COVERING GREENS TODAY NOVEMBER 17th!!!

Very Early in the year but we are covering the greens today as the forecast for tonight is 19 degrees. Our plan is to remove them Wednesday morning.

Check out the post below for more info on when and why we cover. Thanks.

Greens Covering Policy

Greens Covering Policy

A reminder of our greens covering policy: 

We will cover when the forecast is for the air temperature to dip below 25 degrees for an extended period of time. We will uncover when the forecast is to be above freezing for a full day and not forecasted to dip into the mid twenties at night.. Many other factors are to be considered when deciding to or not to cover the greens. Some of these are wind, moisture and time of season. Also, we will attempt to cover the greens before the weather moves into the area. It is very difficult to handle the covers when the wind is blowing at 15-20 mph, or when it is raining. Please understand that the few days each winter that the course is closed it is for the future health of our greens.

Frost delays will be handled the same way as past years. We will open the course just as soon as the frost has burned off of the greens. Even though we have dormant Bermuda grass greens foot traffic can still damage the plant when covered in frost.

The Stimpmeter

A great video about the stimpmeter

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=rlULpKsewnE

Verticutt & aerification

Monday we began our second full course greens aerification. 

We verticut, mow, topdress, aerify, drag, blow, brush, fertilize and water. Each green. 

The front none will be open Ruesday , the back nine open Wednesday. 

Here are some pictures of different stages of the process

A pic of the putting as it is being topdressed

 Our new dumpd trailor to haul our topdressing material

Putting green after being aerified

Putting green after being dragged, blown and brushed  

Maumelle Classic

Well another Classic is in the books.

I was very proud of our Club this past week! I believe that every part of the Club team performed wonderfully. 

I also am very proud of my staff and how the prepared the course. I feel that the golf course was in as good condition as ever, and although the greens might not have been the prettiest, they played great. 

I hope evryone gad a food weekend! 

View frim behind 17 looking back to tee. 

By Sunday morning the greens measured 11' 9" on the stimpmeter. 

Irrigation blowout

Friday afternoon we had a blowout on #4 . It was the main line of our system and at a three way junction. The 6 inch line splits at the tee and is reduced to 3 inches one direction and 4 inches in the other. The break occurred at the tee itself. Here is a picture of the pipe after we exposed it and prepared it for repair.

Here is the truck load of parts needed to repair the line.

We got to work on it first thing Saturday morning. Here is proof that the Superintendent is not afraid to get dirty.

Alfredo tightening the bolts on the junction.

Finished, now time to bury it and pressurize.

When we pressurized our repair held true, BUT another joint 8 feet down line blew out! Here is Jose and Alfredo finishing the second repair.

We were able to get the system back up and running by Sat. Evening! Thanks to my staff that made that happen.

Rain Storm

The Rain Storm last night came down ling and hard. Our bunkers have not been washed out this bad all summer. 

Anytime the bunkers wash it is extremely important that we clean all of the silt and mud off out of the sand before we rake. Otherwise the silt/mud will mix with the sand and prevent water from flowinging freely through the sand to the drains. 

Aerifying a few greens.

Today we core aerified our weakest greens, Putting Green, 5, 16, and 18. This will give them the last push to catch up with the others. And will allow us to groom them for the high quality putting surface we all want. 

Mole

Here are some pictures of the mole that terrorized 11 green a little over a week ago. 

After setting traps, baiting with poison and stalking the little bugger Jose finally caught him! 

And a picture of the beast. He was caught and realeased behind 14 unharmed.

Big Day

Today was a busy day on the course, as will tomorrow. 

We began our aerification process today and will continue tomorrow. 

We completed the practice area, 1-10 today and will finish up Tuesday. 

Clint started things off at 4:00am this morning by verticutting the first few greens, Jose took over when he arrived at 6:00.

Then Kyle and Nash mowed all of the greens.

Clint now applies the organic amendment.  

Next comes the topdressing, Alfredo and Luis took care of that. 

Then Lorenzo, Vern, and Ken ran the aerifiers. 

Then i dragged the greens. Clint helped out with this too. 

After dragging comes the cleaning. All available hands help. 

Once clean Jose brushes them. 

Last but not least Alffredo and Clint fertilize the greens. 

It takes EVERYONE on my staff to complete aerification! Our technician Mike Fletcher is the backbone to our operation, even though I did not get a picture of him today.  

Greens

May 5, 2014

MCC membership,

I wanted to give a quick update on the Greens.  Today, after the Ben-E-Keith outing we will be aerifying the greens with a solid tine. This will poke holes 3-4 inches deep allowing more air and water movement through the root zone, which in turn will help enhance root growth. We will also be putting down more fertilizer this afternoon which will continue feeding the plants, giving them all they need to grow. In combination with our weekly topdressing Tuesday morning, the aerification will not affect play.

Our stripes are continuing to fill in, it is a slow process but the weather is now more conducive to growing and I am seeing more improvement daily.

Thank you,

Jason

Spring 2014

MCC Membership,

I wanted give everyone an update and answer some questions concerning the stripes of thin turf we have on our greens.

To begin with I want to assure everyone that the stripes are improving not getting worse. The plants are growing nicely and filling in; they are catching up with the rest of the green.

It will take a little time, especially with the cool temperatures in the forecast, but they are improving daily.

We are topdressing every week, as usual, but adding a little more sand to maintain a quality putting surface.

The cause of the stripes has been a subject I have researched over the last couple of weeks and think we may have it figured out.

