Greens Mower Check

We double checked the greens mower today by mowing #18, everything looks great so the plan is to mow the greens Saturday morning before the course opens for the season. The chipping green is very saturated so we will skip that green, we will also not be cutting the putting green due to its rather poor condition in spots. There shouldn't be much if any snow left after the beautiful weather today. There were some bunkers that had a lot of snow when the crew made there way around today so they skipped them. Those bunkers will be addressed soon but should still be playable if you happen to find yourself in one.

It was kind of rushed to get the course ready for the opener on Saturday. Since we only had 2 days to prep I know we ran out of time and missed a few things here and there. The water coolers will be out early next week if we do not get them out over the weekend. The hazard stakes still have ice in the ground sleeves so they should be able to go out after some warm temps this weekend when that melts. Seed/soil boxes and mix will be out starting Monday if it does not get done on the weekend. And there is quite a bit of debris cleanup that will occupy a lot of our time over the next week or two, especially around greens and tees.

Course is Opening April 27, 2013

This is what the course looked like yesterday morning, full of a lot of snow, but today it is 90% all gone. Course opens Saturday morning but it will be a little wet and there are some rough spots here and there. The annual bluegrass did not enjoy the long winter and much of it is definitely not green. For the most part the only turf loss appears to be in the bowls and pockets in some of the fairways. The front of #16 green is also in pretty tough shape, there are some fairly large areas that do not look like they survived the winter. We will be evaluating it over the next few days as things warm up and take quick action to get it back in shape as soon as possible. With only a couple days of being able to prep the golf course for the opener I just want all the members to know that certain things might not get done. We will do our best to get through as many bunkers as we can, I predict there will be snow still in some of them along with some leaf/stick debris. Our plan is to mow greens Saturday morning if they are firm enough for equipment traffic, some of them at this point are not. They will be clean and playable regardless. Do to remaining snow and wet conditions throughout the course, including our cart crossings in fairways, there will be no golf carts until conditions permit. I'm predicting carts will be allowed on paths only Monday or Tuesday of next week.

So here we go...

A Little of This and That

Governor's golf open is done.  First member tourny of the season is past, the second one is right around the corner.  The heat is here and with the bit of rain we had the grass is growing and the mowers are busy.  Greens mowing height was brought down a notch to 0.135" a couple of weeks ago, we plan to be at summer height of 0.120" by Memorial Day.  During the season at times we do raise the height up a bit to lessen the impact of stressful conditions.  Bunkers have all been edged and sand is being added to a few as I write this.  Sunflower seeds have not been as problematic as they were, it appears the notice over Foretees was noticed.  So here we go... Not that we have not been going for 2 months already or anything.  But with the heat and night time temps up things have really taken shape.

The Greens Committee has approved the concept plans for the front entry make-over.  The design is currently being detailed and bids will be taken for the various parts of the project. The committee is hoping to have a detailed presentation to the IVGC Board of Directors at the June meeting, if not the July meeting at the latest.  Construction/Renovation will most likely occur in September and October.  When things are approved I will post the drawings and plans on the blog.

I was also hoping to show everyone some before and after pictures of the well re-development that was done over the winter.  I currently have the video footage of the before, but am having problems with the footage taken after completion.  I'll get them up as soon as I can, the screen looks brand new at the bottom of the well after the blasting and jetting that was done.  If I can finagle some pictures of the process I will get those up too, I was not allowed to photograph the blasting portion for safety concerns.

Why The Low H2O?

When we drained the pond on #6 down last fall we noticed the muskrat control netting had slipped down a few feet in spots and there were some burrows in the pond bank.  With everything going on this spring so far we have not had a chance to rebuild the small portion that got dug out and also install some new netting up higher on the bank.  Another issue with the pond is the gate system has rocks in the bottom of the enclosure that is preventing the bottom gate sections to seat properly and seal water off from draining out.  This coming week we will climb down and pull the rocks out, and also start to rebuild the pond bank and install new muskrat control along the pond bank.

In other news, we have been very busy tidying up the multiple projects we had left over from last fall/winter.  The tracks from the work on the irrigation pond have been cleaned up and sodded over in front of the 13th green.  The drainage on #15 & 16 has been cleaned up and prepped for seed/sod.  Some of the smaller stumps have been ground up and the holes cleaned out.  The larger ones are too big to feasibly do in-house so we will hire out their removal.  Most of the landscape beds have been cleaned out and are awaiting a fresh layer of mulch.  And to go with all of that we have already started some normal rough mowing routines and are getting closer to a regular mowing schedule on fine turf areas (kinda crazy considering it is only April 7th).

Some First Cuts of the Season

Just a quick shot of the first fairway mowing of the season.  Yesterday we got out the mowers and put first cuts on the tees, approaches, and fairways.  The greens also were cut, for the fourth time this season already!  Couple of cool days here but things sure are greening up.  There is talk of hitting 80 degrees this weekend! Wow.

Off And Running

We mowed greens on Friday, nice clean-up height. We opened the course at noon on Saturday. And now, on Monday afternoon March 19 mind you, we are firing up the irrigation system! Here we go. IVGC is looking forward to potentially a nice long season. Here's hoping the weather is good to us that whole time.

Posting from my phone in the pump house. Not sure how this is gonna look or the quality of the picture until I get back to the computer. Bare with me...

Aerifying Schedule

Last week we aerified greens, and it went about as smooth as it ever has. The weather was absolutely perfect and at a week out the greens are healing nicely. My previous post gives a pictorial of the process from start to finish, for those of you who might be interested in what it takes to go from really nice putting surfaces to something akin to putting over large holed pegboard. By this coming weekend they should be in pretty good shape.

