Course Notes, 6/2/2016

May was a month of wide temperature extremes here at Elcona.  On May 15th, we experienced snow showers and a low of 32, a rare occurrence for that time of year.  Up until last week, May was on track to be the 2nd coldest on record, and still is in the top 10 coldest May's even with the heat the last few days.  Rain wise, the beginning of the month was plentiful, but since the 17th we have received only .01" of precipitation here at Elcona. In a matter of 6 days, we went from snow showers to dragging hoses on dry areas!  While the dry conditions have set up firm playability on the course, there are some areas that have struggled.  These areas saw a noticeable increase in traffic wear from our early warm weather and course opening in March, with little to no warm weather to aid in growth and recovery.  

Some of the green surrounds have noticeable rippling and/or uneven lies in and around the turf.  This is a two fold issue, coming from weather and machinery.  The machinery that we used is a rotary bladed unit, and in many areas there is only one direction of traffic that the operator can go to efficiently mow this turf, causing the machine to traverse in the same direction over and over, causing the rear rollers on the decks to hit in the same spots and an uneven turf growth habit in areas.  The colder weather of April and May stunted any growth of the grass in the lower areas to fill in and reduce the unevenness of lies experienced.  

11 green surround, with cores pulled

We are tackling this issue in a couple different ways.  First, fertility has been increased to promote growth to help fill in the lower areas, and will be higher throughout the year than we have done in the past to help sustain more consistent conditions through the year.  We will also be changing mowing patterns on 6 green surrounds each week to differentiate traffic and wear on these areas.  The mower will still traverse over tighter areas in the same direction, but larger areas should see improvement.  Finally, as the picture on the right depicts, we aerified #11 green surround last week, and while it did not provide immediate results at removing the unevenness, the process did relieve compaction and traffic wear, and will provide fresh oxygen and better channels for rooting and water percolation.  In late September, we will be aerifying all surrounds to promote the health of these areas.  

Close up of 17 fairway turf.  

17 Fairway

The fairways are another area that have struggled with May's highs and lows.  The turf in these areas is composed of Penncross, an older variety of bentgrass that does not like wide temperature swings.  With the frosts and freezes that May brought, the growth habit of these areas has slowed more considerably than I would like, producing tighter lies and an off color.  This off color is from older leaves dying and the tips of live plants browning from the frosts and freezes.  The rest of the plant is healthy and growing, albeit slowly.  We have increased fertility on fairways to promote a light increase in growth, and will be experimenting with brushes to stand the plant up and remove more of these brown tips to remove the off color portions.  A verticut may be needed to remove more of these off color plants.  

If you have any questions, please contact me at ryan@elconacc.com.  Have a great rest of your week!  

Ryan

September Course Notes and Happenings

We are halfway through September already.  The month has provided some great weather to get out and enjoy the golf course.  Last Friday's rain was quite the damper on the Boys and Girls Club Ryder Cup fundraiser, but provided me the opportunity to take a couple pictures of this nice rainbow over the course in the morning, ahead of the rain.  This sight was one reminder of many the awe-inspiring images that I have the opportunity to see and enjoy on a daily basis.

 The picture to the left, is not one of those images I enjoy seeing.  This is damage left by a raccoon or skunk, forging for food.  This time of year white grubs are close to the turf surface, and areas that are normally untreated, like this area near the woods on 13, provide areas for animals to dig in search of their next meal.  Mole activity is increased this time of year as well, for the same reason: grubs are a source of food for them. We are treating these areas as needed to eliminate the food source so that damage to turf is minimized, and also will be seeding the damaged turf.  These areas will be marked as ground under repair for the time being.

The picture to the right is on the north side of 13.  The damage to the turf is a result of 2 quick acting fungal diseases:  grey leaf spot and foliar pythium.  We have treated these areas to knockdown any additional fungal activity, and will be seeding this area later today.  Again, this area will be marked as ground under repair until the turf stand recovers.

Finally, a few of you have asked about the differing, inconsistent lies received on any given hole in the turf surrounding the green.  In 2012, the intermediate strips around the greens were removed and replaced with 100% Kentucky bluegrass.  This turf was quite stringy last year and in places still allows a ball to sink down lower than other areas outside of this newer sod, which is compromised mainly of a mix of Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, Poa annua, and roughstalk bluegrass.

In this blog post I wrote last year, I described the possible scenarios that allowed shots to sink into the bluegrass around the green.  2 weeks ago, we applied slow release fertilizer to promote new growth near the crowns of the plant to help support the ball and keep it from sinking down below.  Throughout the month we will be aerifying the surrounds with solid tines to alleviate compaction and increase the health of this turf by introducing fresh oxygen to the rootzone and allowing new channels for root growth and development.

If you have questions about anything on the golf course, please feel free to contact me at the maintenance shop, or email me at ryan@elconacc.com.  Thanks, and have a great day!

Ryan

Course and Project Update, 5/31/15

A soggy end to the month of May

What a way to end the month of May.  As I am writing this, we have received 3.25" of rain in the past 24 hours.  With exception of the bunkers, the course took this rain very well.  The sandy soil that Mr. Sims gave Elcona is some of the best draining in the region and I am fortunate to have it.

