Rain and growth

We got 1" of rain yesterday. The recent warmer weather, rain and some fertilizer has made the Bermuda explode. We went out this morning and started spraying tees, fairways and approaches with a light rate of growth regulator. I wanted to start with a light rate because the first application usually dings up the Bermuda every year. Since we really aren't in a sustained warm period, a full rate might really ding it back. I just want to slow down the top growth and encourage lateral movement. We are dealing with a lot of clipping cleanup every morning here of late.

Brent Graham, CGCS
Director of Golf Maintenance
Two Rivers Country Club
1950 Two Rivers Rd.
Williamsburg, VA 23185
Cell: 757-592-0840
Office: 757-258-4606
Bgraham@tworiversclub.com
Governorsland.com

Bermuda is going

Weather is getting everything really going. Greens look great. Still have a few areas around the edges that need to be sodded.

#12 work

The irrigation is installed and we are starting to haul in some compost and topsoil to get this area ready for sod. Should be a big improvement on this area. We will have to rope it off once all the sod is installed so the cart traffic doesn't kill all the sod.

Fert

Watering in some fert this morning on fairways. We are trying to get a little extra nitrogen to the fairways before this heat sets in for a few days. Hopefully this will get them moving a little.

You have to water this fert in before all the carts get on it. The cart traffic will run over the fert and tip burn the grass if you don't water it in first.

Sodding

Working on sodding some of the winter kill around greens. It has been a really slow spring for the Bermuda grass. I don't think I have ever seen it drag along this late in the spring. The next couple of days should help wake things up a little, but it has been really, really slow thus far.

I'll take an extremely mild spring versus a hot, early summer any day of the week. Love windbreaker weather.

Collars around greens

We are sodding some of the winter kill around greens. Didn't have too much but some areas do need to be addressed. 16 is probably the worst one.

Bunkers

Place is still destroyed from the rain on Tuesday and Wednesday. Once it starts to dry out we need to get out and blow debris and mow fairways.

The bunkers are in rough shape. Some of the bunkers like this one on 16 need to have all the silt shoveled out and then washout fixed. It's demoralizing to see the bunkers like this, especially with all the labor we spent to get them tweaked to 2" on the slopes. We will have to start tamping them again next week to get the firmness back.