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.