A week of contrasts is the best way to describe this most recent week. Storms early in the week brought much flooding and damage to many courses, while towards the end of the week, conditions cooled off and turned rather comfortable. The lake has been creating its own problems as cold water in the center has led to a clash of temperatures and fronts around the city and mornings were extremely foggy and putting it nicely, cool. Further to that turfgrass canopies were staying very wet for extended periods which really was not what was needed.

The excess moisture and some of the extremely high humidity that we saw this week lead to further diversity on the disease front. I do not envy anyone trying to grow grass in tropical situations - there must be insane disease pressure - early this week we did get a taste of it, but summer is here so it's to be expected. Many courses are on the precipice of final recovery from what has been a long winter. I will say however spare a thought for managers in Minnesota who experienced something similar last year and dealt with the remnants into the early part of August - so be grateful for little mercies!

Our forecast is for the first three day spell in the 90's back to back to back, so depending on humidity, timing of control applications and how hot it actually will get, it could be a tough start to the week. Fortunately conditions look like cooling off so some relief is on the way. More importantly we can hope to see some bright skies which will help places which have been in fog and heavy cloud all week doing bentgrass no favors.

Click here to view the June 27, 2014 Scouting Report

As always if you have a question or query please do not hesitate to ask and you can call or email.

Ed Nangle PhD
Director of Turfgrass Programs
Chicago District Golf Association
www.cdgaturf.org
Follow us on Twitter @TurfResearch

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Changes around 1 tee have been underway since last fall.  Several projects have been done to provide a fresh look to this area.  We are nearing the finishing stages and hope to have it wrapped up before the Fireworks Extravaganza on June 29th.

The project began last fall when 3 spruce trees were removed to highlight a maturing Bur Oak.  Clearing of the overgrown shrubs behind the tee continued last week.  The remaining shrubs that still stand behind the tee will be replaced with this project.  We have a few steps to complete before we can remove those plantings and introduce new.

The curb was cut today to accommodate the new routing of the path, which will be out of the circle drive rather than around the back of the tee.  The former cart path behind the tee will be cut narrower and used as a walking path.  The additional area from narrowing the path will be used for the new plantings.

Work is also being done today to trim up the pines left of 1 tee.  This work also involves defining grassing lines and spreading fresh pine needles under the trees.

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