When It Rains, It Pours

After going on a 24 day drought we have received nearly 4 inches of rain in 4 days! Naturally the change took place during “The Heritage” as it has done in previous years. The maintenance squad is really bummed we weren’t able to put on the type of event we hoped.  We were dialed-in during Thursday’s practice rounds with every playing surface cut perfectly and greens rolling an 11 on the stimp!

The calm before the storm 

We fought through the weather over the weekend and are thankful the tournament was still played all the way out to the end! Congrats to the winners! 

Mowers were replaced by squeegees, bunker rakes, and a pump.

Monday, we vented greens to try and influence gas exchange and dry down, but more storms keep the greens completely saturated with cups full of water. Greens are extremely wet, so we are taking precautions to not sand topdress with heavy equipment or roll greens until we get some dry down.  Thanks for your cooperation and understanding while greens speed is on the slower side. Hoping to dodge a bullet to get fairways mowed on Wednesday. 

Creating airflow with venting and using a powerful blower to try and dry down #15 green.

Maintenance Mayhem

Wow! After a 3 day holiday weekend the club was closed on Tuesday. The golf course maintenance gang went to town with a wide open golf course. Numerous important tasks were completed while taking advantage of no golfers.

The ongoing  task of Bermuda suppression was done around our greens in the zoysia collars.  This is an extremely important task to have ample time for the product to dry on the leaf before having foot traffic walk through it and walk on the green as it would harm our  bentgrass greens. For this reason, this practice is a challenge for us to do during play days so Tuesday was perfect!

Tree work was also on the hit list. We removed a pine tree next to the cart barn that was causing debris issues in the cart barn drain. A dead elm tree at the maintenance facility was removed as well. Last but not least the famous Oak tree on hole number 18 was limbed up significantly and shaped a little bit. 

Bunkers made the cut too! We are experimenting with some rubber based paint to color our black liners white so when exposed they are much easier on the eyes. The bunker behind 6 and a few bunkers at 12 green were done this time. We plan on continuing this process when time allows, but this is another hard task to get done during play days. I have been waiting on transportation of white bunker Sand to maintain proper Sand depths in bunkers. After four weeks we are supposed to receive a load this Friday, so we will be addressing bunkers very soon.

Putting greens were also vented. Once again this process helps exchange gases within the soil and promote root growth at this time before summer sets in. We followed up with a smooth roller and a light top dressing on Wednesday. Our sanding rate was a little heavier than I would’ve liked but greens will be great for the weekend.

Finally, on Tuesday we started sod prep to repair poor areas in fairways. Prep was finished on Wednesday and sod was completed today on Thursday! Please avoid driving through these areas or walking through them. They will be pretty soggy for the next week or so to get the turf rooted in.

Our landscape bed rehab at the bogey hills clock near the practice green is complete! Great work by our horticulturist, Jeny, planting a variety of plants for a new upgraded look!

Winter Projects/Spring Cleaning

From 0-70 in a flash, temperature that is!  Last week the ground was frozen solid and covered with 6+ inches of snow, this week mild and pretty dry all considered. That’s the MO we know and love, kinda...

We successfully completed the installation of the new practice facility netting.  This will retain mishit golf balls, saving the club resources.

Creek stabilization got a good start, but a few areas were too dangerous to do under snow cover.  This will be continued when the ground is firm.

Moving on to this week, we mowed greens for the first time in months and raked half the bunkers(once they thawed) on Thursday.  The other half will be completed today(Friday).  Hole locations and markers were moved this week too.  

We are also wrapping up our annual warm season turf clean up.  We apply pesticides to eradicate non desirable cool season grasses while also applying pre-emergent herbicide to keep warm season weeds from encroaching during the golf season.  We use blue tracker dye to help with visualizing coverage.

Practice Makes Perfect

The short game area is finally open for play! It is located between holes number 9 and number 11. There is a bunker and a modified fairway/collar connected to our Nursery green. This will be a great place to hone in your short game skills!

Since this area is located in the middle of the golf course it is very important that members navigate properly.  Members traveling to the short game area should cross the bridge in front of 18 green and then proceed going with the flow of golf from hole 10, down 11, turning at hole 8 and finish the route by coming up hole 9.  Please park your golf cart to the side of the cart path near number 9 red tee box.  When completed proceed down number 9 with the flow of golf crossing back over the bridge in front of 18 green. Enjoy!

The Hangover

Over the weekend mother nature threw a little party and things got out of control. We received over 2 inches of rainfall starting Saturday night ending early afternoon Sunday. The bunkers got trashed and we were forced to clean up the mess on Monday.  The crew worked really hard and had the bunkers put back together after a combined effort of nearly 60 man hours.  The good news is our bunker liner system we installed throughout the renovations continue to save us from silt contamination during washouts. This will prolong the life of the sand and save us labor and money in the long run!  The bad news is on a different subject, we were unable to mow any rough today.  This will put us behind for the week, but we will catch up as soon as possible.  Thanks for understanding!

