts of off site water intrusion from the neighborhood and poor air circulation.  This combined with a very limited hitting area makes this  challenge under the best of circumstances.

We cannot hope to solve all these issues at once, but we felt the ability to reduce the wet areas in the landing zones would be a good first step.  We began by capturing the majority of the water entering the course from the homes and piping it to the storm drains at the start of the fairway.  In addition we added several smaller catch basins and french drains in the main landing area of the tee shot.

After the crest of the fairway we constructed a series of basins and drains to remove the water from the long narrow section leading towards the green.  To remedy the cross bunker from washing out from off site runoff we reshaped the area to direct this flow to the new drains.

We also trimmed some trees along the hole to improve airflow and sunlight.  This process will be ongoing to improve conditions for turfgrass, as time has caused the canopy to become a hinderence to providing better conditions.

Added drainage to collect this off site water

Added drainage to capture this water

We began drainage work at the start of 12 fairway, and continue in the 15th fairway, and the bottom of 8 fairway and rough.  Much of this work is on hold due to weather and will be picked back up in the spring.   These works are an effort to improve infrastructure that will always be of benefit no matter the direction the course takes.   Most superintendents when asked what 3 things could be done to improve their course, respond with drainage, drainage and more drainage.


One project that has been on our minds for years was the replacement of the wall alongside the cart path from the 3rd green to the 4th tee.  The old wall was constructed from the remnants of one of the old pools.  A haphazard collection of broken concrete that was not representative of our continuing infrastructure improvements.  In addition to the wall, we will be replacing the old wooden stairs to the tee at 4, and the wooden steps leading from the range parking lot to the cart path at 4.  We hope this make a better presentation, a safer transition and one that is consistent with other past improvements.

New stone wall from 3 green to 4 tee area

We have taken the 15th fairway out of play for the winter while we performed several upgrades.  First we stripped the end of the fairway and replaced the sod as well as smoothed the surface.  This area is very similar to par 3 tees.  A lot of play from a limited hitting area, which becomes uneven after all the divot sand is applied.  Similar to the fourth fairway, this fairway is challenged by limited sun, air movement, poor drainage and limited hitting area.

When installing new turf we widened the hitting area closer to the creek, and smoothed out the fairway lines to reduce damage from fairways mowers.  This year we will be implementing maintenance practices more in line with a par 3 tees, with topdressing and fertilization practices modified for these areas.  Several trees have been limbed up for improved sightlines.

Just before winter set in we addressed an area of cart path that was some of the worst on the course.  The traverse from the 9th tee to green was a combination low area, drainage hole, red stone and wood timbers with poor asphalt.  We removed the old path, installed some drainage and removed the timbers while expanding the path.

Old path, a mix of surfaces and drainage issues

New path with better functionality

There has been normal tree maintenance around the course over the winter.  We selectively prune, and remove trees that we have observed over the past few growing seasons.  Some trees require us to take action due to safety concerns especially if they are in areas that see a large amount of traffic.  The picture below is an example of one such tree.  We have observed this oak tree for the past few years while we watched for signs of decline.  You can see what looked to most as a normal tree was completely rotted out and was leading to dangerous situation.

I will be making updates as we move towards spring, in the meantime firewood is ample supply, and the staff is busy refurbishing all the equipment and benches, birdhouses and other items that need our care.  The days are already getting longer, so get golf ready.