HEAT

It has been rather hot all week and will continue for a while. With that we have to take care of the golf course just like we take care of ourselves in this heat. Hydration, fertilization, wetting agents, fungicides, etc. Although we are irrigating more it is a necessary to keep the plant health to recover from the heat. We are still on our program with our moisture meter consistently monitoring the moisture in the greens. The greens were stimped this morning rolling at an 11.

Mowing heights?

These are the current mowing heights that we will cut are grasses with throughout the summer Greens: 1/8" Tees: 7/16" Fairways: 7/16" Green Surronds: 1.5" Roughs: 1.75" We slightly raised the greens mowers due to the hotter temps to promote healthier turf. This will aid in yeild, recovery from heat stress, disease resistance, etc. We adjusted them by exactly 5/1000 of an inch. Does not sound like much but It makes a world of differnce

Take a look

Last nigh a sprinkler on the bank of the driving range stuck and ran through the night. We will be cleaning this up today and re fill/plant within the next month once the soil settles.

green speeds

It is that time of year again, SUMMER. We are on a great program with the greens for 2015. Some new additions in fertilizer blends, growth regulators, wetting agents, water retention agents, cultural practices, etc. It looks like alot but this is what it takes to keep the consistency and health of the turf going this time of year. We have slighlty raised the mowing height in aid of plant health, but have only lost a little of speed. Currently are greens were stimped at 10.9 which this time last year we were at 9.0. It is a great sign of things to come for keeping the speed and concistency all summer long. We would also like to give you a sneak preview of what will be "rolling our greens" starting July.

Bunker update!

We have been on hold for a few weeks now with our addition of more sand into the greenside bunkers. As most of you know we have had the front nine greenside bunkers completed for almost a month. The back nine greenside bunkers have been on hold as we have to keep up on our mowing schedule with the increase in temperature. It looks like on June 22nd Monday will be are next go at it with the course being closed that day. Why are we doing this you might ask? Well it is long overdue, plain and simple. We have gone from almost dirt (native soil) to TONS of sand. The bunkers are composed of "washed plaster". The cavity or low spot of the bunker should have an adequate amount being 4-6" in depth, and the face or slope should have 1-2" in depth. You never want to contaminate this sand with any other soils, so when we have fresh sand to start with it becomes like a sand pit. Balls plug, bury, etc. When you give it time and its almost been a month the sand will compact with water. We now are at a 3-4" base and the sand is becoming more consistent. Throughout the summer we will continue to work on firming the sand up but please be patient with this. You must remember you cant go from bad to good overnight.