The green, tee, and bunker surrounds I wrote about here are slowly pushing new growth and coming back from their injury.  In select areas where growth is not at the rate that I was expecting, we will be aerifying small holes into the surface to break the preemergent herbicide barrier, and slit seeding to try and fill those areas better.  I appreciate everyone's patience with the recovery of these areas.

The terrace project is reaching its final days.  Work focused this past week on construction of the fire pit.  This required over 100 cuts into the stone to make the 6 foot diameter circle for the insert, as well as some custom cutting to make vents and the valves fit seamlessly into the stone.  When, finished, the fire feature will be 18" tall.  The fire insert itself is a 36" penta-style burner with a layer of lava rock topped with realistic-looking logs.  Stay tuned for pictures of the final look!

One of the neat sights around the property each May are the new additions to the wildlife families on course.  The new litters of turkeys have started to roam the course, and the above picture was taken by our head golf professional, Tom Thome.  We think this fawn was born the night before out near the halfway house.  This demonstrates another example of the sanctuary golf courses can be in providing safe, quality habitats for native wildlife.  

Finally, Niblock will be here on Monday to start resurfacing cart paths along 2 and 15 green, hole # 3 and 4 tee, hole #8, around 12 green, and from 14 green to 15 tee.  You may have noticed our staff removing sod along these paths over the last couple of days.  Over the years, turf growth has narrowed paths from their original 8 foot width.  Niblock will be overlaying these areas with an additional 2" of asphalt. This work is expected to leak into Tuesday and if there is a need to re-route traffic, we will communicate that to you.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.  Have a great week and I will see you out on the golf  course!

Ryan

Late July Course Update

Staff hard at work prepping for Day 3

 

Another Walter O. Wells Invitational is in the books, and on behalf of the entire Grounds staff, congratulations to all the flight winners.  We hope that everyone had another memorable experience this past week. 

 



New path and landscape bed along 9 tee

One of the neat projects that the staff completed this month was reshaping and edging the landscape bed along 9 tee.  With the resurfacing of the cart path, it was necessary to remove the old timbers that lined the path.  In lieu of new timbers, we decided to line the edge with fieldstone.  Many of you asked where we got the stone, and how much we spent on it.  That is the great part about this project.  Over the years, these stones have come from adjacent fields from Elcona's property that the farmers have piled up and given to us.  Other stones have been found on property from doing various renovation projects.  Many thanks to Greg Stump, Elcona's horticulturalist, for his efforts planning and executing this great improvement to the golf course. 

 



Normal and over-regulated bluegrass, 5 green

Finally, many of you have asked me about the rough directly next to the collar around greens.  This Kentucky Bluegrass rough has the playability similar to Bermudagrass and is quite stemmy, as the picture on the right shows, which can result in balls sinking down and creating quite the tough pitch shot.  This is a result of over-regulation of the plant.  Growth regulator is applied to the greens on a weekly basis to help produce the playing conditions that are expected.  In late Spring, additional growth regulator was applied to keep the rough in check and help us keep up with mowing.  As a result, these regulators limit leaf growth and promote root/stem growth.  What has resulted this year is something that I have not seen in my career. 

 

In the short term, we have applied a slow-release fertilizer to promote new leaf tissue growth and help keep balls from sinking down into the canopy.  When fall weather hits, we will be aggressively verticutting around the greens to remove plant material and promote further new growth that will not have this growth habit.  Finally, green surrounds will be aerified to increase air flow to the rootzone and reduce the compaction from foot and machinery traffic.  All of these cultural practices will help alleviate our current situation and improve playability around greens. 

 

Ryan

SodFest 2012

It has certainly been a while since I provided any type of update on this blog, and for that I apologize.  The Grounds Department has been exceptionally busy this Fall working on several projects. Most notably the sod work around the greens that has been an ongoing project since early Fall.

All of the green surrounds, or at least a 7-8 ft. pass around each green has been stripped and had new sod laid in an attempt to improve playing conditions during the summer months when certain types of turfgrass are stressed beyond what they can handle.  For more detailed information and a video explaining our circumstances, please click here to revisit a previous update from this blog.

Finished sod work around a green. A MAJOR improvement!

If you recall, three greens on the golf course (#2, 7 and 15) had "mowouts", or areas of lower mown turf, around them to make the playing conditions more favorable. These mowouts were established in areas where there was an extremely high population of bentgrass. By mowing these areas lower, the ball had a better lie and shots from around the green were more manageable.  These areas have since been stripped of the bentgrass and received new sod. Going forward, this sod will be maintained at rough height, thereby eliminating the mowouts.

The contaminated mowout around #7 green has been replaced 

with clean sod and will be maintained at rough height.

The 7-8 ft. pass around each green will be staged down in the spring to match up with our Intermediate cut that we have always maintained around the greens. I am sure you will notice a significant difference, not just visually, but in the conditioning as well.

All totaled, it took 76 pallets of sod just like this one to complete

the project. With that may pallets, you can see why the crew dubbed this 

project SODFEST!

Please contact me if you have any questions and I promise that the updates will be a little more regular in the future. There will be lots of updates to post as we have some minor projects with some of the tees, tree work and our usual winter maintenance around the shop and golf course. Have a great remainder of your Fall!