Temporary Greens

What a great couple of months to end the season! With the extremely cold mornings, the soil temperatures have really dropped off and the greens are remaining frozen into the afternoon on some of the shaded greens. While we are able to push the greens farther than most courses because of our bentgrass greens and sand based profile, we do not want to push them to the point of damaging the plants. The temperatures will be dropping this weekend and we need to be prepared for the switch to temporary greens. During the afternoon on Friday, we will be switching the pins to the approaches/rough before the freeze occurs on the holiday weekend. Happy Holidays to you and your families. I am looking forward to another great year!

Waterfall Update

The pipe from the original pit to the outlet is in place and ready to go. We will be measuring the pond at the top of the waterfall this week so we can price out a custom liner to fit our exact specifications. This will give us less leak points by not using adhesive. Over the winter we will be building a sled for the pump to sit on, keeping it out of the debris and allowing us to pull the pump easily for maintenance. The final step will be chiseling a hole out of the vault and running the new inlet pipe down to the pond. The project should be completed my mid-April.

Bunker Maintenance

This off-season, we have already attacked a few bunkers by taking out the sand, re-lining, edging to the original shape, and filling with clean sand. The liner in these bunkers was torn and had become a nuisance to the golfers and my staff, peeking out at us on a regular basis. Once the sand finds a way underneath, it is very difficult to stop the liner from pushing up. We will continue working on bunker edging and cleaning until the ground freezes over. Below are some of the pictures from the process:

The entrance point to this bunker had crept in a good 3 feet on the edges from golfers walking, machines entering, and wind blowing sand out

The old liner is ripped out and the bunker is edged back to the original shape

New liner installed to fit snug against the bunker lip (cut with a blow torch)

The new type of liner staple is designed to stay in place during freezing/thawing

This is a bunker we have to attack. You can see the lip on the left and back that needs to be removed

Hopefully you enjoyed the great golfing weather in November.......the cold is near

Firming up perception

If nothing else, it adds some valuable yardage to your drives

Unfortunately, the public perception of golf courses is not always the greatest, but Superintendents are doing everything they can to clean up that old image of “chemical dumpers” and “water hogs”. RiverCrest was designed with over 40 acres of native grasses, which don’t need fertility or irrigation to thrive and actually are ideal without it (this is why the natives get so thick with rainfall). 

We have effectively cut down water usage the last two years by 26% over the previous five. The plant will slowly adapt to its environment, creating stronger turf that can handle times of drought stress. Next year we are continuing to dial in our programs which includes moving sprinklers to more effective locations, using different soap based products to break surface tension and move water more evenly through the soil, and adding additional connections for watering localized dry spots with hoses.

One of my big pet peeves is driving by an office building or home and watching the sprinklers run because of the day of the week or time instead of necessity. We set our irrigation computer daily based on plant needs, weather patterns, or an occasional fertilizer application that needs to be watered in. Hopefully you all know that RiverCrest is doing its part to help the environment and prepare our course for the future, while also providing firm playing conditions throughout the season.

I found a little tidbit while I was doing some reading: There was a recent study that showed Golf courses in the desert of Las Vegas used 37% less water than homeowners to maintain their turf. 

Below is a video with some interesting data about the turf we grow and golf on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K-aoWqM85M

Frost!!

With our first frost delay of the year this morning, I just wanted to update the membership on what our plans are for the rest of the year (as long as the weather channel is wrong in saying 6" of snow on Saturday afternoon). The cool temperatures will really slow the plants growth and cutting will be minimal from here on out. We will continue to topdress the greens weekly, helping to protect the crowns of the plant through the winter. Our plan is to soil relieve the greens and tees one more time before winter to eliminate any compaction and oxygenate the soil. It is a similar look to a pencil tine aerification, but instead of poking a hole straight down, it kicks and shatters the soil profile.

As far as winter play is concerned, weather dictates everything, but here is my plan. We will cut the cups in the fairways/rough in early December, but wait to switch the flags over until December 22nd. Squeeze in a few more rounds while you can!!!

Trees on 1

Number 1 and 4 greens are taking much longer to recover from aerification and the overall health of these two greens are consistently lower than the rest. Both are smaller greens as far as pin positions to spread out traffic. They are also located in the worst growing environments on the property. Air movement and morning sun are very scarce throughout the entire season, causing much weaker turf during stressful periods. We dodged many bullets and proceeded with caution to get us through another tough summer, but any little change in weather would have broken our thin ice. Unfortunately, there is not much more we can do on 4 as last winter we thinned out some trees on the right and cleaned up the underbrush between it and 16. We were going to wait until the winter to remove the grove on 1, but with the effects it had on slowing the healing and delays it would have caused with frost, we decided to move forward and strengthen the turf for next season. Below are some of the pictures taken at 9:00 before the removal and if the sun shines in the next 2 weeks, I will add some updated pictures. We will be adding some smaller plant material this fall to fill in the void we created, but in the meantime we are just letting the green breathe.

Range Tee

I was not pleased with the range tee during the 2010 season and the quality of turf we provided for you to practice on during the summer months. I knew the heat and drought stress contributed to the thinner turf in July and August, but we also made other adjustments over the winter to improve this season's playing surface. We enlarged the tee with hopes of allowing members to use the grass portion from Thursday to Sunday. We also heavily seeded with the fastest germinating turf (ryegrass) and continued to add divot mix and additional seed every Tuesday. We encountered another tough summer with a lack of rainfall and some steady stretches of above average heat and once again the grass did not fare very well on the tee.

Excuses don't go very far in our industry and you just play the hand you are dealt by the often relentless Mother Nature. With that being said, we are making another adjustment to the tee and switching the turf over to bermudagrass. It is a southern turf which aggressively grows laterally and is better suited for drought conditions. This "Patriot" variety was established for athletic fields to handle the wear and tear of football and soccer in the Mid-Atlantic climates. The one challenge we will tackle with overseeding is dormancy. Bermudagrass goes dormant in October and does not green up until May. We will utilize ryegrass to maintain the surface in the shoulder seasons.

I did not want to rip up the tee again this fall to make the transition so we came up with a clever way to switch it over without any disruption to play. We swapped out 600 cup size plugs throughout the tee with the new Patriot bermudagrass. It will establish itself this fall, but we probably will not see much lateral movement with cooler temperatures late in the year. In May we will switch some of our practices to favor the lateral growth of the new turf are hoping by season's end the tee will be almost completely transitioned (it will actually choke out the rye as it pushes to the side). I will keep you updated with progress as we move through next season and hopefully we can utilize the turf portion of the tee on a consistent basis in the future.