Topdressing ...

“The putting greens were perfect, why did the superintendent need to apply sand to them?”

We are taking advantage of todays rainy afternoon to put another application of sand topdressing on the putting greens and immediate surrounds. This afternoon starts a wet and damp period that looks to last until Friday mid day. The rain will rinse the topdressing into the turf with minimal disruption and traffic on the surfaces.

If you are playing out here this afternoon and saw us start this process, you may have asked yourself the bolded question above. Topdressing greens has a number of benefits. It creates a smoother, firmer, and faster putting surface while also protecting the plant. 

You can read more about sand topdressing and the benefits at the links below. 

USGA: The Benefits Of Sand Topdressing

USGA: Topdressing And Quality Greens Go Together Like Peas And Carrots

USGA: Light And Frequent Topdressing Programs

A picture seven months in the making and protecting the greens ...

Look back if you will to this post made on December 23rd of 2019 about the removal of trees around the 18th green on the West course.

Now fast forward to just a few days ago. Here is the result of our work in December ...

We started here ... 

Used an application to map the sun ... 

Removed the trees ... 

And ended here ... 

Think that helped the green? I do. 

Have you seen the weather forecast? I sure have. This will probably be our most difficult stretch of the summer. Mid-July, the greens are already stressed, and now we will add some real heat and humidity with the possibility of some downpours. All of that equals tough conditions for the turf. 

If you played this morning ( Friday the 17th ) you may have seen us spraying and than watering the greens. Yes, we were watering after spraying despite the fact it was drizzling. We did this because we sprayed a product that needs somewhere between 1/10th to 1/8th of an inch of water to properly protect the plants. We want it to protect from the roots up, so we have to irrigate it into the roots. I apologize for it being done on a Friday, but after seeing the forecast worsen for the next few days, I felt it was best to get it down. We also had a soil surfactant in the tank that will allow us to use less water and more evenly distribute the water we do use in the next couple weeks. 

Along the same lines, we will adjust our mowing schedule while the heat is intense. Tomorrow ( Saturday ) we will cut greens and do a clean up pass. Sunday we will roll. Monday we will skip both cutting and rolling to give the greens a break and we will also spray them again. Tuesday we will cut with a clean up pass and base what we do for the rest of the week on the weather. 

We put a lot of time into bunkers this week. After 4.5 inches of rain last weekend they needed some serious work. They should be much better for this weekend. 

Stay cool!

It is green!

Yes, the greens are green!

I've had a few questions about what we sprayed on the greens last week that made them green. It was not "paint"! It was a plant health product that we use with our snow mold application and it has a green pigment. The green pigment is what you see on the turf. At the very least it should make our snow mold application more effective and it may even help delay dormancy as well as help the plant "wake up" in the spring.

The initial green color is real green. However the sun and rain have already started to mellow the color out towards a more natural looking green.

We did the West course last week and will be doing the East course in the next few days.

Picture below shows a sprayed green ( members/right ) versus a green that isn't sprayed ( public/left ). If you played last week you can probably already see the dulling of color.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone had a good holiday.

We are having some really nice winter golf weather. Tuesday we mowed collars, approaches, and greens on the West course and put down our snow mold application.