Course Close, First Snow

( 2010_11_15 - First snow cover #4 green )

And the season has come to a screeching halt, 8-9 inches of snow will do that I suppose. I left on Friday afternoon thinking  Monday morning would be a good day for some pictures and updates on the projects and course as we head into winter. Well, I can show you winter, and that is about all. There is not 8 inches of snow on the course, but there is at least a few still. The heavy wet snow did provide some great moisture for all the new sod we just put down. The total for the current project was over 5,000 yards, some regular height rough grass and some 1.25" premium blue.

We had everything pretty well done before this first snow volley hit. Tee markers and some odds-n-ends supplies are still being picked up today, but for the most part that is it. All the chemical applications were finished up on Friday, and that is usually the most important thing going into winter. We did not get any covers down on the greens. We have enough covers left for about a half dozen greens to be covered, the same number as last winter. As many of you know we have been phasing out green covers over the last 5 years, so to possibly not have anything covered this winter is just an acceleration of the plan in place. When I started there were 14 greens covered, over the years as the mats have deteriorated we have not replaced them and are down to about 6 greens worth of covers.

Some of the things we have done over the years to strengthen the plant and protect the turf going into winter that will not be covered has been: fall foliar fertilizers high in potassium which helps harden off the plant for the winter months and a thicker sand topdressing which helps in protecting the crown of the plant. This winter we had planned to use a turf paint which would help protect against desiccation if there is little snow cover and spring green due to heating of the plants with the dark green color. So far it is something that golf courses in the area have just started to experiment with, and we had planned to do our own experiment with it this winter.

I still think we will have an opportunity to get some covers down and even some turf paint, but if we don't I am not overly concerned. Thanks to everyone for a great 2010 season! Let's hope for a good winter and a better 2011 season.

Renovations Underway

( 2010_10_15 - Approach work #7 )

The renovation work began last week on holes 4,7, & 8. A complete renovation of the teeing areas on 4 and 8, plus the bunker renovation and approach grading on 7. Because of the amount of soil we needed to properly rebuild the 4th tee and renovate the bunkers on #7, we chose to re-grade the approach area on #7. This allowed us to properly surface drain the area and open up the site-line along the left side of the hole.

(2010_10_20 - Approach work #7 after grading )

Though the pictures do not do it real justice, you can now stand back at the fairway bunker and see the rebuilt greenside  bunker and left edge of the green. The majority of the water will surface drain off to the left, and we were able to make renovating the fairway bunker on 18 very cost effective due to the soil we could generate from the approach area. The bunker on 18 has no soil to work with and everything has to be hauled in, not too mention it requires a lot of soil to do properly.

(2010_10_20 - Renovations on hole #7 )

So all in all we have another week or so of renovation work. And then it is almost November and irrigation blow-out, snow-mold chemical applications, and greens covers will be on the agenda. Oh yeah, we also have a bunch of tree trimming planned as usual.

After The Championship

( 2010_08_29 - Looking back on hole 5 )

Congratulations to all the winners this past weekend, we had a great turn out for the entire 2010 Club Championship. Last I heard there were around 195 total players from Wednesday through Sunday, pretty cool if you ask me. I want to thank my staff for a super job getting the course prepped for our biggest event of the year. We had great weather to get the place a little firm and keep the speed up. A lot of people asked me how fast the greens were, we stimped them both days around 6:30am and were able to keep them right around 11. To put that in perspective, we have been able to hold around a 10 most of the summer and rarely fell below the 9.5 mark. USGA Stimpmeter Information for those unfamiliar with what the numbers mean and how it is measured. The other thing we were able to do thanks to my staff was mow all the fine turf areas every morning from Wednesday through Sunday, this kept the golf course in top shape throughout the entire event. I really hope everyone enjoyed a great tournament...

So now that the tourney is over we will start some of the normal end-of-summer practices. Fairways and tees will be aerified soon, and this year we will just be aerifying collars around the greens because of the MGA Tournament being held at IVGC on September 27 & 28. This will most likely push us to do our normal core aerification on greens next spring and then I am considering a deep tine aerification in the fall. As usual though, we will do everything we can to keep the disruption to play at an absolute minimum. 

