Course Update 5/29/19

Last night's storms delivered 3.4" of heavy rain and nearly golf ball sized hail, washing out bunkers and leaving plenty of debris to cleanup today.  It was some of the hardest rain I have seen in years, and the sound of the hail was like standing next to a passing train.  We found ourselves saying "It could have been a lot worse" many times today as we assessed the property.  Yes, we are dealing with hail damaged greens, all the bunkers need to be repaired, and there is enough debris throughout the courses to keep us busy for days, but we didn't lose any trees and there weren't any landslides.

Repairing the hail damaged greens is our primary focus and we determined that combining numerous cultural practices delivered the best results.  All 29 greens received some sort of damage from the hail, but Grove got it the worst and that's where we started after completing the practice green.  The first step in the process is to verticut (or vertical mow) which removes leaf tissue, thatch, and Poa seedheads, leaving 1/16" wide grooves for sand to settle into.  Next, we mow the greens at their normal height perpendicular to the verticut direction to clean up any stray leaf tissue.  After mowing, we sand topdress the greens then aerify using .25" solid tines on a 1.5"x1.5" spacing.  This type of aerification, also called pencil tining, helps to work the sand into the turf and the movement of the tines being pulled out of the ground will pull up the depression left by the hail.  The final steps in the process are to drag the greens with a semi-coarse brush to evenly spread the sand across the putting surface and fill in any remaining hail damaged spots, followed by rolling to smooth any bumps and tire tracks.  More storms this afternoon interrupted our progress on Grove, but we'll finish tomorrow morning then turn to Lakes followed by Orchard.  We are very pleased with the final results on the greens thus far and plan to have the process completed by Friday morning as long as the weather cooperates.

Large piece of hail from yesterday's storms.

Hail damage on Grove 4 green.

This was typical of the debris encountered this morning.

All the bunkers washed out and will be repaired once the sand dries out and can be pushed back into place.

Lakes 7 pond near the drop area.

There was enough water flowing in this creek to push a large rock into the drain pipe and collapse part of the wing wall. 

Lakes #5 by the tees.

Lakes #5 by the green.  You can see how high the water got from where the log and debris line is above the pipe.  The log is close to 18" in diameter.

This is the putting green surface after verticutting.

Sand topdressing then aerifying gave the best results.

Here's a closeup of the putting surface right after aerifying.

This is the putting surface after brushing and rolling.  The aerifier holes aren't visible anymore.

The end result repairs the hail damage and makes for a great putting surface.