Temporary Greens

I hope everyone has taken advantage of this amazingly warm weather and worked in a few extra rounds this December. Normally by now the frigid air is upon us and the pins are in temporary positions. The typical winter weather looks to be back this weekend with highs in the low to mid 40's and below 30 at night. When the greens are frozen and have a chance of slowly thawing out it creates a soft layer on top that will be damaged with traffic.With this we will be Changing the Pins to the temp holes. Next week looks favorable and we will change back to regular greens. Once the temperatures get to back normal the following week we will close the greens for good to reduce any wear from overuse and no ability to recover. This will set the greens up for great conditions heading into next season.

Fairway Punching

This week and next, we will be punching fairways. This will not interrupt play as we are using 3/4" solid tines. The tines will penetrate 3-4" into the soil to help break up compaction and open channels to facilitate drying. These holes will remain open until spring and when we begin fertilizing, the pellets will reach deeply into the root zone.

9 Tee Extension

9 tee has always been a problem due to the size and location. The tee will stay overly wet with a lack of sunlight coupled with little airflow. These two conditions will cause the roots to shrink and reduce vigor. The small teeing area also adds issues as there is limited space to set the tees. I've increased the teeing area to help alleviate wear. By providing 9 additional teeing positions to hit from, this will allow for more recovery time.

Sod removal

Removing soil to finish grade. The depth is 8"

Ready for sand. We used original mix from the overly large 18 Blue tee.

Finished Tee. We will have 21 teeing positions from the back 1/3 of the white tee to the front 1/3 of the black tee.

14 Revamp

We had a very productive week and completed the revamp of 14 approach. The landing area was widened 20+ feet to accept those long iron shots into the green. I decided to use the sod from the right hand side of two approach(the approach to nowhere) so that once everything heals the grass will blend in perfectly with the original approach. No-one sells,grows our construction blend(princeville bentgrass) and would cause an unsightly line where we reworked.

Removing sod at the approach edge and bunker.

The first step was to remove the sand and liner.

Seth on the backhoe shaping the new bunker.

Smoothing out the approach after 20 cart loads of fill.

After getting the grade close, sand was spread to fill in any small imperfections.

Bentgrass sodding begins.

A drain line was carved out in the bunker and will empty into the pond

Drain piping installed

Backfilled with pea gravel

Sand-trapper bunker liner was installed

Finished Approach

Projects, Projects

My staff and I are very busy completing a few big projects here at the course. The first work started last week on 9 tee to extend the middle(white) tee to help alleviate the stress and wear seen over the course of a season. The extension will give us 9 extra positions during set-up to spread out the normal wear.
The 14th  green complex remodel is almost completed and I'm very pleased with the results. Moving the existing bunker to the right and re-doing the rough area with approach height bent grass will increase the landing area to this very shallow green. The last bit of touch up as well as finishing the bunker will be completed on Friday. I will post pics of both projects very soon.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

My staff and I would like to wish the members and staff at RiverCrest Golf Club a Happy Thanksgiving!

Spike,Spike,Spike

With shorter days, reduced sunlight and lower temperatures, the time the turf has to dry out increases dramatically. It is very important to facilitate drying the soil with aerification. Last week we punched the greens with bayonet tines to introduce oxygen into the soil. This vital oxygen helps the plants roots heading into winter and allows a release of undesirable gases from a saturated rootzone. After spiking the greens, we doubled rolled the next day ahead of golf and resumed mowing a day later.

up close

1 green completed

Results after 1 Pass