Friday, May 27, 2011

4-Ball!

Well it is 4-ball weekend! The Course is in the best shape my crew and I could hope for. Considering the storms Monday night and the wind storm Wednesday afternoon, I am pretty happy. It has been a rough couple of weeks but I hope everyone has a Great Holiday Weekend and enjoys the Tournament!!!!
Please feel free to e-mail me any Course pictures you might take this weekend and I will try to post them! Thanks.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

More $#&%^ Storms!!!!!!!!!

Course was good Last Friday. Friday Night we got app. 4 inches of rain that completly washed the bunkers again. Monday my staff was able to have the front nine cleaned and raked for a 10:00am outing. We got another heavy storm last night and we are back to square one. All of my resourcs are goning into the bunkers today so that we can focous on other aspects of the course the rest of the week. Please, whoever keeps doing the rain dance stop! we do not need any more for a while!
Also keep the town of Joplin in your prayers, that easily could have been us, we have been lucky this year!

Friday, May 13, 2011

A Friday Update

Have not updated for a few days, simply not much to update. We have been extremely busy not only with catching up on maintenance but with several outside outings!
We are nearly caught up from the storms/flood two weeks ago. Lets hope we do not have anymore this year! We are now adding sand to some bunkers that need it.
A question that has been asked recently is "When are you gong to Verticut the greens?" We will begin our every other week verticut routine just as soon as the greens are growing fast enough to recover in a reasonable time. When the turf is growing at full speed it will completely recover from a light verticut in two days. If I was to verticut today it would take more than a week to fully heal. At this point we will wait until we aerify and then begin our verticut program. This worked very well last year.
Greens aerification is scheduled for June 7 and 8. When we aerify we double verticut aggressively then Aerify by pulling plugs. We also topdress heavily.
Hope this answers some questions.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Getting back in shape!

We were able to open #12 Sunday, and even mowed the fairway!
By tomorrow afternoon all bunkers should be cleaned and raked. We will be adding more sand to those bunkers that need it. This will take some time to finish.
We will be getting back to general maintenance this week and catching up on mowing and a few chemical applications!
Enjoy, and lets hope we are done with the severe weather for a while.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Rain over? recovery?

It would appear the rain has left us for a few days!
After over 10 inches of rain since Saturday evening we have a lot of work to do to recover.
First on our agenda is to catch up with the greens. Due to the weather we had to miss a fertilizer application and two topdressings. Today I am punching tiny holes in the Greens' surface in front of the mowers so that the turf can "breath". We are also fertilizing today, I am using my normal fertility package at a higher rate to feed the turf. Later this week I will spray again with my "stress package" to help the turf get over the stress they endured. Tomorrow our plan is to roll and topdress the greens so that the putting surface is back to "awesome" although they may be a little slower than prior to the storms.
Other recovery procedures include debris clean-up and bunker repair. both of these will be on going but will take several days. I will revisit the bunker issue here after a full evaluation is complete. It may take a while to get all of them back to pre storm condition.
One of the most important issues to deal with is mowing. The tees, fairways and roughs all need to be mowed! We will have to wait until the surface dries a little before we start, however we cannot wait too long, so when we begin mowing we may cause some "muddy" conditions in the fairways. this is when the weight of the mower pushes up a thin film of muddy water which stains the turf. This will look a bit unsightly for a day or two. We have to weigh a cost/ benefit on mowing or not mowing in these conditions and some times it is far worse to not mow. Too wait too long can cause the plant to elongate and the leaf blades to become narrow and weak causing a poorer playing surface and an unhealthy plant.

Monday, May 2, 2011

MAY 2, raining.

Not much has changed since yesterday, it is still raining and the back is still underwater. Bunkers are still full. And the forecast is for the rain to continue.
As of now we have had nearly 10 inches since Saturday night.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

MAY 1 ...........Now with Pictures

We got approximately 6 inches of rain last night, possibly more. Although the river is down and the wetlands are flowing out rapidly the volume of precipitation was too much, we are flooded on the back. With out any rain the back would be accessible tomorrow but the forecast says more rain.
I will assess any damage and hopefully post some pictures later today or tomorrow.
Thanks.

Here are some pictures from this morning at app. 8:00 am.

10 lake and debris

10 bridge

10/17 lake

looking at 10 green/bunker

right of cart path on 18

Here are some pictures of my kayak trip to 13 tee on Friday!