Bent outside collars

Some of the collars have some bentgrass outside the collars. I plan on spraying it out but have to wait until the Bermuda goes completely dormant. Once that happens we will spray out this bentgrass with roundup (roundup doesn't affect dormant Bermuda). There are chemicals that will kill the bent without hurting the bermuda but this type of herbicide has a tendency to move with water in the soil. This is dangerous to spray around greens because one heavy rain could move it into the greens, killing the grass on the greens.

Course conditions

We got about a tenth of an inch of rain last night. This has made the course a little on the wet side and the greens are a little soft. We are rolling greens this morning and the greens are rolling nicely. I would like to have them about a foot faster right now but rain has made that difficult to achieve.

Spots on greens

This time of year the greens get a little spotty look to them. These spots you see are different bio-types of bentgrass that have segregated out though the years. We normally start seeing it around the first frost. These different biotypes react differently to the cold weather when compared to the other bentgrass and the poa in the greens. So not to worry - no diesease or pests present.

Course conditions

The course is pretty wet after all the recent rains. The soil has been at field capacity (filled up with water) for some time now thanks to the wet year we have had in 2011. It will be wet for a while because of our soil type and no grass growing to suck it up.

The carts will be on paths for the remainder of the winter. I let them go on the grass as long as we could, but with the rainfall and the Bermuda being dormant it's time to limit the traffic. This will help the Bermuda come back great in the spring as it has the last couple of years. Running carts throughout the winter on dormant grass will wear down the grass and compaction becomes a major concern - resulting in slow greenup and thin grass in the spring.

2 TRCC Amigos Robbed Returning Home

2 TRCC Amigos Robbed Returning Home.

Two of the Mexican workers (Felipe and Luis) that collectively have worked ten years for TRCC, were robbed at gun point returning home for the winter. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The robbery took place between the Mexico City Airport and their homes.

Based on the few facts that Brent has, the robbers have spotters working in the airports. When they see individuals similar to Felipe and Luis getting off a plane from the U.S. with large boxes and more baggage than usual, they relay this info to individuals outside the airport, along with the make and model of the car they are driving and then rob them on route.

 As is normal, when they leave to return to Mexico, they take some cash as they have no credit cards. Felipe had just bought a new Canon Camera and Luis had a new TV and all this was taken along with gifts, all their clothes, passports, visas, i.d.’s etc. which have to be replaced.

Based on the prompt response of the three Golf Associations, (Men’s, Ladies’ 9 &18) the golf community raised an appropriate amount of money, based on Brent’s input, and he has wired the money to both men. We are sure that if they were here in person they would extend to all their sincerest appreciation.

Attached in a photograph of the President of each group presenting the check to Brent.

Roberta Nucci, Stephanie Heller, Brent Graham. Betsy Northrop, Frank Faykes

Irrigation blowout

Had an irrigation line blow out this afternoon near #16 green. WHAT A MESS! Washed out both bunkers and left dirt everywhere.

Curbing removal

Here is a picture of some of the curbing removal that we are doing on #4. After the curb is removed, the sod will be removed, dirt smoothed, and sod replaced.

Cold weather

The weather has finally started cooling off. Here is an early morning picture of #9 with a heavy frost in the rough. The frost this time of year will set in heavier in the long grass and not so much on the greens and fairways. This is the reason that the fairways are still a little green - the frost hasn't hit them quite as hard yet.

PG2 Timeline

Scalp down old green

Heavy verticut in two directions.



Aerate 2 times.

Deep tine aeration

Heavy topdress

Gas with Methyl Bromide

Remove Gassing Tarps

Seed 007 bentgrass on 9/9/11

First nutrient application

Dimple in seed for good seed-to-soil contact.

10 days after seed

15 days after seed

19 Days after seeding and 1st mow.

34 days after seeding

66 days after seeding

70 days after seeding.