This week we will be aerifying tees, which we started today by getting half of the driving range tee done. Wednesday and Thursday we plan to do the front 9 and back 9 respectively. And then on Friday we plan to finish the driving range tee. The process is a bit different then greens. We pull cores, pulverize them, and then drag the sand/soil into the turf canopy. The par 3 tees and some of the par 4 tees will get some seed and topdressing as part of the process also. Like the greens, we will be mowing the tees a little less frequently over the next week or so, and also waiting a little longer in the day so they have time to dry a bit and we don't track around any mud.

Fairways will follow next week and it usually takes a couple of weeks to get them all done. We use large solid tines and the disruption to play is minimal. They will also get some seed and topdressing dragged in where we feel it is needed, though they have recovered very nicely from the summer issues we had a couple of months ago.

10 Steps or so...

Pulling Cores

Harvesting Cores

Spreading Sand

Dragging Sand In

Brushing Sand In

Hand Broom And Fill Remaining Holes

Backpack Blower Cleanup

Mowing

Fertilizing

Much Needed Irrigation By Step 10

A Little Damage, A Little Disease

( 2010_07_29 - #17 Green Showing Damage/Disease )

The heat and humidity have began to take its toll in a few places. Our main issues have been with the fairways, though they have been minor and have even started to show signs of healing. Our teeing surfaces are not so much disease ridden as they are divot ridden. We struggle with some of them because of the size, that being too small for many of them, the par 3 tees on #4 and #16 being the worst. We do topdress and seed throughout the season to try and keep as much turf on them as we can, and not just by filling divots but using the topdresser and broadcasting seed. For the most part the other tees are in good shape and are not much of a issue.

The greens on the course have been in super shape for most of the season. Until recently we have had little to no issues with the turf, and that includes the notorious spots on #8 and #16. But a couple weeks ago we started to see some disease pop up on a few of them. Anthracnose being the main problem, and this is nothing new since it has occurred almost every year that I have been at IVGC. We are on a preventative chemical program for our greens, which means we are spraying fungicides on about a 14 day interval for most of the summer. Even with that schedule we can still get disease, it just shows you how tenacious some of the turf pathogens can be. There are also other factors that make the turf more susceptible, other then temps and humidity: low mowing, lean fertilizer program, and irrigation/drainage problems are a few. And on top of the disease issues we also had some mechanical damage caused by our riding greens mower and turf groomers. The height of cut was too low for the tri-plex to provide a good quality cut and the turf groomers were down, this tufted up some of the softer/spongy areas on our greens and scalped them out a little.

So what are we doing about it? We continue to stay on a regular topdressing program, a light layer of sand every 14 days on our greens. I have bumped up the fertilizer rate a small amount to give the turf a little extra growing power. We have raised the height of cut back to our normal 0.125" and added a extra rolling or two during the week. And we are looking into a verticutting program along with the topdressings which should aid in firming up those softer spots more so then just the topdressing.

Hole 13 Update

( 2010_04_19 - Hole #13 from the White Tee )

Hole 13 is shaping up very nicely. The cut on it today really shows the definition and contrast between the rough cut and the fairway cut. The fertilizer has really got the grass going so it will be on a regular mowing routine from here on out it looks like. There are some thinner areas, we will be seeding them in some fashion over the next few days. We are also planning on getting some seed worked into the poor fairway spots that we have on #3, 14, & 17. The weather has done nothing but cooperate for getting 13 going strong out of winter, and I am very optimistic we will be playing on it sooner then projected. Just so you know, June 1st was the projected date. Obviously it is a day by day decision, but by May 1st we should have a pretty good handle on a projected opening...

First Full Mowing 2010

( 2010_04_01 - Mowing #8 fairway )

No April fools joke yesterday, we mowed fairways, approaches, collars, and tees for the first time this season. It really is something having weather like this April 1st, it is probably 3 weeks ahead of schedule. It is forcing us to rethink our timing on some of the fertilizer and chemical apps. Though I think we will have a cool down to more normal temps this time of year, we are definitely ahead of the curve so far.

( 2010_04_01 - #13 fairway from the forward tee )

Thirteen fairway is coming along very nicely with the warmer weather we are having. This picture was taken yesterday and the fairway is even greener today. If the trend continues we will be fertilizing it early then I had anticipated and should be mowing it for the first time pretty soon. I am very optimistic that we will be on it sooner then I had thought, which was ballparked at June 1st. Here is hoping the weather continues on its warm trend and things don't get too wet with spring showers.

Busy Couple of Weeks

Maia and I had our baby on Sept. 25th. Clara Maria Knox was born around 4:30pm and she weighed 8lbs. 7ozs. So needless to say the last couple of weeks have been busy and full of joy. Everyone is healthy and doing great.

The cold snap we are going through is slowing things down a bit on the course. We are not mowing everything on a regular basis right now because of the slow growth and not to mention wet weather we have had. Since last Thursday we have had about 5 inches of rain total and the golf course is plenty saturated. To top it all off the leaves are starting to fall and we are now beginning leaf patrol, trying to keep things as clean as we can. A couple things about the wet weather is that leaves do not blow away very well nor mulch up worth a hoot.

Over the next week or so we will start removing trees around #4 tee box in preperation for the renovation project that should be starting soon. The steps and flagstone path are in on #9 tee, we just have some work to do regarding the path and firming up the mulch so it is not so rough to drive on. Thirteen fairway is coming along, even with the weather lately. So all in all things have been coming together this fall so far, and right around the corner is tree trimming.