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.

Venting greens ...

We vented, or aerified with small solid tines, the West course greens the last two days. We finish this process off with a roll of the greens and the surface disruption is minimal. These tiny holes allow the greens to "breath". Gasses get expelled through the open holes which allows fresh air in. The holes also allow the greens to dry out better but will also allow water into the soil profile easier once the need for irrigation returns. 

Here is a USGA video on the process ... 

USGA Green Section Webcast: Venting Aeration - A Benefit To Putting Greens

Member Guest next week. We've already started prepping. Now would be a perfect time for it not to rain again until next weekend. 

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!

Normal ... kind of.

Well, we are somewhat back to "normal". It has been refreshing. I told my wife at dinner Tuesday night that I finally felt like we made some progress here in the last week or so.

As I'm sure those who have played here the last few days have noticed, we put the flag sticks back out. The cups are still upside down. Please do your best not to touch the stick.

Stick in left side of picture .... 

In an effort to keep up with the mowing while also being able to get to other projects, we've relied on a pretty heavy regimen of growth regulators. Growth regulators, while slowing growth, can have a yellowing or bronzing effect on turf-grass, especially at higher rates. So if you have noticed a yellow, orange, or bronze tinge to the fairways and tees, that is why. It will grow out this week most likely. The tees are handling it worse than the fairways, which probably has something to do with the composition of the soil. 

Picture of #10 East tee "yellowed" ... 

One of the projects we were using the growth regulators to free up time for was "bunker cleaning". Hopefully you have noticed the "noses" of the bunkers are now down to a more rough like height. And the closely mowed edges are clean. 

#14 West bunker the "new way" ... 

#5 West bunker the "old way" ... 

Finally, it seems as if the change to an overall drier golf course has been noticed already. Wednesday afternoon through to Thursday afternoon I felt as if we were at the ideal moisture level. Especially for a links style course. I felt like it looked right and I'd bet it was playing right also. Eric and I took a ride Thursday mid day and I liked what I saw and felt so much that I almost got my clubs out for the first time this year! 

Lighter green and perhaps even a tinge of brown as opposed to a lush, wet looking dark green. #4 West ... 

#17 West ... 

Until next time ... 

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! 

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!

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.

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 ...