Showdown with Duff

Thought this was a great picture of Duff and my 3 yr old son Landon.  Who's watching who?

rolling greens

We are rolling greens this morning.  Have two of the new guys getting trained on this.  Rolling is one of the most difficult things to learn on the golf course.  The steering is reversed than that of a car - it takes a little while to pick it up.

Changing cups in the Winter

We try not to change cups every day in the winter.  Usually every other day unless we get a day with a lot of play.  The greens are not growing as fast as they are in the summer so the old cups don't recover as fast and it will seem like there are old cups everywhere.

Mowing and Spraying

We are mowing all the fairways and approaches today to get them all cleaned up before more wet weather moves in. This will clean up all the earthworm castings and diviots, and put fresh lines into the fairway.

We are also spraying fairways for weeds. This extremely wet last half of the year has made it a bad year for poa. The rain tends to lessen the length of time that the pre-emerg chemicals last. We are getting all the poa now before it gets bad. We do this with a post-emerg herbicide that kills only the cool season grass (poa) and does not harm the bermudagrass.

Kids

Here is a picture of #9 after a party last night. 1 Budweiser, 1 Sam Adams, bottle of Jim Beam Red Stag, bottle of Southern Comfort, and a bottle of Malibu Black was found!  Quite a party.  They also drew pictures of certain body parts in the bunkers and threw one of those new $80 flagsticks with the reflectors somewhere - probably in the bottom of the pond.

Amigos

The last amigo went back to Mexico today. We have hired some new workers to help us through the winter months and through next year.

Two of the guys had their family pick them up at the Mexico City airport after they landed to go home and they were robbed at gunpoint on a Mexican highway by a couple guys in a truck. They took everything they had brought back home with them - cash, gifts, passports, clothes, everything. No one was hurt and everyone got home safely, but is just one of the risks that these guys take to come up here to provide for their families in Mexico. Can't wait for them to return in April!

Sent from my iPhone

Course leafs

The course was trashed yesterday from all the high winds that we had two nights ago. We have got everything blown And the course is cleaned up for the most part.

The course is still pretty wet in some areas. Things are very slow to dry out this time of year because the grass isn't growing and our clay soil.

This was a picture of #14 as I was starting to blow. We made a few marks with the tractors blowing the golf course, but finally got everything cleaned up.

Course Conditions

The course is extremely wet and there is standing water on many of the holes.  We got 0.4" yesterday and 0.9" this morning. 

Some of the back nine (#12, #14) are pretty bad with leaves because we were not able to blow them earlier in the week (they were still a little too wet).  The holes that did get blown are not as bad but there are still leaves everywhere.  It might be a while before it dries down enough to get the tractors back on the course.

Leafs

It's finally drying out enough to get the tractors on the course to work on blowing leafs. We will try to get the worst holes first then move around course from there.

Rain and bunkers

Some of the bunkers are washed after the 2+ inches of rain we received. Once everything dries out a little we will repair the washout. The last of the amigos are leaving tomorrow so we are going to be a little thin on labor. It gets difficult this time of year once all the guys leave and the weather stays nice. With the weather being nice we still have to mow greens, and setup the course for daily play. It is important this time of year that everyone rakes the bunkers after hitting a shot. With minimal staff we concentrate our labor on greens and course setup, thus bunker maintenance in the morning is only done a few times a week.

Pg2

Double cutting pg2 and grooming it. It's looking pretty good and is maturing nicely.

Grooming greens

I have been displeased with the lack of quality ball roll on the greens the last week or so. We are lightly grooming greens today to get the grass to stand up a little bit before mowing them. This should help smooth out the greens a little. We couldn't do this earlier because of the sand on the greens. If you bring up sand with vertical mowing it will dull the movers as soon as they go over the sand.

The deep tine aeration that we did last month made the greens bumpy for an extended period of time. This was a necessary practice that is used to fix the deep compaction that was built up over the summer, and it creates channels for new root growth. The aeration worked for root growth - I have seen significant root growth and recovery after this aeration.

