Aerification update!

 I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving!

The week before Thanksgiving we aerified fairways and DryJected greens on both courses. 

The DryJecting process went very well. The process involves dried topdressing sand being injected into the greens via a channel created by pressurized water. The hole created is minimal but the amount of sand injected is impressive. As evidenced by the picture below. 

    "DryJect uses a high-speed, water-based injection system to blast aeration holes through the root zone to fracture the soil. The patented vacuum technology simultaneously fills holes to the surface with high volumes of sand or amendment. This means you can relieve compaction, increase water infiltration, reach the root zone with oxygen and amend your soil with high volumes of material all at the same time. Plus DryJect leaves the surface smooth and playable."

Sand channel on the West course PG ... 

The fairway aerification was a bit of a struggle. In the four days leading up to Monday, we received 2.5 inches of rain. To make matters worse, the weather ( drizzle, cloudy, cold ) on Tuesday was very difficult for aerfication purposes and that put us behind for the week. To make matters worse again, we had long frost delays on Wednesday and Thursday and when all was said and done, we only got through 12 holes on the West course. The same company is scheduled to come back and finish the last 7 holes in the coming weeks. The weather will be the deciding factor as to whether that happens. Lets hope it does!

We are still mowing grass out there! As I'm typing this we are mowing the West greens. Despite some cold nights, we've had enough daytime warmth to keep things growing a bit and we will mow as long as that stays the case. 

Hopefully the next blog post is highlighting some successfully repaired irrigation leaks! 

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

Planting seed and killing weeds!

Wow! Missed a month and a half. Time flies when you are having fun! Or something like that ...

A lot has gone on in that time frame though. 

First and maybe most importantly, the tees on both courses plus the range tees, short game area, and Academy were all aerified. No doubt this will prove beneficial moving forward.

Tees aerified ... 

We seeded the East tees shortly after they were aerified, which has gone well. The seed took really well and has filled in on schedule despite the lack of rain. There are a few in which we didn't get great germination and we will be redoing them as we do the West.

Seed germinated and filling in ... 

The driving range tees, short game area, and Academy area have all been seeded also. We should see that seed germinate this afternoon or tomorrow. Should be perfectly timed before whatever rain we get the next two days. We seeded #13 West blue tee and #8 West red tee last week also. So we should also see germination on those two today or tomorrow as well. We started seeding the rest of the West tees yesterday and will hopefully finish them this week plus do some of the still thin East tees again as mentioned above.

Back in July we started adding a herbicide to our fairway sprays that would slowly control the clover in the fairways and tees. #3 and #4 West fairways in particular had numerous sizeable patches, but there were patches present on most fairways and some tees. Well the herbicide did its job well and we have all but eliminated the clover in the short grass areas. In this case, things have to look bad before they will look better. We will put some seed into these areas as time allows. 

Clover "disappearing" ... 

Similarly, we made some herbicide applications to the short grass and rough in spots to start controlling the sedges that have invaded. While the clover was more of an issue in the fairways, the sedges are more concentrated on tee boxes. As we seed the tees these areas will fill in, as seen in the last picture of the set.

Sedges being controlled, seed popping through ... 

We've also tried to keep our promise of cleaner and more frequent bunker maintenance. The playability and appearance of the bunkers really depends on the amount of rain we get. Through dry periods, the bunkers look and play like bunkers. After rain events, they look, well, like something else. 

Bunkers #2 West ... 

Well this is getting long. Hopefully we have more interesting things like this to talk about moving forward. Looks like rain the next few days and with all the seed on the ground it will be beneficial. Unfortunately it will come at the cost of the bunkers and rough mowing time. It can never be easy! 

Member-Guest ...

What a great weekend. Other than the 1.25 inches of rain that washed out and flooded the bunkers Thursday night, everything went as well as I could have hoped. I think the course played and presented well. I also think Eric, Rob, Vaughn, Lynn, and the team put on a great event. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Range Tees ...

Despite the extremely dry and mostly hot weather, we got good germination from the seed we sowed into the range tees. Most of it seemed to survive the period of little to no irrigation also.

Two photos from areas that were still bare enough to see the lines of germinated seed ... 

Maybe not that dry ...

What a couple weeks!

Two weekends ago I started to realize, despite keeping the courses dry and irrigating only as needed, that we were on a fast track to running out of water if we continued to have warm, dry, windy conditions and didn't receive any precipitation. By Monday the 15th, it became clear we were running low and I texted my brother ( who is also a Superintendent ) asking if he had any rain I could borrow.

Well. He didn't. We didn't receive any precipitation either. We were able to irrigate lightly Monday night without any issues but things were dire at that point. I contacted my Regional Agronomist and we decided not to run any irrigation Tuesday. We wanted to be sure we wouldn't run ourselves totally out. We wanted to save some at the bottom of the barrel to use on greens if things didn't improve.

Wednesday the 17th we had a diver come out and clean around the pump intakes in the lake. He also measured how much water we had from the top of the intakes to lake level. Based on what we saw we decided to try to run some water on fairways and tees Wednesday into Thursday. However, it didn't happen. We tried to draw too much water too quickly and the pumps shut down. We still had some water but not enough to match the demand of the pumps.

