Busy....Busy....Busy

     Springtime is always a very busy time on the golf course. It's always nice on Friday to look back at a busy week a feel proud of what my staff and I accomplished throughout the week. This was definitely one of those weeks on the course. From a surprise shotgun on Monday to laying some leftover sod on Friday afternoon. We had a busy week!
     We started out the week by completing our spring fairway aerification that had not been completed the week before due to that rain we received last week. This was finished by Wednesday and the fairways were blown off before the final mow on Friday. Overall it was a successful aerification and should prove to help with water and air movement down to the roots for a stronger plant through out the summer months. We are going to try and slice the fairways once a month for the next five months before we aerify again in September.


Enrique Blowing #18 Fairway


     This week we were also able to finish with our sod project on #6 fairway. Scott and Enrique had the 700 square feet of sod laid by lunch on Wednesday and were also able to fix a couple small areas on #10 & #13 tees too. Then on Friday afternoon we scrambled to fix an area #4 by the fairway bunker. Those two guys pulled it off and got the last bit of sod on the ground before quitting time so we didn't waste any sod. We will fine tune the area on Monday and should be playable in a couple of weeks.

Scott and Enrique finishing up #6 sod

#6 Finished

Fixing an area on #13 tee

     The rest of the week was filled with a bunch of mowing, fertilizing the fairways, changing out ball washer fluid, tree trimming, a little bit of hand watering on the greens and a bunch of other little projects. Overall, a very productive week on the course which makes me very proud of the staff we have here @ the pines.


Hung Trimming some trees



Tom spreading Organic Fertilizer on the fairways

Nice look @ #4 Fairway

Finishing up the week by double mowing fairways

Spring Fairway Aerification 2012

     Yesterday we started our spring aerification of the fairways here at the pines. With an early start for my staff and a back nine start for the golfers we were able to knock out all of the fairways on the front nine. The process started with a 5/8" aerification by our mechanic Jim followed by a double dragging of the cores with a metal drag by Enrique (Tom and I pitched in for a while to have two drags going at times). We use the dragging as a bit of topdressing and then follow the drag with a turbine blower to blow the leftover plugs into a line down the middle. Hung and Tom were the guys manning the blowers. Then we use the core harvester to pick up the remaining debris. A big thank you to Jake and Tom G. for staying a little longer yesterday to finish up with the core harvester. The final process yesterday was to water any hot spots and check all the sprinklers to make sure we didn't hit anything during aerification portion. Here's a few pictures of the different processes of our aerifiction.

Our mechanic Jim with coffee in-hand on #5

Nice dry plugs ready for the drag.

Hung blowing the plugs towards the middle.

Jake and Tom G. picking up the plugs.

Checking heads and watering hot spots.

Final Product. Looks nice and clean.

A look down #1 after the clean up.

     Overall the process on Monday went very smooth. My staff did an amazing job! There are a couple little adjustments we will make for the next time around. We were able to finish up two more fairways today and will have to reschedule the rest of the back nine for next Monday.
     The other guys not pictured, Mike and Jose, were doing a great job trying to mow rough and banks before the rain that is scheduled for the rest of the work week.

Seams Like Some Sod

At about 5:30 yesterday morning we had a delivery truck of sod show up in the parking lot. By 8:30 the guys had all 2700 square feet laid out. By 9:30 all of the ends were cut to fit and the sod was getting watered. It was a smooth process that should turn out just a good as the previous area we had sodded a few weeks ago. We're going to try to keep everyone off of this area for the next couple of weeks to give the sod the best chance of taking hold. Depending on the weather we will probably be mowing with a walk mower by the end of next week. We will also be aerifying the area around the sod before the end of this week if time allows. We were a little off on our measurement so we should receive another pallet to finish off the last bit by early next week.
As a side note to this project you will see our mechanic Jim on our tractor in the background of the third picture below. He was out aerifying the rough on holes #5 and #6 while we were laying sod. We tend to struggle quite a bit with these rough areas during the summer. We will be following up with some seed and fertilizer be weeks end to try to build a better stand of turf before the summer months hit.

Hole-e-tees

This past Monday and Tuesday the staff and I got an early start and aerified all of the tees on the course. This time around we decided to aerify most of the tee banks along with the tee tops. Since we have not really aerified any of the tee banks since the course was rebuilt we felt it was necessary to get some of them opened up to allow more air and water to reach the roots and help us make it through our summer months. It turned out to be perfect timing as we received a little over a tenth of an inch of rain last night. On some of the harder more compacted tees we aerified in two directions.
We will be putting down some gypsum and our first ever "organic" granular fertilizer application on Friday before the next little storm. I am finally trying to add some organic fertilizer into our mix of plant nutrition products we use throughout the year. We will be doing the same thing when we aerify fairways in a couple of weeks. Here are a couple of examples of the tee banks that were aerified.

Finally A Fix On #6

     With a small staff and a lot to do our decisions with our priority of projects is sometimes difficult to make. Our assistant superintendent Tom and I at any one time probably have a list of 100 projects big and small that need to be accomplished. Most of the time it comes down to budget and time constraints as we try to make the best decision on what we can accomplish.

     So now comes our issues on #6 fairway. I will start by saying that the soil in and around holes 5 and 6 is horrible. Ever since the golf course was redesigned, we have had problems with these two fairways mainly due to the soil and the addition of the mounds in between these holes. When the holes were redesigned the architect took the topsoil from the the old fairways and created the mounding between the fairways so he could create some separation of the holes. Doing so created some issues that we are still dealing with 3 years later.  We started a ways back with some drainage in two areas of #5 fairway which has produced great results with better turf coverage throughout and less puddling after it rains. Now we have started to fix the worst area in #6 fairway with some drainage and new sod. Below is a picture timeline of the first bad area that we have needed to fix for some time. We plan to continue in the next month or two as budget, time and weather allow.



 



The area on #6 before prepping and drainage











Old sod removed and ready for drainage



Tom trenching all of the drain lines















Drain lines are ready to be cleaned out



 

Final touches before the sod shows up



Sod is down and getting watered for the first time.







Tom finishing up the next morning with an aerification of the
surrounding area.



     Tom and the guys did an awesome job on this project. After the sod takes hold and we can mow this area we will remove the rope line. Until then we ask that all players take relief and drop your ball outside of the white line.

Not Until June!

     GREENS AERIFICATION IS NOT UNTIL JUNE!!

June 13-15 to be exact.

     This time of the year when most of the other courses in our area are aerifying their greens I seem to get a lot of questions about the timing of our aerification. Due to the type of grass we have on our greens (T-1 Bentgrass), aerifying this time of the year in our area would be detrimental to our battle with Poa annua. If we were to open up the greens we would just be inviting the Poa to come in and invade our putting surfaces.
     So then why June you ask? After some consulting with some local superintendents that are in the same battle against Poa, I chose June because it should be warming up a bit which means that Poa seed head production should be slowing down.

Who doesn't like new equipment?

Since our recent renovation that began about a year and a half ago, we have been fortunate to have purchased a lot of new equipment. In the last couple of weeks we were again very fortunate to purchase a new Toro ProCore 864 fairway aerifier. This is going to be a great addition to our maintenance fleet as we are now going to be able to renovate a few areas that have been struggling and in the spring we will now be able to core aerify all the fairways and tees.

Our plan in the next few weeks is to use a 5/8" solid tine on all 20 acres of fairways to help increase our infiltration rates through our wet season.. We will also be reseeding parts of the front half of #6 fairway and a few rough areas that lost turf during our dry summer. Although a lot of the areas have really bounced back due to our recent rains.