April 1 Update!

I love spring time on the golf course.  As we approach the date for our first greens aeration it is a great time to lower the height on the greens mowers without doing any damage.  This is probably as firm as they will be all season.  We have already put out 5 topdressing applications in an effort to keep greens smooth and dilute thatch.

 

 

 

I am sure many of you have noticed the bermudagrasss starting to green up around the course.  The Northbridge sod that was installed around the greens was the first to green up, way ahead of the Celebration growing in the same areas.  We are mowing the fairways at .400 of an inch and will be verti-cutting soon to get that grass going.

 

We have done our plantings around the drinker houses with ornamental grasses and the rest of the spring plants are putting on quite a show!

March 10, 2016 Update

I am very excited to kick off another golf season here at James River Country Club!  Winter was very productive with new drinker houses (that were built on site) being installed on the golf course. All course accessories were re-furbished, new drainage installed, and we continued work on amending the soil in the putting greens. There was a big push to keep the property leaf and debris free using the new vacuum.

As warmer temperatures arrive, our fairways are at the top of the list for spring maintenance.  This year we are going to start the season at a lower mowing height, really trying to thin out a lot of the thatch and older plants.  Less aggressive thatch maintenance programs in the past have left the fairways spongy. This leads to less healthier turf, lots of grain to hit into with approach shots, and decreased ball roll.  The shallow tine aeration we did last year was a start, but not nearly enough.

The USGA regional agronomist agreed that mowing as low as possible to start the season and then coming back with vertical mowing will improve both the health and play-ability of the turf.  We will also be on a top dressing program to help with thatch management, smooth out the fairways, dry up the tops, and increase ball roll off of the tee.

The only down side to this process will be some really tight lies in the beginning of the season along with some discolored grass for short periods of time.  Hopefully an extra 10-20 yards off of the tee will help to make up for it!

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.