Course Update 5/31/23

 The recent stretch of hot and dry weather has made it challenging to keep the turf fully hydrated, and as a result we're seeing brown spots throughout the property.  Keep in mind the brown spots only indicate dry areas, not dead turf.  A natural defense mechanism for grass is to go semi-dormant which involves minimal top growth and a loss of green color.  The areas you're seeing brown out, normally occur when we have this kind of weather and will start to look better when the daytime high is below 85 degrees and there is more available soil moisture.  According to our weather records we only received 1.87" of rain this month, which is 2.56" less than our monthly average.  A lack of rain is one thing, but the bigger challenge is the low humidity we've experienced the second half of this month.   Any water we apply at night or during the day will be lost to evaporation and need to be replenished for the turf to recover.  Any time the humidity is 40% or less, the turf can lose up to .5" of water in a 24 hour period.  That may not sound like a lot, but keep in mind our irrigation systems are only capable of replacing .1"-.2" of water during an extended run cycle at night.

We've relied much more on the irrigation systems this year as compared to previous years, and we're watering every night it doesn't rain.  The staff will then use hoses or run heads during the day as needed to keep the hot spots moist.  A normal irrigation cycle is 10 minutes per head, but we've increased that lately up to 15 minutes in many areas.  Any longer and the water can't soak into the soil.  It will just runoff and puddle in the low areas where it creates a greater chance of disease due to the excess moisture, along with creating soft, mushy turf where balls plug.  The run time may not sound like a lot, but each irrigation head puts out 40-60 gallons per minute depending on the nozzle set used.  Our irrigation system has good coverage of all the playing surfaces, but even the most modern system will never replace a steady, natural rainfall.  Adding to the challenge is the fairways and rough are grown on mostly heavy clay, with very little topsoil.  Grove fairways are especially bad with clay and rocks near the surface, that's why you'll see more dry areas on that course.

This represents a typical dry area on a fairway.  If you look close you can see little green circles in the brown spots.  Those green circles are old aerification holes where the turf is healthier from deeper roots and better water penetration.

Divot Repair

 Now that the season is well underway I thought it would be a good time to remind everyone about divot repair.  When you hit a shot and the divot stays intact similar to the first picture below, you want to replace that divot.  If replaced within 24 hours of being removed, it has a very good chance of surviving.  Obviously you want the soil side down, and once in place you want to step on the divot to smooth it out and make sure the existing roots contact the soil.  If the divot explodes when striking the ball there's no reason to try to gather all the little pieces.  They won't survive, so the best course of action is to fill the void with divot sand on tees and fairways only.

Speaking of divot sand, we purchase a special blend of sand that is dyed green and contains a nutrient package designed to help the grass seedlings grow.  The divot sand comes in 2,000 pound (1 ton) super-sacs and we have a "Divot Mixing Area" in the maintenance building where we add bentgrass seed to the sand/nutrient blend using a standard cement mixer purchased from a home improvement store.  During the summer, we go through two super-sacs of divot mix per week between the divot bottles on the carts, six refill stations throughout the course, divot boxes on the tees, and what the staff uses when filling divots each day.  By the end of the year we will have used 35-40 super-sacs at a cost of $450 each.

**PLEASE USE DIVOT SAND ONLY ON TEES & FAIRWAYS**

Using the mix in the rough and along cart path edges leads to contamination and undesirable playing conditions.  Rough-height bentgrass is more susceptible to disease and dies out easily during the summer leaving large areas of dead or thin turf.

This divot should be replaced since it stayed intact.

Void where the divot came from.

Divot was replaced and stepped down to smooth out.  No divot sand was needed.

Fairway divots weren't reusable so the voids were filled with sand.

Tee divots improperly filled with sand.  Notice how the sand is piled up between the divots.  This wastes sand and dulls the mowers.

"Divot Mixing Area" at the maintenance building.

Bunker Maintenance

 The new bunkers on Lakes require a different method to properly maintain them compared to the existing bunkers on Grove and Orchard.  We've tried several different techniques, and have settled on what most folks call the "Aussie Style".  The new angular sand in the Lakes bunkers will compact much more than the old, contaminated sand.  This will allow the edges, or perimeters, to be smoothed and eventually create a hard crust that will not allow a golf ball to stay on the sloped areas, but roll down to the raked bottom.  The new sand was chosen for this reason and it's consistent playability.  To help us properly maintain the new bunkers, we ask that you do not walk up or down the faces, or any steep slopes.  It will require extra work to push the sand back up the slope and repair the deep footprints, along with starting the compaction process all over.  Please enter and exit the bunkers from the low side, or an area with the least amount of slope.

Staff training earlier this spring

Deep footprints on the face (slope) on Lakes #6

Side view of Lakes #6 with footprints going up the face towards the green.  The ideal place to enter and exit this bunker is near the cart path and along the rock wall.

Freshly raked bunker on Lakes #1 green