8:50 AM

Turf Scouting Report, May 25th

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High Temps Hit 90s Early: Lack of Rain = Dry, Handwater Management Starts, Peter thinks Root Research, and Tim says "Fairy Ring Research Begins"

Chicago/Northern Illinois Update: Derek Settle -

Memorial Day Weekend Arrives and yet it doesn't seem quite right. So far this season has advanced early, but the poor old calendar just progresses according to numbers. To me and to others, Memorial Day came and went a month ago - this calendar is of growing things. To the uninitiated all seems well, but folks that maintain the landscape are [.....]

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8:02 AM

Cart Path On 4

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The cart path project at 4 green was started and completed last week with no problems.  We hope to have some cart traffic use this path to relieve the wear between 4 green and 5 tee during the hot months of the season.  After heavy rain, this path will also gives us the opportunity to rope that area off and move carts to the cart path.
Monday we painted lines for the edges of the path, and soon after the crew began trenching a line for the edge. [.....]

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8:22 AM

Cultivation In The Rough

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The lines that you can see in the rough are from a recent cultivation practice.  This is done to allow better air and water movement into the soil.  We completed this in areas of the rough that receive heavy traffic, resulting in compacted soils.  When soils are compacted, air is displaced from the rootzone which causes a wide array of problems.  It is more difficult for roots to survive and water to move in the soil.

The machine we used is called a Verti-Quake.  It has thick [.....]

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8:43 AM

Turf Scouting Report, May 18th

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May Is Dry, Yet Temperatures Perfect: Ideal Turf Health, Our Few Diseases Subside, Peter from Purdue Returns and Tim's Dollar Spot Review of Bentgrass

Chicago/Northern Illinois Update: Derek Settle -

If you live in the upper Midwest, you should be smiling. If you are a golfer you should be beaming. Dry conditions and warm temps create fast ball roll speeds on greens - more like midsummer they say. I take note because it is a departure from the cool, wet, and nasty springs that we experienced in 2010 and 2011. Back [.....]

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9:16 AM

New Cart Path At 4 Green

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This week we started our last major project of this spring, a cart path off the right side of 4 approach that travels around the back of 4 green to 5 tee.  We had planned to do this project late last fall, but we were unable to get to it(we were do the drainage work on 11 fairway).

The cut for the path has been made.  We will begin to lay the gravel base layer today.  Once the base layer is in and packed down, red gravel [.....]

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9:29 AM

Turf Scouting Report, May 11th

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May's Temperature Zig Zag: Soils are sub-60 again, Fairway fungicide programs begin, Waitea, Microdochium, Dollar spot, and Tim's Waitea data is early!

Chicago/Northern Illinois Update: Derek Settle -

This week did you sit back and enjoy the fruits of ideal growing conditions? ...for cool-season turf? We would have, but were mowing. You see, April frustrated us a bit because we stayed cool and it didn't rain much. Rapid warm-up spring came to a screeching halt. May has us back on track - most trees have now leafed out nicely and birds [.....]

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11:13 AM

Last Set Of Arborvitaes Planted

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Another group of arborvitaes were delivered early this week to finish the plantings along the fence near one green.  This line of arborvitaes gives this area a much cleaner look and provides a nice barrier from Chicago Avenue.  Here is a list of the past posts about planting these arborvitaes spanning the last three years:
Arborvitaes Near 1 Green
More Arborvitaes Near 1 Green
Arborvitaes Are Done

In this stretch of trees, the crew had to deal with some large roots of the adjacent trees. Thankfully, they [.....]

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9:53 AM

Around The Course Last Week

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The drainage projects last week took most of the crew's time, and also most of the content on the blog.  Those projects have been finished, so we can move on to other items.  Here is an update on other projects that were completed or started last week:

Our yearly maintenance on the pump station was completed early last week.  This involves changing the oil in the pumps, repacking bearings, tightening spindles, checking connections in the panel, etc.  We do have a weekly checklist that is completed throughout [.....]

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2:46 PM

Sodding The Drain On 14

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Here is a quick video of the sod work that was done to finish up the drainage project on 14.  There is no sound on this video.


[.....]

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10:24 AM

Turf Scouting Report, May 4th

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It's May, We Warm: A Trifecta of Disease, 1st Waitea, Microdochium patch, Dollar spot returns, and Tim says "Early Dollar Spot Research"

Chicago/Northern Illinois Update: Derek Settle -
It became May and well... we warmed. This would my first week to see a lot of core Chicago courses - I'd be in diagnosis mode. Compared to March's freakish warm, this time around it would be less mysterious. I would recognize the usual fungal diseases of late spring. I would see three different foliar diseases - triggered by the recent rain and [.....]

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8:24 AM

Drainage Work Done On 14...and 5

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After only 4 days of work, the drainage project on 14 and a small drainage project at 4 approach and 5 tee is done.  The contractor started marking irrigation lines and laying out the pipe on Monday morning.  They started digging across 14 approach on Monday afternoon and had all the pipe in the ground by Wednesday afternoon.  The project on 14 went quick enough that the contractor had some time left and asked if we had any other work they could do for us.  We had plans [.....]

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8:44 AM

Interesting Fairway Colors

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The fairways have be all different colors this spring with the weather we are having.  This picture shows what a few spots in the fairway look like now.  The bentgrass is off color with yellow/brown leaf tips, while the annual bluegrass is green.  We assumed it was a combination of the several frosts we received last week along the dry conditions we had.  We asked Dr. Settle from the CDGA to look at these areas and give us his opinion.

Dr. Settle was here yesterday and [.....]

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