Reel to Reel

Here are a few of my favorite shots of the month.

Another .65" of rain pushed precipitation totals just over 2" for the week.  Ground conditions remain soft as the rain came fast and furious.  Yesterday's slicing will help move much of the water through the soil profile and firm up the fairways. The weather this week threw us multiple curve balls and we were constantly readjusting our plans.  We accomplished everything we wanted,  just not on the days we thought we would do it.  You have to love Mother Nature. Week Recap: - verticut and topdressed greens - applied fungicide/nutrient applications to greens, tees and fairways - weekly mowing and line trimming - performed miscellaneous irrigation repairs - bunker bank mowing and trimming - sliced fairways

Cooler temperatures and 1.35" of rain Thursday, allowed us to start slicing fairways.  Slicing the fairways now will help them dry out from the rain and provide some much needed oxygen to the roots.  As the fairways start to recover from the summer stresses, providing air to the plants is critical. The slices are only a few inches wide and extremely inconspicuous. The benefits however are huge, we have had great success this year with bentgrass plants coming up in the slices.  By providing the plants with healthy growing conditions, they are outcompeting the weaker poa plants.  The more bentgrass that is incorporated into the fairways, the healthier they will be and the better they will perform. Slicing #17 Fairway

Greens and tees held up great through another tough weekend of extreme weather.  High temperatures and low humidity made it difficult on the plants.  We continue to syringe constantly in attempt to cool the plants down.  The fairways have not gained much recovery from the heat stress that they have suffered due to uncooperative weather conditions.  Our fairways consist of two types of grass: poa annua and bentgrass.  During my tenure, the management approach I have taken with the fairways has been one that favors bentgrass populations over poa annua.  Poa is a much weaker grass species that requires more food and water and is susceptible to many more problems.  For those reasons, my maintenance programs have been designed to give the bentgrass a competitive advantage over the weaker poa.  In a normal weather year, the transition to bentgrass fairways is hardly noticeable, maybe some slight y...

It was a difficult weekend for all parties involved: the turf, the superintendent and his staff.  Intense sun and relentless heat made it extremely challenging to keep the turf content.  Surface temperatures on the greens reached over 112 degrees on Saturday.  We tried to cool the plants down by syringing, but only managed to get surface temperatures down to 104 degrees.  Unfortunately those temperatures were too much for the plants to take, as significant wilt occurred on the greens. Overall, the fairways held up pretty well.  On Saturday, the weaker turf on the fairway edges took a step backwards from the recovery they were making due to the obscene temperatures.  We will be overseeding the thin areas this week with bentgrass. Mother Nature has not been very kind recently seeing that temperatures have exceeded 90 degrees in 10 of the last 12 days.  The weather does look to be a bit more favorable in...