December Maintenance

It is the second week of December and temperatures are slated to be in the low 70’s this weekend.  Great time to get out and play golf.  The greens are awesome right now!!  The speed is quick, the ball rolls true, chips are running out and approach shots are holding.  Lots of fun.  We were out spraying around the edges of the greens this week to get rid of any off type grasses or weeds that are growing close to the bentgrass.  This will help to keep a clean edge between the greens and the collars so we can maintain definition. 

A significant amount of the course has gone dormant, but we have yet to get the full course killing frost to put the rest of it to bed.  Until then we will have frost delays still even for lighter frosts.  Leaf clean-up has gone well this year with the addition of the vacuum.  The warmer weather has allowed the trees to still hold on to some leaves, but once they are down we should be able to get them cleaned up quickly.

We have hired a company to work on the debris pile down behind the maintenance facility.  They began this week so there will be some trucks moving across the property with loads of trash.  We will attempt to minimize any disturbance to the membership while we make improvements to an area that has needed attention for some time.  When we are finished we will move a container in for the trash and dispose of it as we go along.  There will also be parking for the staff and guests so the cars will no longer be parked under the trees. 

Fall Update

Now that Fall has arrived we have been busy working in some other areas on the property.  Winter annuals have been planted around the Clubhouse and on the golf course.  An azalea bed has been planted to the right of one green on the hill.  We used Encore azalea which bloom spring and fall so we can get color twice a year!

We also planted shade fescue in the tree lines the second week of October.  Water was applied to get the seed to germinate, this unfortunately has caused a few of the holes to stay wet, particularly in the rough.  No more water will be applied in those wet areas and hopefully they will dry out soon.  

We are out this week getting the first mow in the tree lines this week which will help with the leaf clean-up.  The leaf vacuum we bought in the spring is now in use in conjunction with the mulching mowers in an effort to stay ahead of the debris.

Fall Aeration

On Tuesday we performed our fall aeration on the greens.  The project went well and removed tons and tons of nasty organic material from the greens.  As you can see in the pictures it is a full day of picking up these plugs for the staff.  Each greens has 6 or 7 loads of material that has to be loaded by hand and then we distribute them around the course in the wooded areas so they can become grass.  Since I arrived here in January, we have removed 23% of the surface area of the greens and replaced them with good sand.  This will help a great deal with surface drainage, as well as reducing thatch that causes the greens to be puffy.

We are still in the middle of a drought here with hardly any measurable rain in the last 6 weeks.  We continue to use the wells to supplement the water from our lakes.  You will notice that some areas are still browning out while other areas seem to stay wet.  This is a factor of nightly irrigation and the fact that some heads get both high dry areas and the low spots next to them.  These areas become obvious during extended periods of no rainfall.  The greens tees and fairways all continue to look good while the areas under the large oak trees are taking the worst of it.

Greens should be healed up in a couple of weeks and the aeration will only be a distant memory.

Fairways Aeration

This week we had all of the fairways aerated by an outside contractor. The holes were 3-4
inches deep and 5/8” in diameter.

Harmon Turf Services brought foud machines out and had all of the fairways cored in about nine hours. Our staff then came in behind them and broke up the plugs by dragging a mat across them. After that we blew off the fairways, and then ran the mower across them to chew up any debris left behind. It was a very messy project but cleaned up well after working on it for a couple of days.


The benefits of this project were two-fold. Number one we were able to remove thatch build up that will keep the fairways from being so spongy and grainy. Number two it will help with
drainage by removing a lot of clay material and creating channels for the water to get into the
soil profile. Aeration in conjunction with a heavier verti-cutting schedule next year will help to
improve ball roll in the fairways and hopefully let us enjoy more days with the carts off the path.

Water and Verti-Cutting

We have received only .5” of rain in the last three weeks!  At this point we are dependent on the wells we have to supply irrigation water.  As per our DEQ permits, we have drawn down the upper lake to its lower limits so we can fill only from the permitted wells we operate.  We should always have enough water for the greens , but we are starting to withhold water to the other areas of the course in order to maintain sufficient levels in the lake.  Hopefully some rain will be heading our way soon to help with this problem!

We have started a verti-cutting procedure on fairways this week to help with thatch control.  Some of the turf has gotten so spongy that the mowers sink right into them giving a horrible cut.  They also are laying over instead of standing straight up and down.  We have cutting units that go on the fairway mower that are spaced closely together and are oriented similar to a skill saw.  These blades go down into the turf cutting the horizontal runners and removing some thatch.  We do this in two directions and then mow them twice after to clean up the debris.  The turf looks scalped and discolored for a few days after the process but it really helps for tighter more playable fairways.

July 1 Update!

The last couple of weeks have been filled with weather extremes on the golf course.  A brutal stretch of 90 degree plus days followed by deluges of rain has kept the maintenance staff busy.  It seems like as soon as we get all the debris up from one storm, another thunderstorm rolls through depositing sticks and debris everywhere. On two out of the three nights for the club championship the bunkers washed out completely.  The new bunkers on 15 did great and needed little to no attention.

The heat took its toll on some of the bent grass sod on the greens.  The roots have not grown much past the clay layer that came on the sod. This leaves them very susceptible to damage from the high temperatures.  A couple of cool nights last weekend helped bounce them back to green so they can build some reserves to fight the heat.  We have raised the mowers on the sod areas and are applying additional nutrients to give the grass a fighting chance.  We will also be solid tine aerating frequently to keep water and air moving through the sod.

On Monday, we put a heavy topdressing on the Bermuda around the greens.  We are trying to get it smoother and more playable through sanding.  It will be a little messy for a few days but will help in the long run.  We are hoping to have a surface that we can putt through on a consistent basis!

Pictures are worth a thousand words!

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