Showing posts with label tees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tees. Show all posts
This project will begin as the cart path on 9 is finishing up. This will be a great change for the look at the front of the clubhouse.
While we are cutting the sod we are straightening tee lines and making sure the tee boxes stay square. This will give a much cleaner look to the tees next year.
Many of the tee edges will be done this fall, but these are the 2 largest areas of sod to be laid.
The rain that we received overnight did a good job of working in the sand on the greens. It will take a few days of growth to get the sand worked in better and start the road back to smoother greens. Until then (probably sometime next week), the greens will be slow and bumpy.
We will be topdressing the greens again soon to ensure all holes have been properly filled. The greens will be bumpy and slow through the week as we work to get them smooth again.
We are continuing the fairway aeration today. 9 of the 14 fairways are completed. We are also aerating approaches in play the rest of the week. Please watch out for the workers.
This is a quick post to supplement the Divot Repair post from a month ago. Erwin McKone is the Director of Golf Operations at Briar Ridge Country Club in Schereville, IN and has a YouTube channel, and World of Turf blog that I follow. He has posted a good video regarding filling divots that I wanted to share.
Note: We do not have the divot bottles on our carts, and request that divots in the fairways be replaced when possible. The Green Department will take care of any further repair.
Note: We do not have the divot bottles on our carts, and request that divots in the fairways be replaced when possible. The Green Department will take care of any further repair.
The following article recently appeared in the USGA Green Section Record. It was written by Ty McClellan. Ty is our USGA regional agronomist. We utilize his expertise on a regular basis; he visits Naperville CC regularly to evaluate course conditions. This is part of a program offered through the USGA Turfgrass Advisory Service. The article is very timely so I wanted to pass it along.
By Ty McClellan, agronomist, Mid-Continent Region
July 13, 2011
By Ty McClellan, agronomist, Mid-Continent Region
July 13, 2011
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Randomly scattered divots (on the left) remove up to 50% more turf than practicing in a linear pattern (on the right) where each new shot is placed directly behind the previous divot.
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Late July is usually the time when there is a lack of turf coverage on practice range tees established with cool-season turfgrasses, such as creeping bentgrass or Kentucky bluegrass. Heavy play removes divots faster than the turf can recover, and hot, dry summer conditions leave little opportunity for seedling establishment or regenerative growth of surrounding turf. Poor turf coverage that comes in mid-summer generally indicates that the practice tee is simply undersized for the amount of play received, i.e. there is not enough time for turf to recover before tee stalls are returned to previous locations. It also indicates that tee stall rotations need to be reviewed for efficiency and that synthetic turf options should be considered at the rear of the tee to provide the additional time needed for turf recovery.
With the exception of an efficient tee stall rotation, enlarging the tee(s) and adding synthetic turf are improvements typically left for the off-season when time and funds become available. So, until then, what can be done? The solution resides with golfers. Since randomly scattering divots can quickly destroy a practice range tee, the better approach is to shrink one’s divots by removing them in a pattern just like the professionals. More specifically, this includes placing each shot directly behind the previous divot. This can easily be repeated for up to 10 shots resulting in much less turf being removed.
Let’s take a look at a practical example that was provided by Golf Course Superintendent Chris Pekarek at The Village Links of Glen Ellyn in Illinois. Mr. Pekarek estimates more than 2 million shots are taken annually from the 1.25-acre Kentucky bluegrass practice tee and that 1.5 million of the shots result in turf removal. Although divots come in all sizes, the average iron shot is believed to remove a divot 3 inches wide by 6.5 inches long for a total of 19.5 square inches. After just 30 shots, or a small bucket of balls, 4.1 square feet of turf are removed, given a typical practice routine (30 shots x 19.5 in2 = 585 in2 / 144 in2 = 4.1 ft2). Therefore, after an entire season, 205,000 square feet of divots are removed from the tee. That's more than 4.6 acres of turf from their 1.25-acre surface.