I have been consulting with many other agronomists, both local and national, including Champion Turf and Dow Chemical.  We have come to the conclusion that our Pre-emerge application last fall coupled with the Severe Cold temperatures this winter, had knocked the root systems back in these areas during the first bit of green up, in mid Feb. or early March. There was no further damage to the roots and again, all the plants are growing nicely.

The effort to catch these areas up to the rest of the green has been ongoing and will continue. The cultural practices being applied include fertility, organic Humus, small tine aerification, and topdressing.

The biggest factor is the weather. The last couple of days have been nice, but the night time lows have remained cool, just last week we had lows of 34 and 37. Next week there are forecasted lows in the mid 40’s.

Again, we will maintain high quality playability with our mowing, rolling, and topdressing programs.
Thank you,

Jason Baker
 Golf Course Superintendent

Bunkers on 15

The bunker project on 15, sponsored by the MGA, is complete! I am very pleased with the end result. I also appreciate the MGA for there support. 

Restrooms on Six, fixed!

The restrooms on number six have been repaired and cleaned! Please enjoy!  

Busy time of year.

We have a lot going on this week on the course. 

Today we started burning our debris piles on 14, per City regulations. We will burn everyday we can until we are done. 

Also today we begin a project to repair the fairway binker on 15. This project is sponsored by thr MGA. 

 A before picture of 15 fairway bunker.

 Burn pile on 14.

Removing covers,

For the last time? I hope so.

We will begin tomorrow, Friday morning as soon as possible. I hope to have the first tee open by noon, or sooner. 

Covering

We decided to cover this afternoon ahead of the rain tomorrow. We will begin  covering at 1:30pm

More bad weather.

We are watching weather and are making plans. It looks like we may have to cover this afternoon. Chance of rain over night and in the morning will make it difficult to delay. I will keep membership posted. Thanks.

Play Golf ! Kind of.

We will be playing some sort of this weekend.
I will not be removing covers but we have set up the course backwards. Tee markers are set near the approaches/greens and we have set pins in tee boxes. there are no cups but just pins for targets. Start on 18 green area and play backwards! have fun!

Covering, AGAIN.

Due to the forecast for the upcoming week we plan on covering greens as soon as possible tomorrow morning. Although the air temperatures forecasted next week are only boarderline potentially damaging the freezing precipitation may prevent us from covering later if the forecast did turn colder. I am Sorry for any inconvenience.     

Covers off

The covers are coming off and the course is open! Come out and play !

We are watching weather for next week, looks like we might have to cover again!

Again

Due to the weather forecast we will becovering  the greens again this morning. Hopefully winter will make up its mind one way or the other soon. 64 degrees yesterday 34 today? 

Uncovering / recovering

We are planing on removing as many covers as possible this afternoon and removing the remainders as soon as they thaw again tomorrow. We will begin today as soon as the covers are ready, that depends on how fast the temp rises.

We will open tee times as soon as possible tomorrow. 

Looks like we will have to recover Monday. 

Covering today

Due to the front coming un this evening we will be covering this afternoon. Covering the greens takes us between 4 and 5 hours so we will begin at Noon today. Please plan in teeing off before 12:00. Thank you. 

An eye on the weather

As usual we are watching the forecasts for later this week. 

I make decisions on covering based on information gathered from The Weather Channel and The National Weather Service. As of now their forecasts are completly different! And the "tie breaker", the local guys, are also quite varied! So as of now we are watching! Possibly Wednesday afternoon, possibly Thursday morning, hopefully not at all. 

Uncovering

Looks like we will be uncovering the Greens Saturday morning. My crew and I will be here at 7:00 am, unless it is raining, to start drying and removing. Until we get started removing covers I cannot be sure when the course will be open. I hope by noon.

Uncovering plan?

Right now we are in a wait and see mode. With this weeks forecast I just do not know when we will be able to remove the covers. The covers need to be completly thawed and relatively dry before we are able to remove them. They are simply too heavy to move when very wet.  

This morning they were mostly dry but not completly thawed. The temperature has been above freezing now for about an hour so we may be able to start today, if it stops sleeting. As of now Saturday looks like a good guess. 

 

An adventurous evening and a Frigid morning.

Yesterday evening was quite exciting around here! We had a few covers try and blow off in the gusty wind. Thanks to the quick help of several members we were able to get them back into place before the temperatures got down to danger levels. I then irrigated those greens in order to wiegh the covers down with ice to prevent further problems. The greens that had issues were 15,4,and the   putting green. All should be fine! 

I want to thank everyone who helped!

Shane Mclary

Rex Cherry

Don Hudak

Chris Albright

Cary Maddok

Glenn and Peyton Smith!

A special thanks to Billy Wright and Bill Dennis!

Alao to any other i might have missed! THANK YOU!

Here is a picture of 4 at 5:00 just after it blew off!

Here is a picture of 4 this morning covered in ice. 

Everything looks good this morning!

This morning was/ is dangerously cold! 

So please be safe and smart out there!

Cold !

Cold this morning and more coming! 

With the forecast for the next several days we will be keeping the covers down until sometime mid to late next week. Although the forecast on Saturday may be decent golfing weather the Greens Committee and BOD Have agreed that attempting to uncover and then recover for a golfing window of one afternoon is not in the clubs best interest. I am sorry for the inconvenience.  

Covering

We will be covering the greens today. We will begin on number 1 at noon.