Winter Work

Between snow and rain events we continue to chip away at winter work.  Clearing of underbrush and volunteer growth has been completed at the driving range netting and at the property line near #3 ladies tee.  Clearing at the range netting was needed to retrieve lost range balls.  Clearing near the ladies tee was needed to have a line of sight from the tee complex of #3 to the entrance of the driving range.  It was becoming dangerous entering and leaving the range with a blind spot to golfers teeing off on #3.

We have also started grinding tree stumps.

Finally, we broke ground at the new short game practice area.  We are converting our bent grass nursery into a great place for practicing chipping, pitching, lobbing and bunker shots!

Bunker Maintenance

Last week we completed a bunker sand depth makeover.  During the golf season we do our best to keep sand depths at the proper amount.  Thunderstorms and continuous raking can alter the depths significantly in a short amount of time.  A frequently used bunker can surprisingly lose a large amount of sand from being splashed out by the golf club too.

Now that golf play is slowing and our crew size is shrinking we wanted to double check depths going into the winter.  We use an alignment rod that we have marked at 3” and 5”.  The goal is to have 3” on the slopes and 5” in the bottoms.   Only a few bunkers needed more sand added.  The remaining bunkers simply had the sand redistributed in the correct areas.  Pictured is Beau who came on board this fall and plans on returning next spring.

Fast and Firm

We have been grinding out the last couple weeks with the loss of our summer staff.  Been stuck in overdrive preparing the course for golf play.  Routine maintenance has been the theme, keeping the golf course as consistent as possible rolling into this weekend.  Speaking of rolling... the greens are rolling fast and true!  We have consistently been stimping between 10-11 for the last 10 days.  This week we have been a 10.75 and will stay true through the championship!  Good luck to all the participants!

Some random pics from the last few weeks! Enjoy!

Big Bang

A long 4th of July weekend brought a bunch of bangs, booms and blow ups, and I’m not talking about fireworks!  High heat and humidity boiled up some thunderheads Wednesday thru Friday resulting in a total of 2.25 inches of rain.  Friday’s boomer dumped 1.3 inches in less than 2 hours causing bunker washouts once again.

Not all was a lost though, many golf rounds were still played and I enjoyed seeing all the red, white and blue on our Independence Day!

Big thunder head blowing up in the background.

Textbook brown patch disease flared up in our roughs.  High heat and humidity with added rain is a perfect combination for fungal outbreak.  The turf has been treated and will recover.

Dagger

After the golf course was in excellent tournament form with greens rolling a solid 11 on the stimp, we were hit with a low blow.  Between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning we received 2.5 inches of rain.

After over an inch of rain Friday, the best team in town rallied and put bunkers back together till dark Friday evening.... only to receive another dagger to the heart in the shape of a thunderstorm Saturday morning.

Efforts were then restricted to only changing hole locations and squeegeeing greens off Saturday afternoon before the main event.

Fast forward to today and despite being challenged with a double shotgun start at 8am and 1230pm we once again proved our will to succeed.  We pulled off mowing and venting Greens despite having all odds against us.  This venting is important in allowing oxygen gas exchange with current water logged soils.

Dialed In

The St. Louis Blues are Stanley Cup Champions!!!  What an exciting accomplishment for the team and owners as well as the entire city and their fans!!!

I mowed the blue note into #6 fairway as a joke, but was surprised by all the attention it received.  Long story short I had to leave throughout the finals and capped it off with carving the cup into it.  It received its final detailing today before it gets a clean shave next week.

It’s member guest week and the property is dialed in with “bogey fast” greens, crisply cut fairways, tees, rough and collars and finely raked bunkers! Enjoy!!!

The city is rocking and rolling on the creek stabilization project.  The new look will have a shock factor for a while, but the finished product will leave hole #16 more stunning than ever!

River Runs Through

The sky’s  really opened up last week and looks as if we will see more of the same in the upcoming days.  5.5” rained on our parade, with multiple extreme downpours causing flash flooding and horrible bunker washouts!

Above is a picture that you can just barely see the rails of #16 walk bridge!  The creek came out of its bank on multiple holes leaving a large amount of debris behind.  We are still cleaning up debris as we have spent most of our labor hours getting bunkers back in form.

No bunker liner can protect against downpours of over an inch of rain in less than a hour. Totals for this Tuesday night event were 3.1 inches!  But do notice the minor amount of contamination in the bottom of bunker above.  Below, the bunker in the background has a liner and the one in the foreground has no liner.  Look at the huge difference in silt contamination!

The week wasn’t a complete wash though.  We did manage to mow 90% of the rough before the rain started, spread fertilizer and layed sod in areas where tree stumps were as well as some bare areas from the bunker renovation.