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!

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?

Member Tee ...

We seeded the member range tee last week. Should see some germination shortly, if there isn't some already. Eric and I got together and made the decision to allow the Pro Shop team to move the teeing area this year. Hoping to make better use of the available teeing space.

Have a good weekend!

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 ...