Mercy!

A look around the golf course would make you think it’s been a productive week or two... greens successfully aerated, bunkers getting raked, started mowing roughs, grinding stumps, back filled and sodded, #14 trench sodded, compost spread in landscape beds, etc. But the truth is we or maybe just me is extremely frustrated.

This time of year is crucial for a laundry list of important chemical applications.  Granular crabgrass control treating 80 acres of roughs, chickweed, henbit and clover broadleaf control in roughs, preventative large patch control treating 17 acres of zoysia surfaces, granular fertilizer on greens to help heal from aerification, poa seed head suppression application and spring preventative disease control on greens too!  All of these applications need to get done within a 7-14 day window and all have the same restrictions.  THE WIND!!!! We need wind speeds of no more than 5mph to do granular fertilizer on greens and less than 10mph for all other applications.  It’s been either too wet or too windy for 2 weeks straight.  We have started and stopped applications multiple times this week, trying desperately to sneak in a greens fertilizer in the morning before the wind picks up.  Over a four day period we have completed 12 of our 19 greens.  We hope to finish the last 7 on Monday. 🤦🏻‍♂️

If you have read this far it probably appears this is more of a rant than an exciting blog, and I suppose you are correct. 😂 But geeeez, just another example of how challenging golf course maintenance is being at the MERCY of Mother Nature at all times.  When things get dicey or not executed perfectly I use a term with my crew, “it will buff out”.  Growing up around cars it’s my go to, and I guess I can apply it to this situation.  We will be fine, we will adapt and overcome, it will buff out.  Thanks for all the support, it’s great seeing everyone back out on the golf course!!!

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.

Shutting Down

Cold temperatures continue as we encounter our first frost of the year already!  Sustained below normal temperatures has all of our zoysia surfaces shutting down.  Tees, fairways and collars are going into dormancy and are not growing anymore.  They have all been cut for the last time this season. The turf has been left a little taller and will be a little fuzzy to start the offseason. 

Unfortunately  due to the cooler temperatures and the added cart traffic from Covid single passenger cart use we are restricting cart traffic this week.  Starting Tuesday the 6th all cart traffic will be restricted to the cart path until next season.  This is a very difficult decision to make but is in the best of interest of BHCC and will help preserve premium playing conditions.  Thanks for your understanding!

Cart traffic marks are becoming visible in the fairways which is a sign of plants entering dormancy.

In other news, we are prepped and ready for concrete on Monday, and we also have seedlings germinating in over seeded rough areas!

The Big One!

Have a lot of information included in this one, but the first topic I want to discuss is the one that’s most exciting! The cart ruling has changed for the season and we are now allowing carts off the path! At this time we are going with a “no restrictions” ruling which allows members to drive in both the fairways and the roughs. Please still enter at 90° to your ball and exit the fairway and rough at the blue exit stake.  We have also initiated our hole location rotation on putting greens for the season.

Last week we completed greens aerifiaction during a two day event. The event was extremely successful and the greens were left in very good shape upon completion.  Greens were left with a moderate sand top dressing layer to help with the smoothing process. We then also vertical mowed the greens on Thursday, thinning out the canopy and continuing the smoothing process. The greens are already rolling great and should be filled in within another week or so.

In other news, we have been keeping bunkers raked and started mowing areas of rough but will start mowing in its entirety this week. Fairways and tees are starting to green up but probably won’t see their first mow for another week or two. Compost has been flying into beds and flowers will be on order soon to start providing color around the property.  The area behind number eight green has received grass seed and straw. More plants will be installed this spring in the area. A lot is going on but we are rocking and rolling on the golf course.

Week in Review

Wow, what a great week we had last week! Doesn’t look like a repeat is likely this week though.  For the first time in months we skipped a precipitation event and had some dry soil to work with. We quickly broke ground on a few projects that we had been waiting on. The ladies tee box on number 12 was refurbished. We stripped all the zoysia sod off of it and placed to the side to reuse. The tee was raised almost 2 foot to give a better perspective to the fairway.  

While working on #12 we knocked out another tee renovation at the same time.  A new tee was constructed on hole #13.  We used the leftover sod from #12 for the tee top.

During the week of construction we also managed to do service work to other tee boxes, mow greens, rake bunkers, and cleanup debris.  It’s was a really good feeling to know spring is near but I think I can speak on behalf of myself and team members in saying we were all whooped after last week, haha.  Looking forward to the season and more improvements at BHCC!

Spring Sprung?

The past weekend showed signs of change in seasons but is it here to stay?  As anticipated we had a lot of rounds of golf  and we were prepared. Friday we mowed greens for the first time in months, cleaning them up. Saturday morning was frozen solid but thawed out later in the day. Sunday morning was greeted by pleasant temperatures and allowed for us to roll greens and rake green-side bunkers!

With spring in the air we are running out of time for our dormant zoysia grass applications.  Luckily, the drier conditions allowed for us to spray tees Friday and green surrounds Monday putting a wrap on this seasons winter pre-emergent application.  We will put out crabgrass preventer in roughs starting around April 1st.

Dodging rain this week is allowing us to get started on some overdue projects that will bring more updates through the week so check back!

Purple Haze

The recent rains have turned our “fair”-ways into a new surface most aren’t familiar with.  Each spring(and some falls) zoysia grass produces seedheads as its natural growth cycle.  Now, most of the time it’s drier out and we are able to continually mow fairways and the seedheads are not as noticeable. The perfect storm of a rough winter and a sloppy spring has our zoysia surfaces appearing to have a purple haze from the abundance of seedheads.

Once the weather cooperates we will get back to mowing and the seedheads will soon fade within the next few weeks.  In the meantime we are always looking at ways to improve our programs and improve course conditions.  As most have probably witnessed by now, we experimented with trying to reduce seedheads formation.  Our chemical application we use to control Bermuda can help aid in preventing seedheads when timed properly!  #6 fairway is a great example of some great results we discovered, take a look for yourself! 