Also this fall, early October, Hartman Companies will be out renovating the bunkers and approach on hole #7, the tee on #8, and the tee on #4. This plan is to tier the tee box on #8 so there are two distinct teeing surfaces, and make the tee on #4 much larger while re-aligning it with the hole. The space between the two holes will be decreased to about half the size and planted with perennial grasses as a buffer between. The left fairway bunker on 7 will be renovated in its current location while the right fairway bunkers will be filled in and a new bunker will be placed near the 100 yard stake. The green side bunker on 7 will be brought around the front corner a little and built up in the back for better visibility. There is a chance that 18 fairway bunker will also be renovated at that time, but that project is currently on a wait-and-see.

I know things start to slow down around the course once school starts, but I hope everyone can keep on coming out. There is a lot of great golf weather ahead of us.

Casual Water

Here are some snapshots from the golf course this morning. Needless to say, 3.25" of rain is going to take a little while to drain. Adding the 2" from Tuesday it brings us up to a nice 5.25" in 3 days, not bad...

2010_08_11 - Flooding on #6

2010_08_13 - Flooding on #10

2010_08_13 - Flooding on #14

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.

How Much Peat? Or Organic Matter for that matter...

( 2010_07_19 - Soil Boring #14 Approach )

In an effort to better understand what kind of soil structure, or lack there of, we did some soil borings on #14 approach today. With the pond banks collapsing, the bunkers in need of renovation, and the approach a rolly-polly expanse, the greens committee is starting the planning process for what will take place over the next couple of years. The amount of organic matter, specifically peat, has always been in question in that area. And with renovation plans beginning we needed to get a handle on what exactly we are dealing with in the area.

( 2010_07_19 - Soil Boring on #14 Approach )

From the looks of things as the cores were coming out, we are not in a situation where we will need to excavate any substantial peat. The soil profile appeared to be made up of about 4 feet soil & peat, then about 2-3 feet very sloppy wet gray clay, and then down to the boring depth of 20 feet it was generic looking clay. Braun Intertec will be compiling a report on the profile and getting that back to us. With that general knowledge we should be able to come up with a pretty good game plan for renovation of the general area. It's nice to know we don't need to dig up 15 feet of junk and then fill it all back in with some proper soils for good growing conditions. 

Watering da Turf

( 2010_07_16 - Watering #10 Green )

Over the last month we have had some irrigation issues. Four weeks ago we had one of the main irrigation motors go down and it had to be replaced. We have been running at about half capacity until a week ago, when we installed the new motor and got everything back up and running at 100%. The last few days we have had more issues with low pressure shut downs and the pump house not being able to handle the load. We have tweaked the settings in the computer that controls the irrigation and hopefully have it under control now. Tomorrow morning will give us our answer, if everything runs and there are no more shutdowns then we should be in good shape to finish out the year. We will be updating the wet-well intake in the irrigation pond on #13/14 this winter after we shut the system down. Currently the screen and location of the intake is causing the majority of our problems with the motors and pumps. I would do it now but we would be a week or so without any irrigation water since we would have to drain the pond to do the work. Not to mention digging out firm muck is much easier then slopping out the wet stuff and hauling it away.

The irrigation issues have resulted in some unsightly turf in a few fairways. The annual bluegrass has not taken to being dried out very well. We usually try and walk the fine line of dry but not dry enough to damage the turf. With the night watering not working 100% and day watering only amounting to so much, we have had some poa annua decide enough is enough and die out. The nice thing is we can start cultivating those small patches and try to encourage some good bluegrass, but it is a bit unsightly. Overall it should not effect play too much and things should rebound quickly as we get more water on it and the weather cools a little. The poa annua doesn't really like 90 degree temps with high humidity for any length of time...

I hope everyone has a good weekend and has a chance to get out and play a little bit.

( 2010_07_16 - A View of #5 Green/Approach )