As I posted earlier, the excessive rainfall coupled with stretches of heat and humidity have made maintaining our typical mowing, spraying schedules extremely difficult. We've fared well on sand based areas, as better drainage allows more pore space providing oxygen and gas exchange to the roots. This helps lower the typical late summer stress to the plants. The few areas in the fairways around or leading to drain basins have been hit the hardest. The constant flow of water and clay soil saturation reduced or eliminated the pore space providing oxygen to the plant. This strike coupled with high heat was more than the plants could handle.
Even with a well draining course the amount of rainfall in the past month has been unbelievable. In a 3 1/2 week span we collected nearly 17" of water in our gauge. The breaks in between storms were accompanied with warm and humid weather offering little chance to dry out.
The weather looks to be favorable in the coming weeks especially with cooler night temps. We will begin stripping the damaged turf and replacing with new bent next week. Through the next couple months we will focus on these areas by opening holes and adding topdressing. Over time the sand blend will increase water flow and provide greater pore space, just in case mother nature decides to throw another curve ball our way in the future.


I recently received a letter from the GCSAA. Our national group of superintendents rarely sends a public service announcement unless a large area of golf courses have been effected. Please take a look at the link provided below

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8910233497473a5fbabd4be19/files/a71c795e-d697-4fb8-a31f-f72ce05d791e/GC_Notification_July2018.pdf