Groovy

While this weird/lovely spring continues, we are getting a jump start on another planned maintenance practice for this spring - Fairway verti-cutting.  Those of you that have been out braving the wind and cold the last couple of days have likely seen our tractor out cutting little grooves in the fairways and bringing lots of brown stuff up.

Small disks ripping through the canopy.

Lots of brown "stuff"

Normally, this would be done in the fall along with our normal fairway deep-tine aerification.  Due to the extremely wet fall in 2011, we were unable to complete it.  So a hacking we will go this spring.  The upside is that the unusually high growth rate we are experiencing should help the fairways heal in a very short time.  If we have time this spring, we may do this again before the summer heat comes.

The reasons we do this are: 1.  Remove thatch from below the surface to firm up the fairway and provide avenues for water, air,  and nutrients to get to the soil.  2.  "Groom" the canopy to help stand the grass up for a better cut and a cleaner surface.

Once we acquire our new deep-tine aerator, we will punch deep holes in the fairways to help relieve compaction.  In the past, removing thatch and alleviating compaction was normally done with core-aerification.   I believe we acheive the same thing by doing the verti-cut and deep tine without all the mess, player disturbance, and soil brought to the surface.

So I will thank you ahead of time for your patience while we chop up the fairways.  If the weather stays dry, we should be done quickly.

What a lovely June we are having.

WHEW!  It has been a hectic couple of weeks to start the season!  I apologize for such length between blogs, but we have been quite busy down here in the grounds department.  For this weeks installment, I have a random selection of photos from the last couple of weeks that of the things that have been going on and some of them WAY ahead of schedule.

The unfathomably warm weather has jump-started the golf course in an unprecedented fashion.  Air and soil temperatures that we wouldn't normally see until April or even May have the turf "leaping" out of the ground and growing like mad.  With our limited late-winter/early spring staff, it has been 'all hands on deck' just to keep the mowers in motion.  As you can see below, our December "dormant" application of fertilizer has the greens lush and growing like mad.  The yellow rectangles are where we placed plywood to prevent fertilizer from hitting the putting green when we made the application December 3rd.  As you can see, the fertilizer has made quite a difference in our spring 'green-up'. 



This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago.  You can still see the rectangles today. 

Aside from keeping the grass cut, we have also been out applying our crabgrass control products.  To put things in perspective, the proper timing for this application would be somewhere around April 15th.  This season, temperature models and the blooming forsythia had us out as early as March 19th.  We are almost a month ahead of "normal". 

Coming into the spring, we had the least amount of 'damage' from the Canada geese that I've ever seen.  Perhaps they stayed home with the warm winter.  There were a few meandering about, but overall they stayed away.  Some even moved into the trees.  I assume they were tired of Hank chasing them.

There are two geese in the elm between 1 and 10.  The second is a little hard to spot.

I took some soil profiles from the greens today.  The root length and density are the best I've seen in the springtime for our old Poa/Bent greens.  Thank you for putting up with our greens aeration practices.  They are paying dividends that will translate into better overall conditions during the peak season.  Spring aeration is still scheduled for April 9th.

The roots are holding this sample together.  They are dense and long, which means we are starting the year with healthy turf.  Even the upper sand layer is holding nicely.  The best root mass I've seen in spring in 7 years here.

Overall, it is a startling start to the spring.  Bear with us while we try to keep up with the mowing.  The grass will be a little thick and messy in spots, but we should get caught up soon if the weather decides to get back to normal. 

Welcome back early.  It's been great seeing everyone out on the course so early in the season!

Opening a Little Early After All

It would seem that I will have to amend my prior post and say we are going to open at noon on Friday the 16th!  This is by FAR the earliest we have opened in the 7 years I've been here.  Continued record warmth and wind have managed to dry the course out just enough for play.  It's time to get out and enjoy the course!

Today, we rolled and mowed the greens for the first time and got several of the tees and fairways mowed.  We will be finish mowing tomorrow if the weather cooperates and have one decent cut on the whole golf course prior to opening.

That being said, even though the weather is great, the golf course will not be in mid-season condition by any means.  We may not have the bunkers in ready shape, but will give it our best tomorrow and friday morning.  11 bunker still needs a couple truckloads of sand from the winter flooding.  The greens, tees, and fairways are still quite soft from the inch and a half of rain Monday.  We also have not had time to get all the accessories such as tee markers, ball washers, and coolers out just yet.  We will be picking at those projects into next week.

Also, it is important to note the chance of rain.  As wet as the golf course is still, just the slightest bit of rain will get carts cancelled.  We will do our best, but this early in the season, it's best to err on the side of caution to prevent starting the season with lots of ruts and mud tracks.

I hope the rain stays away, and I see you all on the course this weekend!

Couldn't resist....

This has been floating around the industry for awhile and it made me chuckle.  Thought I would pass it along.

Course Opening and Current Conditions

As I expected, the unusually warm winter has brought many questions about the opening date for the golf course.  Historically, the average opening date is around April 1st.  In year's past, I have been able to open as early as March 22nd and have waited as late as April 5th due to rain.  This is what I consider our "normal" window.  While I believe that we will open on the early end of that "normal" window, I fear it might not be as early as some members would anticipate given the forecasted conditions next week.  I have had members suggest we open as early as this coming Tuesday. Given this understandable confusion, I thought I would elaborate on the two major criteria I consider before opening to full member play and update where the course is today.

1.  Firmness - The course must be able to sustain foot and cart traffic without ruts and prints that could take weeks to smooth out as well as permanently compact the soil. 

Currently -  the last snow melt was off Monday and the greens are quite spongy and soft.  We are not quite ready to put a mower or worse yet a foot on them.

2.  Growth - We need growth to recover from traffic and mowing as well as firm up the soil.  Normally, I like to have the grass mowed once or twice before we put golf on it.  Cool-season grasses grow with air temperatures of 60+ and soil temperatures of 50+.  While the winter was 'above average' in the 30's and low 40's, it still doesn't necessarily get the grass growing when we need temperatures in the 50's and 60's. 

Currently - Today was our first sustained day of air temperatures in that range and the soil is still in the low-to-mid 40's.  As you can see in the photos below, the fairway, green and rough are still dormant, brown and not really growing yet, and the soil temperature reading I took today in the top 2 inches is still in the low 40's.

All that being said, I think a realistic timeline for opening will be sometime the week of March 19th if the weather holds.  There is much yet to do before we are ready, but we all look forward to seeing golf again as soon as possible.  I hope to see you all very soon!

COURSE CONDITIONS

As I said above, we are still quite soft and wet in areas.  Overall, I have yet to see any major damage other than the bunker on 11 and some other flood debris and silt deposits.  The Poa annua in the greens is showing signs of waking up, but bentgrass in the greens, fairways, and tees is still wanting it to warm up a little more.  In the picture below, you can see the light green Poa versus the still brown-reddish brown bent that is just starting to wake up.  Not really anything to mow just yet.

From #9 green today.

Given the poa is starting, we will likely be mowing in the next 5-7 days to start cleaning up the winter fuzz.

Winter Mess and Snow Mold

One of the great upsides to the warm winter was the lack of snow mold disease pressure.  Even the rough, which we do not spray, is relatively free of disease.  I have not seen the course this clean to start the year in 7 seasons.

Even the winter mess is not too bad.  Coming off winters with ice storms and repeated flooding, there is only some debris left from our late winter flood and cleanup on 11 bunker.  A tree came down across # 4 tee with the last windstorm, but we will have to wait until things get drier to clean it up without making a mess of the tee.

Fortunately for us, it fell almost exactly between the women's and men's tee.  We couldn't have felled it that accurately!