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.