Dollar Spot

With the excess moisture and humidity over the last few weeks, we have seen some Dollar Spot on some tees and the fairways. A week ago we sprayed a control product on all the greens, two tee decks and 6 fairways. We have been monitoring the rest and are ready to spray the remainder if needed. Culturally we have aerated select tees that we feel are most susceptible and applied a low rate of fertilizer to help the turfgrass naturally fight off the disease. Luckily for us, the rain events have slowed down and we have had some cooler temperatures so the disease has not progressed. Usually by this time in the season we have sprayed all the greens, tees and fairways for Dollar Spot which is the most common disease of cool season turfgrass.

 Dollar Spot on #15 Fairway

As part of our tee renovation projects we have been converting our tees to Dwarf Bluegrass. This grass is less susceptible to Dollar Spot and we have not been able to find any disease on these tees at this time. We now have 25% of our tees converted and plan to do more in the future.

Dwarf Bluegrass 

Dwarf Bluegrass on #9 tee

Wet Week

The weather has took a wet turn this week receiving around 2 inches of rain total.

Standing water on 17 Green

 The positive from this is the golf course has greened up and we have been able to turn off the irrigation system for a few days. The unfortunate result is less golfer traffic and the excess moisture bringing on turf diseases. Today we have seen our first Dollar Spot of the season. A few tees and fairways are showing the disease so we will monitor this closely over the next few days and make a decision on how we are going to handle it.

Dollar Spot on the 11th tee

May Recap

We have had some great weather at the beginning of the season. The greens have filled in well and are looking healthy with a good root system heading into the summer. We have had below average rainfall throughout May, therefore we have been regularly watering greens more so than usual. Our tee renovation and nursery construction are complete and with some good weather in June the tees will be playable in early July. Moving forward into June we will be tidying up lots of small jobs and working on providing quality playing surfaces.

#17 Green

Path Work

Part of our capital improvements this year is resurfacing some of our existing cart paths. We have begun preparation on many of the damaged paths and will be paving these areas soon. Our roadway to the maintenance shop that is used to travel from 4 to 5, 10 to 11 and 17 to 18 was the main area that we began with. 

Resurfacing roadway

Root Pruning
Tree roots compete for moisture and nutrients with our playing surfaces. We have recently been around the property root pruning where we believe the trees are adding stress to the playing surfaces. We stay far enough away to not damage the trees but still help out our playing surfaces. We look forward to seeing the results of this later on in the season.

Root Pruning on the back of 13 tee

Greens Nursery

Our new greens nursery has been completed and ready to begin establishment. Seed and cores from the greens have been applied along with some fertilizer. Our goal will be to have it strong and healthy for the winter in preparation for next spring if needed.

New greens nursery

Greens Aeration

The greens on the course where becoming very firm and infiltration rates where decreasing. When this happens our water, fertilizer and chemical applications become less effective and therefore unneeded stress is added to our greens. Our small tine aeration helps vent the build up of unwanted gasses in the soil profile and a heavy topdressing to fill in the holes provides a good place for further gas exchange. Since we have done the aeration the greens have filled in better and are ready for the pressures to come.

Core harvesting after aeration

Heavy Topdressing

Brushing sand into aeration holes

Smoothing out the playing surface

May Accomplishments

• Finished most repairs on greens
• Mowed and rolled on a regular basis
• Prepared for asphalt
• Asphalted roadway
• Nursery constructed
• 2 tees on 4 and a tee on 9 renovated
• Reshaped edge of 3 pond
• Checked sand depths in bunkers
• Topdressed on Tuesdays
• Aerated greens

Tee Renovation

This seasons tee renovations include the Blue/White tee on #4 and the White tee on #9.

We have been using the following criteria during our tee renovations:

• Level the playing surface
• Provide adequate surface drainage on (1% slope from front to back) and around the tee  
• Increase size when needed
• Aim the tee at the landing area
• Resurface with dwarf bluegrass

 Beginning of the grading process

 Newly sodded #9 White with Dwarf Bluegrass

The benefits of Dwarf Bluegrass

• Can be cut at tee height
• Handles winter stress better
• Divot recovery is quicker
• Is not as susceptible to diseases

 Rough grading of surrounds to drain water away from the teeing surface

 Final Preparations

 Newly sodded #4 Blue tee

Newly sodded #4 White tee