From that point on we only were running greens and green surrounds. So the fairways, tees, and approaches had not received any irrigation from Monday the 15th to Monday the 22nd.

I wanted things dry, but maybe not that dry.

Our issues are many. Lots of acres. Open course that the wind really blows over. A pond that is on the small side for the acreage. But the major issue stems back to the removal of the low head dams on the Millstone River. The removal of those dams has rendered our river transfer pump useless 80% or more of the time. The river runs so low now that we need a significant rainfall to pump without fear of running our transfer pump dry. We can't pump enough into the pond to keep up with what we are using. And we go long periods without being able to pump anything.

We are milking things along the best we can. I think we have the moisture replenished in the tees ( maybe too wet on some ) and green surrounds, but on the fairways and approaches we just haven't been able to keep up.

The good news is they are forecasting rain for this evening and especially tomorrow. What could go wrong?

Looking good ...

Still looking good! Waiting for the good word from the Gov.

How about that for a sunrise?!

We were treated to couple awesome sunrises the last few days. Makes for a good start to the morning!

We cut greens twice this week which means we have cut all the playing surfaces at least once. We also did some more bunker clean up, getting to some of the bigger fairway bunkers that were holding leaves. 

Maybe the biggest development was the removal of the snow sticks! Hopefully it doesn't jinx us ... 

Another nice weekend on tap highlighted by the Irish Open tomorrow. Sounds like we have a good crowd for it. If interested, here is the link to sign up: Royce Brook GC - Irish Open ...

Enjoy the weekend everyone! 

Mowing! And pond clean up ...

Warm weather upon more warm weather. That has been the theme of this winter for sure.

Things are rolling right along. Everything except the greens have been mowed. We plan to mow them tomorrow ( Monday ) morning.

We are still strategically removing trees. Concentrating on those that are shading putting greens or that are dead and or dangerous.

We have continued to work on overall course clean up and details. Last week, we tackled the ponds near #12 East and #6 West. This was a lot of work as they had gotten overgrown and we were removing what we cut down from the area. I think the work will be noticeable.

It seems like a few of you are out enjoying this beautiful Sunday. Hopefully you enjoy your day!

Pics of the pond clean up below ...

Wet paint!

Wet paint. Wet turf. Wet ground. Wet everything most of the last 10 or 14 days. While still warm, we haven't had great working conditions for the golf course in a while.

We have been productive though! We got a lot done in the maintenance building. Moved the job board, moved and rewired some wire connections. Did some drywall repairs and repainted the entire shop. We also helped removing the rug in the restaurant and have done some painting in the clubhouse. So while we haven't made much ground outside, we have knocked some work out none the less.

Today is another warm one. We are raking green side bunkers this morning and are hoping to get to cups later on. We tried to do this yesterday but things were still too frozen from the cold snap we had.

Spring isn't too far off!

The winter that never was ...

I cannot remember a winter like this one. Will we pay for it over the next month and a half? I hope not.

I think we have made the most of the weather here in the agronomy department. We raked green side traps on both courses on Friday. Saturday we raked green sides and changed cups on both courses. Monday we raked all the traps and changed cups on both courses. Tuesday we put the cherry on top by cutting tees on both courses! The main purpose behind that mow was to clean up the divots and debris that had accumulated on the tees but we also ended up dumping the buckets three or four times per course. So it was a worthwhile.

The 10 day forecast looks like more of the same. So hopefully you can get out and enjoy it!

#10 West tee post mow ...

Another one ...

Looks like a great stretch of weather coming! In preparation for that, we blew out all the green side bunkers on the West course yesterday. We also mulched the areas around the bunkers that had the most leaves. Today we are going to reset cups, check tee markers, and hopefully rake green side bunkers on the West if they aren't frozen.

We took a big tree down from between eight and nine East this week. Had obviously been dead for sometime and was in pretty bad shape. We completed the clean up other than the stump grinding.

Hopefully you can get out and enjoy the course over the next week!

Pond clean up!

We've had a pretty standard 10 days or so in the agro department. We are on our third mow of the high grass areas, which I'm really happy with. I was afraid we would have snow cover or terrible weather for weeks or a month and not much make progress. However we have had a good winter of working weather and we have accomplished a lot.

The last few days we knocked out the pond edge next to the tee on #1 West and behind the wedding area. This area is very visible and had gotten out of control. No longer! Still some work to do around the edge, as some of those small bushes and trees are frozen into the ice. But overall, a much cleaner, neater look.

One to two inches of rain today! Not great for the turf. When we thaw out after a few very cold days like we had early this week, things are sloppy. When we thaw out and get an inch or two of rain, things are very sloppy and easily damaged. 

Have a good weekend!

Pictures of the pond, before top, after bottom. Notice in the first picture, you can't even see most of the split rail fence "before". 

Five more!

Five more ... the number of additional touchdowns the Chiefs would have probably scored if their game against the Texans was a quarter longer. Fortunately for Bill O'Brien and all seven Texans fans, they only had to sit through the normal four quarters. Three of which did not go their way.

