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

Greens Nursery

We have begun the construction of a second greens nursery beside the 7th tee. This is to use in combination with our existing nursery for any repairs that maybe needed. Having extra area will let us have more mature turf available in times of need.

Removal of old cart path and tree stumps

Working existing soil to prepare for surface drainage

Drain lines back filled with pea stone and beginning of greens mix installation

Finishing grade - just a little more sand cap to install

The two main things needed to finish this project is the installation of irrigation and the final prep of the seed bed. We will be spreading our aeration cores and overseeding soon to give the area lots of time to establish before next season.

May Update

May has begun with some great weather. The greens are filling in and looking healthy and the root system is looking strong preparing for the summer. We are on a regular schedule of cutting and rolling the greens now so over the next few weeks ball roll and playability should increase. We have introduced a new process of brushing the greens a few times per week to stand the grass up to get a good cut. Hopefully this will provide a more uniform playing surface moving forward.

 #5 Green

We have begun our growth regulator applications which restricts shoot growth and promotes lateral growth to fill in our remaining scars from the off season. Also we have applied our wetting agent that helps the soil hold moisture for the plant to take up.

 Spraying Greens (Wetting Agent)

We have been troubleshooting a few irrigation problems so we apologize to anyone who we may have watered over the last week. With a little more fine tuning we will be already for any dry times to come.

Watering #4

April Recap

Things greening up (#9)

We have been playing the waiting game most of April. We are finally getting some more consistent weather and the course is drying up. We have been around most of the course cleaning up any debris from the winter and any tree work we had done. First cuts on all areas have been done and we are looking forward to the grass really starting to grow soon. This will promote recovery and increase the quality of the playing surfaces. We will begin cutting and rolling the greens on a consistent basis and lowering mowing heights.

We have made the larger sod repairs on all of the greens and now its time to start working on a few smaller areas. The putting green will take a few more weeks to recover with some good weather.

 Greens Repair on#7

Our irrigation system is charged up and ready for the season with only a few miner problems that we have corrected. The system draws its water out of the Black River which we have a permit for that will be renewed at the end of this season. We have begun the renewal process and we don't foresee any major issues moving forward.

 Intake repair in the river (foot valve)

The 17 green had a rough winter but has come around really well over the last few weeks. We have repaired the damaged areas with sod from our nursery and hope to have it back in play soon.

 #17 Green as of April 28th

The nursery has shown its value again this season. Having our own sod on site has helped us speed up our recovery time. This season we will be constructing another nursery to give us easier access to sod on the front nine. The new location will be beside the 7th Tee, construction will begin soon.

Nursery

     

  April's Accomplishments

• Prepare equipment for beginning of the season
• Organize maintenance area
• Remove tarps from greens
• Course clean-up
• Safety training with staff
• First Aid/CPR training
• Aerated greens
• Irrigation start up
• Repairs to greens
• First cuts
• "Divot March"
• Hardware and fountain installation
• Clean up bunkers
• Fertilize and chemical applications on Greens/Tees
• Clean up gardens
• Drainage work on #4 tee