Very distinct lines and patterns show treated and untreated areas.  Seedheads now a thing of the past?!? To be continued!

Slow Start

Cool temperatures and wet conditions have our Zoysia grass surfaces confused.  Tees and fairways are having a rough wake up call coming out of winter hibernation.  We had a warm stretch in April and the turf started growing, but multiple weeks of chilly weather has growth at a stand still.

Mowing fairways the 26th of April is pictured above.    The turf has since gone to a yellow-green shade.  Tee boxes have been seeing a lot of golf play but haven’t been growing enough to recover from divots and foot traffic.  This will start our season off with some thinning.

Wet conditions has sparked disease throughout the property too.  This is called Large Patch and only infects zoysia grass.  It has been treated, but will take time to recover.

And there’s more... multiple areas in fairways and tees are showing signs of winter kill.  The constant moisture over the last 5 months has drowned plants in low areas that don’t drain well.  We are continuing to access damage and will begin repair once the weather is more favorable for zoysia growth.  With that being said it does appear warmer weather is around the corner and hopefully we can turn over a new leaf very soon!

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.

Week In Review

We saw all fours seasons last week with a frost and some light snow flakes on Monday!  That gave way to a 50 degree temperature change in 36 hours with temps in the mid 80s on Tuesday.  Spring rain and mist by Thursday with a chilly autumn feel on Friday.  Gotta love Missouri!  All this just means we were forced to get creative throughout the week to get tasks completed and present good playing conditions on the nice days.

A side note and moving back further than a week, I had the privilege to attend The Masters for the first time and it didn’t disappoint!  What a wonderful experience and motivator to start off the season!

A heavy topdressing of sand on greens before the 1.1” rain Thursday will aid in the final push for holes to close up the rest of the way!  We are really close to dropping the hammer on putting greens and dialing them in for the season!

Finally, the team really out did themselves on Friday. That 1.1” rain total from Wednesday night  tallied up in only 3 hours which resulted in some minor washouts.  They worked hard and got all the bunkers back into playable condition in one day!  This also pays tribute to the result of our bunker renovation!  Our old bunkers would have demanded at least two days of work, pumping standing water and pushing up sand from major washouts!  Kudos to the club for their commitment to improve the golf course!

And... can I get a LGB?!?!

Heating Up

Wow, the weather has been fantastic for multiple days now!  Temperatures have been warming up and the golf course has been greening up! Today we started mowing rough and yesterday we mowed greens for the first time since our aerification process.  They are recovering from the process rapidly.  At this rate they should be completely grown-in soon!  Zoysia fairways are greening up rapidly too!  Cart restrictions will soon be fading away as the dormant yellow fades to green.  The season is here and were excited to see all of our BHCC members filtering in!

Sod work from the bunker project is a few rolls of sod away from final completion!  Putting some finishing touches on #5 today.

Spring Fever

Winter is breaking up and spring is blowing in with style.  High winds caused us to close the golf course on Thursday as a precaution to potential falling limbs and trees.  Today we mowed greens in preparation for a fair weekend of golf.

More importantly, we are up and going on the bunker renovation again!  We continuously keep an eye on the extended range weather forecast.  The future looks good so we are going to make a run toward the finish line! Today we broke ground on #13.

The Works

As tropical storm Gordon rolls in later this week hopefully the hot summer weather rolls out for the year.  With the chance for significant rainfall and guaranteed cooler weather we are hitting the putting greens with the works! 

Today we applied wetting agent and a growth regulator that was watered into the soil profile.  Followed by a needle tine venting the surface and a fresh mow to clean everything up.  Finished by topping off with more water to flush the profile.

Tomorrow we will be vertical mowing, followed by a clean mow.  A heavy topdress will be timed with rainfall if forecast stays true.  We try to time with a rain event if possible because it helps push the sand down into the crown of the plant.  This gets the sand off the surface and places it right where we need it!

Mowing after venting greens today

Tested out vertical mower this afternoon.  Ready for action!

Going Vertical

Today we took advantage of a closed golf course to work over our greens a little bit.  The previous weekends wet weather released locked up nutrients within the soil.  Although we applied growth regulator to our putting greens the rains resulted in a flush of growth.  This caused the putting surface to become puffy and swollen leaf blades had us battling to keep ball speed up.  A light sand top dressing and multiple mowings and rolling helped us keep the greens acceptable but not extraordinary over the holiday weekend.

In pursuit of reversing the effects of excess growth we did multiple cultural practices today.  We started with a vertical mow which cuts down into the canopy, thinning it out.  This also helps cut lazy leaf blades growing horizontally.  Next we mowed the clumps left over with our standard cutting unit.  Finally we finished with a moderate topdressing to help fill voids and firm the surface.  We didn’t want to get too aggressive today so we are saving a brush and a smooth roll for tomorrow mid morning.  All these processes will aid us in getting our greens dialed in.

 A great read from the University of Missouri’s turf pathology department.

Turf Pathology Report 5/24

Mowing and Trenching

After a week of much needed rain, we are pushing along.  Almost 4 inches of rain tested out our new bunkers and added thousands of gallons of water to our irrigation pond!  Unfortunately, we found an issue with one of our new bunkers.  Cypress Tree roots have stuffed up the existing drainage causing the bunker to hold water.  Our solution was to trench a new drain to the creek.

Standing Water in the new bunker

Hundreds of roots from nearby trees

Installing new drainage, including solid pvc pipe in tree root zone to eliminate roots from penetrating thinner, traditional drainage pipe

We also mowed greens for the first time in over two months this past Tuesday!  It seems spring may have sprung!