"Five more" is also the number of additional trees removed from the east side of the green on #18 West last week as we continue to tackle the shade issues there. This makes 13 trees total out of this area. The big oak tree that resided up against the cart path was removed. It had split almost all the way down the tree, probably from a lightning strike ( pictures below ). We tasked that out to the professionals at Princeton Tree Care. I'm glad it is on the ground. Since we had noticed the split that tree was making me nervous. Two more medium cedars and two smaller oaks were also removed. Those we did in-house. We did all the stump grinding in-house also.

I'm happy with what we have accomplished here. It will no doubt help that green complex. There are four more trees I'd like to do, but all four may be outside what I'm comfortable attempting in-house. There are professional tree care companies for a reason.

Refer back to our first post about this area if you haven't already ...

Some USGA articles about shade:

USGA: Casting Shade
USGA: Shade + Traffic = Dirt
USGA: Let There Be Light
USGA: Light The Way To Healthy Putting Greens

Picture of #18 area before ...

Screenshot of phone app showing sun position ... 

Picture after first set of trees were removed ... 

Picture after last weeks removals .. 

Big oak tree cracked ...

Beautiful!

What a beautiful morning!

We changed cups, blew off greens, and raked green side bunkers on both courses this morning. Enjoy it!

April in January!?!?

How about that forecast! It looks like another week to ten days of mild weather. This weekend is going to feel like April! Not bad for the 2nd weekend in January.

In preparation for what is hopefully a busy weekend we blew off fairways and tees yesterday, finishing them up today. We also blew out green side bunkers and mulched the leaves we blew out where we could. This morning we reset cups and blew off greens. We attempted to rake bunkers but they were still too frozen. Hopefully they thaw out and we can get green sides raked and cups changed in the morning.

I hope you can get out on the course this weekend! I may even tee it up!

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.

Cold!

Wow it was cold for a few days last week. It isn't exactly balmy this morning but we will see some reasonable temperatures this afternoon and seemingly for the week ahead. We will hopefully have our snow mold applications down this week and that will signify the end of our spraying and mowing season.

We have finally finished brush hogging down the "high grass areas". I've referred to them as three different names in my short two months here. Started as "fescue areas", but there really isn't enough fescue left to refer to them that way. So I started using the term "native areas" but found out that doesn't really fit either since what we have growing in those areas aren't really natives. "Poorly maintained, overgrown weedy areas" isn't exactly flattering so we will go with high grass areas for at least a few weeks.

Anyway, so we have finished the brush hogging of the high grass areas. We have now moved to mowing them with a rough mower set at five inches. This will do two things: it will do a better job of mulching up the debris that was left by the brush hog and it should start to thin these areas out as they begin to grow back in this spring. If we have time, after mowing them at five inches, we will go back out and mow them at three inches before spring. That is the goal at least but we have other things we'd like to do and weather will be a factor.

We also did some work that really excites me last week: tree work! During my first few weeks I tried to take note of what I felt were the weakest looking greens. Could be just a thin turf stand, poor recovery of ball marks, or poor aeration recovery when compared to some other greens. The 18th green on the West course seemed to show a bit of all three. It is narrow and pin spots are somewhat limited, which I'm sure doesn't help the cause. Going into aeration a bit on the lean side could have also slowed recovery. However, what I took note of was the trees to the eastern side of the green.

It is generally understood that morning and midday shade is more harmful to turf than afternoon shade. I also have no doubt that spring and summer shade causes more problems for us as turf managers than fall and winter shade. Which makes sense right? Shade is just an extra stress for plants. So adding an extra issue to an already stressed plant isn't helping.

To help the situation we removed eight trees between #18 green West and #1 tee West. The trees we removed were shading the green from sunrise all the way through until about 800am. The sun doesn't rise in the same spot everyday. It will move based on time of the year. I have an app on my phone that will show me the suns path on any given date. In this instance I used July 1st since it is around that time that the turf is stressed the most.

It doesn't get better than a cold winter day and a fresh cutting chain ... to me at least. Thanks for reading!

Screenshot of application showing sun rising through the trees ...

Screenshot of application showing sun rising after trees removed ...

Picture standing on the green from further back post tree removal ...

Winter!

After all of the rain the last few days, I thought this post may be appropriate. While the calendar may say otherwise, we have entered winter mode. The grass is growing very little, if at all. Things are soggy and soft. And we get very little help from the sun.

So what does that mean? Any wear or damage we sustain will be with us until April. This includes frost damage, ball marks, divots, old cup plugs, and any wear or damage from cart traffic. 

What can you do? Make sure you replace divots and fix ball marks. Bear with us with cart rules also. We may have a nice day here and there, but if we've been wet or frozen, we will still likely be on the cart paths with the carts. Our only motive for keeping carts on the path is to protect the golf course for the days, months, and years to come. 

Read more from the USGA below ... 

USGA: Winter On the Golf Course

Irrigation blowout ...

And no it wasn't a Black Friday sale! Despite being snow-covered we completed our annual irrigation blowout. Things seemingly went as well as we could have hoped. The pump station was winterized and we are in the process of covering the satellite boxes for the winter.

Another task closer to spring of 2020! 

Boxes covered ... 

Blow out in the snow!