Pictures are worth a thousand words!

The course looks fantastic, and the weather is wonderful! Come out and enjoy your course!

Greening up!

Things are really shaping up on the course! After a painfully slow start, the fairways and tees are filling in nicely.

There are only a few low areas and north facing slopes that are still lagging behind. We have been working on striping the fairways and most of the holes are gorgeous from the tee box!! The Bermuda sod planted around the green complexes is greening up nicely, but it will be
quite awhile until it has all filled in and is level. Some of the sod was not as nice and is much
slower to green up.




You can see the lines and squares of thinner turf around nice full green
areas. Extra fertilizer, aeration and keeping off of it will fill those spots in. The leveling will take
longer as the topdressing can only go on in small increments. We will get there, but it will not be
overnight. The greens on holes 4 and 7 are doing well but will need additional aerification and TLC to make it through the hot times. The same goes for the bent grass sod ring on the greens. All of
the sod has a significant layer of clay on it that we will continue to work on through aeration.

Better Billy Bunker Update

The Club has decided to take advantage of a contractor already being in the area to install two of the new Better Billy Bunkers.  Our current bunkers drain well now but the liners are deteriorating. This is starting to make an unsightly mess as well as starting to contaminate the sand with the native soil.  At some point down the road this will need to be addressed.  

The Club chose to try the bunkers on hole 15 because the existing left side trap was already holding water.  The concept of the Billy Bunkers is to do away with the fabric liner and use a spray on polymer to interface between the sand and gravel. This will enhance drainage and keep the sand from being contaminated with the native soil underneath. 

The first step was to remove the old sand and expose the existing drain lines.  Once they were exposed the contractor checked to make sure they were working.  The left side bunker was holding water because the outfall was clogged with tree roots.  This was also preventing the green from draining as well as holding up the right side bunker.  A new drain line was installed and these problems have all been fixed.

Once the drainage was working correctly two inches of gravel was put into the entire bottom of the bunker.  The gravel was then sprayed with the Better Billy Bunker polymer and left to dry overnight.  Once dry, the gravel becomes fixed in place but the water is still able to move through it.  Next 6 inches of sand is put into the cavity and then packed to a 4 inch depth.

The sand we chose came from out of Maryland and is called YBD.  There are a number of clubs in the areas that have done the Billy Bunkers and this is the best sand for having firm bunkers and minimal plugging.  That being said, it is still new sand and will be a little fluffy at first.  Ultimately it should perform well and be fair to play out of.  Hopefully the membership will like these bunkers and this sand so we can look to the future in the rest of the course.

Greening up!

The Bermuda is greening up nicely in most areas.  The low spots are the slow areas but seem to have grass in them.  We are mowing fairways and tees twice a week right now, and will be applying fertilizer as soon as the temperatures stabilize.  This is the ugliest time of year for Bermuda courses, but hopefully we will be solid green soon!!  Greens are doing well and have healed fully from the aeration.  They are now on a growth regulator program to control top growth and improve putting speeds.  The walkways from tee to fairway are coming in nicely and should be a great touch for the walking members.

Spring is here

Spring must be here as we are finally mowing the short grass on the course!  Fairways, tees and approaches have all been cut down to remove the winter “duff”.  By mowing them short in the spring we expose more of the plant to direct sunlight in an effort to encourage the green-up process.  There was a ton of grass on the fairways in particular. Since we have mowed the fairways, the ball rolls out better and there is not as much “grain” to them.  We are also changing some of the mowing patterns to enhance the aesthetics of the course. This will also make it play a little fairer around the greens in particular.  This will be a work in progress and changes will be made as needed.

Greens have been slow to heal with the cooler temps this year, but are almost back up to regular playing condition.  We applied more topdressing this week to smooth them out, and have been keeping them wet in order to grow the grass in quicker over the aeration holes. The sod around the greens is greening up, but will take much work to get it smooth enough to mow at collar height.  Right now we are mowing a pass with the approach mower outside the green itself.  We look to institute a walk mower wide collar by the end of the summer at a lower height.

Lastly, we have been cutting some walkways in between the tees and fairways for the walkers.This will be a nice touch once the rough comes in. 

Spring Aeration

Greens aeration went well this spring.  We used pretty large tines and removed tons of thatch and silty soil from the greens.  The process was aided by a box that attaches to the aerator pulling the plugs into a pile at the edge of the green for clean-up.  We used around 65 tons of sand to fill the holes that we opened up by aerating.  The sand has a larger particle size to help with water infiltration on the aging and heavily thatched greens.  

We are mowing the greens daily and they should be getting back in shape by the end of the week.  Mulching has been completed on the course, and when combined with the blooming flowers, the property is looking awesome!

We have begun mowing the fescue areas under the trees and we are getting ready to cut in a walkway from the tees to the fairways at a shorter height so the walkers will have drier feet in the mornings and less resistance when using the push carts.  

Last week we edged all of the bunkers and we are now working on the yardage markers and sprinkler heads on the course.  Get out and enjoy the course while the weather is nice!!

Aeration is coming

This week we finished up spraying the golf course for weeds and applying the crabgrass preventer.  All of the cart paths have been edged and a good portion of the mulch is complete on the golf course.  

We are now starting to prepare for aeration.  We completed the process on the nursery green behind 13 and it went well. The process is aerating the green, removing the cores, applying sand, applying fertilizer and then brushing it all in the holes. Lastly, we will roll the green.  

We will keep the mowers off of the greens for the first week.  The following week we will start the mowing process and will keep at it until the greens are healed.  They should be good after two weeks and great again after three, weather permitting.