Frost damage.

These tracks are across 18 green. Not only did someone drive a cart across the green, they apparently did it while frost was present. Fortunately this damage is aesthetic only, once the green goes completely dormant it should not be visible.  But, we are lucky, if it was a heavy frost the damage could have been more severe.

Starting Monday Cart Path Only on 11 and 16

Once again we are having to go Cart Path Only on 11 and 16.  These persistently weak fairways just cannot stand up to traffic like the other fairways. And now that the turf is not growing and cannot "fight back" we need to preserve the existing turf through for the winter months. We will be able to drive 90 degrees through the weekend and will go Path only starting Monday. Thank you for your understanding.

Winter Preparations

We are and have been in winter preparation for the last week or two. We have pre-emerged the course and have been getting the greens ready for winter.

It is critical that the height of cut be raised in the fall to allow for root and canopy development. As the temperatures begin to fall, (soil temps in 70’s), we begin stepping-up the height of cut in small increments to arrive at 3/16” (0.187”) by the time of the first frost. We rarely get our mowers to that height before the turf stops growing. As the temperatures fall the turf grows slower which help to maintain a good green speed.

The objectives of raising the height are 1) to increase canopy density so that it holds up to traffic during the months of no-growth, 2) to decrease firmness somewhat so that ball roll speed does not become excessively fast in winter and 3) to store more carbohydrate reserves to be used when breaking dormancy in spring. (Proper fertility is a critical part of this process)

The process of canopy development and carbohydrate storage cannot occur in the absence of adequate nitrogen. It is imperative that the grass receive enough nitrogen to “fatten up” for winter. Since out turf is already healthy and growing we have been able to use lower rates of nitrogen for winter prep. It is also important to apply applications of potassium in the fall. We have already made the proper applications and will follow up as needed. In conjunction with our potassium application we applied a pre-emerge chemical. This will help prevent the germination of winter weeds in the greens.

It is important to apply a fungicide in the fall to prevent Spring Dead Spot (SDS) disease in the spring. Literature indicates that colonization and infection of Bermuda grass roots by the pathogens that cause SDS (O. korrea and O. herpotricha

are, if you are interested) are most likely to occur when soil temperatures range from 50 -77 F, with maximum injury occurring around 60-65 It is recommended that fungicide be applied when soils temps are starting to cool down and reach an average of 74-77 degrees F. We made the application this morning.

I hope this helps everyone understand a little of what goes on to protect the course during the winter months. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Tuesday

Today we are applying pre-emerge to the greens. This application should prevent the growth of  Po Annua (POA), also known as annual bluegrass. This is the first time we have used pre-emerge on the new greens, but since we had more Poa than usual last year I figured we woud take a more aggresive stance. Here is Clint applying the chemical on #10

#9 looking pretty good!

We still have alittle catch up left to do from Isaac but all in all I think the Course looks real good right now!

Isaac

A quick update after the first day/night of the storm, all is fine.
We have the expected amount of small debris and one larger limb down on the back nine. Other than that the course is good. About 2.5 inches of rain really helped us. Only a few bunkers washed so it never really came down too hard for too long. We still have some storm bands that might hit us later, and today will be windy so more limbs will surly come down. But all in all we are good so far.!

2nd Aerification of 2012

We finished our 2nd aerification Tuesday. This particular time we used a slightly different procedure. Instead of core aerifying (pulling plugs) we simply vented (poked holes) the greens.
We decided to make this change since the current growing conditions are not great. I was afraid that we would not have perfect greens for the Club Championship just on the 17th. This form of aerifying is not as beneficial as pulling pulling cores but it is still effective in temporarily relieving compaction and promoting water and air movement through the soil.
We did verticut aggressively. This will really help with combat thatch build up and will greatly reduce the grain.

Here are a few pictures of the process.

before and after verticut (before is on the right)

Amount of grass removed while verticutting #1 green.

Aerifying

Topdressing