Re-grassing project #10

Here is a picture on the re-grassing project that we are working on along the cart path on #10. 36 pallets of sod have been installed on these areas this week. We are laying fescue around the trees and touching up some of the thin hardpan areas in the bermuda. This will give this area a very clean look, and will look great on one of our most visible areas from Two Rivers Rd. I am planning on doing this on a hole or two a year. The next hole we are going to do is #3 along the cart path by the fairway bunker.

Leaves

We are smack in the middle of leaf season. The golf course is blown every morning with these big tractor blowers before play. The last week has been quite windy which makes it impossible to blow leaves. We get as much done every morning as we can before the wind picks up.

Deer

Here is a picture of a tree behind #5 green that the bucks have been rubbing on. This is a common sight in yards on many ornamental trees in the neighborhood.

Topdressing

Here is a picture of a green after topdressing. The sand will help fill the holes and smooth out the greens. This will be the last heavy sanding that we do for the year. It's all gone for the most part and we will mow in the morning.

Course conditions.

Course is a little on the wet side and there are a lot of leafs and debris on the course from the windy conditions yesterday. We are allowing carts on the fairways today just please watch out for any low areas.

Greens were mowed and rolled this morning and the greens are rolling good. They are still a little bumpy from the aeration, but the benefits of the aeration have been noticed - greens are a lot healthier now vs before the aeration. We will topdress lightly on Monday to help with the bumpiness.

Nutrients

Here is a picture of granular nutrients going down after aeration. Having holes in the greens allows for an easy way to get nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium into the root zone for plant availability.

Sand based greens (USGA spec) don't hold nutrients very long and you must replenish these elements on a regular basis to keep the plant healthy.

Aeration

Here is a picture of the aerator punching greens. Aeration is a necessary management practice to keep greens alive and healthy throughout the year.

Deep tining greens

Here is a picture of the Vertidrain punching deep tine aeration holes in the greens before the regular aerator goes over greens. This helps the grass develop long root systems and allows root regeneration after a summer of root loss. We do this in October because they are still too weak during the August aeration to have this machine on the greens.

New Drains

We are working on replacing some of the old concrete drains that are cracking and falling apart. They are being replaced with plastic basins that are set in concrete. We just have to tie in the existing outfalls into the casing. This should give the drains a neater look, and eliminates the danger of damaging mowers due to unstable drain tops. Right now we are working on #12 and #17. After these are finished we continue on others around the course.

Greens

All of the weak greens are recovering nicely and we are seeing a lot of seed germination from all of the seeding we have been doing. These greens were aerated and fertilized last week - reason they look a little more lush than the others.

The rest of the greens will be aerated next week and fertilized at this same rate. It is best to have holes in the greens when applying this fall fertilizer. We will lightly topdress all the greens next week after they are punched.

I am happy with the overall condition of the greens after this difficult summer, and they are rolling at a speed that we will try to maintain until the amigos leave for the year.

New pump controls

Here is a picture of the touchscreen computer that controls pump operation. This new pump station should help us really save on utility costs, decrease on water usage, and help elongate the life of our irrigation system.

New Pumps

Here is a pic of the new pump skid being installed with the crane.

Pumps

Here's the picture of the old pumps that came out of the pump station.

Pump station

Old pumps coming out of the pump house.

Irrigation pipe

Here is a picture of the inside of one of the pipes that was removed from the pump station. You can see a ton of corrosion on the inside of the pipe. Most of the road crossings on the course are this type of pipe and have this amount of deterioration.

Greens

We aerated #5,6,9,11,13,14,15 on Monday. These are some of our weak greens that we've had some difficulty developing new root growth because of all the wet weather we had 2-3 weeks ago. The holes with allow oxygen and nutrients to be available to generate new root growth.

These greens have been re-seeded to help some of the spots that still are bare.