Course Conditions This Week

Some areas on the course are beginning to show signs of hot weather.  The annual bluegrass in the fairways and areas that receive the most traffic is showing the most stress.  This reaction from the annual bluegrass is what we expected.

Here is a picture from 9 fairway that shows the yellow annual bluegrass.  Annual bluegrass is more shallow rooted and less heat tolerant than bentgrass.

This picture is from yesterday afternoon.  The cart traffic is concentrated around the edge of the bunker, which will lead to more annual bluegrass.  Several of these areas on the course have been roped off to prevent any further damage.  In the background you can see a syringe cycle running on the fairway.

This is the soil temperature reading from 12 green yesterday afternoon.  The grass can not tolerate these types of temperatures for extended periods of time.  The temperature this morning was back down to 79.9 degrees, which isn't ideal, but much better than yesterday afternoon.

We have had a cool cloudy morning today, which will help.  And, we just received a burst of rain, which will help return water and cool the soil temperatures more.  After looking at the weather report, it looks like the worst of the weather is behind us now.  The break in evening temperatures that is forecasted for early next week will be much needed if it gets warm again later in the week.