If instead each shot is played directly behind the previous divot, subsequent divots are reduced to an average size of 3 inches wide by 3 inches long, or 9 square inches. After 30 shots, this pattern removes only 2.1 square feet of turf. (As the first divot removes 19.5 square inches and the subsequent 9 divots remove 9 square inches each for a total of 81 square inches, a total of 100.5 square inches is removed for every 10 shots, which is typical for this linear pattern. For 30 shots or a small bucket of balls, 3 x 100.5 = 301.5 in2 / 144 in2 = 2.1ft2 are removed.) If everyone adopted this method, the annual number of divots removed would be reduced from 205,000 square feet to just 105,000 square feet. That’s nearly a 50% reduction in the amount of turf removed.
Implementing this simple divot pattern into your practice regime has significant season-long implications at your facility. So, rather than voice a complaint about the turf during oppressive conditions in July and August, do the turf a favor and practice like a pro!
On the greens and tees we used a "needle tine" on our aerators to create a small hole about 6 inches deep.
Conny spiking our tees today.
The greens are done and the tees, fairways and approaches will be done by the end of today. We hope that this will allow the soil to dry quicker and more evenly after being saturated for a few days, but more rain in the forecast over the next few days. If it does rain, these holes will allow the rain the infiltrate the soil quicker.
We do not have a date set yet to open the driving range. We do want the temperatures to be warmer to allow for better divot recovery.
The signs of summer are beginning to show at the Green Department this week. About 2/3's of the crew started back today, and the balance of the crew will be back next Monday. As usual on Mondays, we took advantage of the closed day to get some major jobs done. We spiked and topdressed the greens, mowed the tees for the first time, removed the awning from the front of the clubhouse, began preparing the flower beds for the spring flower (which should be coming this week) and refilled the irrigation system.
Torres ran the aerator with needle tines across the greens today in an effort to help the soil dry and exchange some air after being saturated for so long. Following Torres we topdressed and dragged the sand in with a brush.
The tees were mowed for the first time today and removing the old growth revealed lots of green grass underneath. With the forecasted temperatures this week, look for the course to be much greener by next week.
Recharging the irrigation system was completed today with minimal problems. Look for a post later in the week that will talk more about this. We do not anticipate needing water soon, but it is ready to go when we need it.
After the sun and warm weather from last week, the only snow that remains are a few piles hiding in the bunkers. I was able to get a few pictures while inspecting the winter damage last week. Here is what we have found:
These two pictures are representative of what the rough looks like now. Pink snow mold is very widespread in the rough throughout the course, and is worse beneath trees. It is worse under trees as a result of the weakened turf due to the lack of sun exposure, as well as the higher populations of annual bluegrass. Annual bluegrass is a weaker turf and is more susceptible to disease.
These two pictures are representative of what the rough looks like now. Pink snow mold is very widespread in the rough throughout the course, and is worse beneath trees. It is worse under trees as a result of the weakened turf due to the lack of sun exposure, as well as the higher populations of annual bluegrass. Annual bluegrass is a weaker turf and is more susceptible to disease.
This is a patch of active snowmold on the edge of the first fairway.
There are a few locations around the course that are showing where we missed a spot with our snowmold application. All of these spots are in the fairways and will grow out of the damage when the weather begins to cooperate.
This spot shows the benefit of the fungicide application for snow mold we make in the fall. This is near the tree in 15 fairway. We will probably end up over seeding this area to aid with recovery.
The tees and fairways on the course look good and only show a few isolated spots where disease pressure was too high for the snow mold application that was made. The few spots that do show symptoms of snow mold look like the following picture.
A close up:
The greens have made it through the winter safely. All the greens look good and show now signs of disease. We did have ice cover over a few of the greens for an extended period of time, but no signs of an ill-fate from that either.
The two dark spots on the 5th green mark the location where we monitored ice cover on the green:
I took these two pictures to show the benefits of selecting a good turf species for a golf course. These pictures show the difference in resistance to snow molds among the older grass varieties and the new varieties that were planted during the renovation. No snow mold control was applied to this location.
Aside from the rough, the course is in good shape after the winter weather. The rough will recover from the snow mold damage when the weather is will to accommodate growing conditions. It won't be long! Be sure to check here for updates on course conditions while the weather warms.
Last week we completed the aeration on our approaches. This week we are planning to get our tees completed.
Ramon aerating a tee.
The crew cleaning up the plugs.
Ramon aerating a tee.The crew cleaning up the plugs.
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