What A July, What A Wind!

How many days with 90+ degree weather so far this year? I think we are at 25 and counting. The month of July was something that is for sure. We had multiple days with soil temps at or over 100 degrees, it was a challenge keeping the turf cool. Collar areas took the brunt of the stress and there are quite a few poor spots to show it. We will be sodding a couple of the worst areas with bentgrass sod from the nursery area, and aerifying, seeding, and topdressing all the collars to help with a quick recovery. The recent cool down has been greatly appreciated that's for sure.

And now for the topic everyone has been talking about the last couple of days, the storm that blew through on the 3rd of August. Here are pictures to give you an idea of the damage and cleanup challenges we are facing right now. We hope to have 75% of the work done this week and the rest finished up by midweek next week. In all we will lose 17 trees due to the damage caused, some completely came down but many are so badly damaged that they need to come down. There are hundreds of hangers and fallen branches. Once the course is cleaned up and the hangers have been cut down we will start with the removal of the trees. A huge thanks to the members that showed up Sunday morning to help rake and pick up sticks, the effort is really appreciated by the staff. And a special thank you to Dean Geiger for the continued help he is giving us to load and remove brush from the golf course.

Seedlings

The bentgrass seed is coming up in the aerifier holes very nicely, however it is not showing up throughout the dead areas like I was hoping. For some of the major areas I think we will be cutting sod from the gold tee on #6 since that is nearly 100% bentgrass and replacing the collar. The smaller areas where the seed has been growing we will let it take hold and fill in, between that and the inevitable poa annua seed germination they should fill in fairly quick.

Unfortunately I do not have an update on #6, but with the stretch of nice weather we have been having I would expect to see Hartman working on by the end of the week or early next week. Once they start I am hoping there is only a few days of work and it will be complete.

The range has been looking a little dry, especially around the target greens, and we have finally gotten all the wiring and pipe work done so the range irrigation is up to 100%. We will be aggressively seeding and working the target greens to create a nice stand of grass we can mow at a shorter height then the rough so they should stand out more. The challenge we have with the target green areas is we are trying to grow grass with about an inch or two of topsoil over solid clay. If we can not get something established I think in the future we will have to consider a more major renovation so we can have nice target areas to shoot at.