Summer Greens Watering

As the drier weather pattern returns, along with the hotter temps, expect to see our team hand watering greens more frequently in the afternoon.  We will do our best to avoid play, however, there are times that it is necessary to water in front of a group.  Please treat them as you would a group of golfers in front of you.  Hitting into a green while we are watering is dangerous and could cause serious injury to the staff member.  Thank you for your understanding with this matter.

Current watering practices include deeper watering in the early morning utilizing our moisture sensors, followed up with quick cooling in the afternoon.  Our goal is to keep the greens as dry as we possibly can, which at times, leads to the necessity of interrupting play. 

Early morning hand watering

  A couple of other items....

As many of you know, our Border Collie, Sterling, died this past spring.  I've had several questions from members wondering if we planned to get another dog.  Without hesitation, yes, we will be looking to replace Sterling with another Border Collie.  My thought is to get through summer and look for a dog this fall.  If you hear of any puppies or preferably a dog that is 1-2 years old, please let me know.  A rescue dog would be an ideal situation, as well.

And finally, I took this picture awhile back and I couldn't resist sharing.  This is a good example of why we struggle with turf loss around cart paths.  With the width of our paths, please keep the carts (completely) on the paths around tees and greens.  The less stake and rope we have to use, the better!

Golf Course Update

After an unseasonably cool start to the summer, it looks like the heat has arrived.  On Monday our temps exceeded 90 degrees for the first time this year.  Rather than easing into it, we ended up hitting 97 degrees for the daily high.  More of the same to follow the rest of the week.

With the cooler temps along with timely rains, our water usage has been drastically reduced compared to this time last year.  Still a long ways to go, but we are significantly under budget on water for the year.  Good news after the last two hot and dry years.

One topic that continues to come up is the difficulty of our rough this year.  The weather we have experienced has led to some of the healthiest rough we have seen over the last few years.  We have managed to keep our height of cut at 2.5" for the entire season.  The issue is more the turf being thick and healthy.  The impact of the heat over the next couple of weeks will have a natural thinning of the turf.  Please know it is not our intention to make the course more difficult, simply the impact of weather has created the tougher than normal conditions.

Another area of concern this season has been the transition from the Zoysia Approach to the Bentgrass collar.  This has historically been a challenging area due to the high traffic as well as the different needs of the turf.  We have sodded several of the areas and will continue to grow in the remaining thin areas.  One simple change we have made to our routine is the use of carpets for turning the mowers on.  The carpets alone are reducing the impact of mowers turning daily in this location.  We will continue to implement new strategies to alleviate this problem.

Finally, my apologies for the limited blog postings.  I find that I am using Twitter on a daily basis to give quick updates on course conditions.  I encourage you to take a look at it.  So far, it has been a great way to communicate information.