New Greens Update

It has been awhile since I've had time to update the conditions of the 5 new greens. We have been actually treating the practice putting green like a new one since it has been in various states of rehabilitation over the last 3 years. I am pleased with some of the progress and have disappointments with others. First the good news. We were able to aerify those greens last week but not topdress. We will do so on Monday. Once the greens smooth out, our intention is to get green 15 and the practice green into the same mowing and maintenance schedule as the existing greens. Green 12 has mad a lot of progress recently and with any reasonably sound agronomic practices, that one should also be joining the ranks of the other greens. Now for the disappointments. Green 4 has shown signs of stress and weak growth. I plan to begin to reverse the grow in and actually raise the heighth of cut back up to an acceptable level for optimum growth. There will be additional sodding and plugging to once again get the turf to fill in and then start to condition the grass for lower mowing. As for green 7, overall appearance is good but still not healthy enough for lower mowing yet. It is also difficult to roll the green to smooth out the bumps because the root system is not strong enough to hold the turf in place while rolling. In the meantime, we will continue to seed and sod all areas until we run out of sod.

What this means to the golfer is that greens 12, 15, and practice will soon be similar to all the others, while greens 4 and 7 are going to take longer to get to the same place. A cool, dry summer would help considerably to meet these goals but any type of high temperatures and humidity will play a significant role in reducing the chances that all the greens will be the same sooner than later.

As you see, green 4 has some work to do. That picture was taken a month ago and not much improvement. But, I am always up for challenges and this is no excemption.

Rain Again

The forecast seems to be a broken record. Rain is mentioned daily and the amount varies. A year ago after the spring rains stopped, it never rained again until late fall. The water supply(Big Butternut) was dramatically lower and turf conditions off irrigated areas were barren. Today, the mowers are running daily to keep up and the water supply is adequate for this season. The sun will return and the golf course will be ready for your enjoyment.

The new greens were actually set back by the extended wet weather but for the long run are benefiting greatly. With continued rain, the surface looks good but the nutrients that were applied have leached past the root zone and suddenly the color was off. Thinking it was mower or rolling damage, I quickly reduced those activities. After thinking about this, I soon realized that there was a great need to fertilize those greens again. After an ample helping this week, yesterday they looked great again. The real positive gains with the wet weather is that all the sodding and seeding on those greens helps in the establishment.

There are new seedling emerging from the aerifier holes and the bare areas. With constant watching and reseeding, all these areas should fill in. How soon? Not sure. It all depends upon weather, traffic, and various maintenance activities. Rest assured, the maintenance staff is doing everything it can to get these greens in the same conditions as the other existing ones.

Continuing the Grow-in

Everyday, the new greens are improving. The roots continue to develop and lengthen and the damaged areas on top get less and less. As the progress continues, the maintenance activities I previously described will be happening this week, weather permitting. The plan is to aerate the new greens with solid tines on Tuesday. This will help to keep the air exchange working and help the roots grow deeper. At the same time, we will incorporate a good organic fertilizer to feed the soil that will provide a long lasting nutrient source. Then, we apply a good sand topdressing to both fill the holes and smooth the surface followed by a good brushing to raise the leaf blades off the surface to get a better cut. We will continue with weekly topdressing and another aerification in a few weeks. After that, we will wait until the heat of summer passes before doing it again.

The goal of this grow-in is to actually build a new putting surface over tho top of the newly sodded surfaces. I have noticed that after we lowered the cutting height to .200 inches that some minor scalping began to occur. This tells that there too many imperfections to go lower to our normal height of .140 inches. We will continue to add sand to allow the process to work. Sometimes, we have to wait for the turf to do it's thing and not push too quickly because that is when damage occurs and we actually go backwards with progress.

The update to green 7 is that all of the surface has been filled with sod where there once were gaps. All of the surrounds we be sodded this week and it will begin to look like a green. All the sod seems will be hand sanded to help with the lateral growth. We have some additional sod from our nursery that we will installon those couple of spots on greens 4 & 12 and the remainder to be used on greens 7. If we have to, we may purchase some additional sod but will wait and see. We will also seed the areas on 7 when we aerate this week and try to establish more grass in those areas.

Patience is the key at this point in the grow-in. Too much, too fast can be devastating.

Happy 15th!

It will be a happy 15th on the 16th! We will be opening up the 15th green for play. You will notice the green to putt a bit slower and a tad bumpy, but it has developed enough to handle traffic. Greens 4 and 12 will be open by Memorial Day Weekend and should be able to with stand the traffic. The maintenance procedure on these 4 greens will continue until they reach the consistency of the other greens. So far, we have mowed and rolled a few times, and have top dressed them once. We will continue to mow, roll, verticut regularly along with weekly topdressings and we will also aerify these greens with very small tines to ensure good water infiltration and air exchange. All of these procedures will help smooth out the surfaces. Along the way, we will be lowering the height of cut from .250" to our established height at .140". Lowering too fast will have an adverse effect on the turf and prevent scalping. We will be diligent with our efforts and strive to get these greens in great shape for your golfing enjoyment. Weather will dictate some delays in meeting our goals but patience is golden.

As for green 7, we got hurt by not getting water to it soon enough. On Saturday 4/27, we had snow covering the course. By Tuesday, temps climbed to 85. Wilt was evident on Monday evening and we spent the entire day Tuesday until 7:30pm before we got water to the green. We probably missed having these greens the same as the others by 12 hours. Needless to say, there is more work to prep this green for play. Some areas survived very nicely. There are other areas that look pretty bleak from the cart path but a close look shows green shoots a some new rooting. Some of these areas will survive but there are a few strips that will have to be replaced. We do have some sod from our nursery green that is in excellent shape and will use it all up if need be. If we need to purchase more sod, we will do that.

So enjoy the new greens courtesy of Mr. Frandsen and be patient for #7 to be ready.

Closer

Nice weekend with temps touching 80! There are several courses that are open, but we still have snow and wet turf. The good news is that there seems to be just a little damage from the prolonged winter/ice cover to the greens. I will post back later today with pictures and the update to a possible opening. The forecast looks good for today and tomorrow but reality sets in for the rest of the week,. Stay tuned!

Getting Close

Hang in there folks. There are numerous accounts of Old Man Winter leaving the area. If this is true, there will be an announcement soon that we will be opening. As of 6 am this morning, there is about a 2-4 inch covering of snow over the entire golf course. There are just a few high spots showing through. The forecast is for temps to soar near 70 the next few days. It will take a few days to melt the snow and then a few more days to dry out. As soon as I am able to drive onto the course to do maintenance, the course will be open! Stay tuned!

Patience

Patience is the key word for the golf industry. A lot of golfers are chomping at the bit to get going as well as golf course superintendents. The snow will finally melt over the next few days but will leave behind much needed moisture for the soil. Putting traffic on the course now will only disturb the soil profile and increase the stress level of the turf once we get to summer. In addition, rutting from vehicles or even footprints from golfers will last along time and will also cause bumpiness and worn areas quickly. The turf is waking up slowly this year so caution is needed when maintenance activities resume. And for you lawn rangers out there, you too, should use patience when beginning to work on your grass.