Greens

The greens are getting very dry and wilty. We have not aerated in a while and the greens are starting to seal up - not allowing moisture into the soil. This is ok seeing that we only have a week and a half left with them. I am limiting the amount of water we will be putting on the greens to get them firm and fast. This also helps to limit the overtime going into the construction where the guys will be working some long hours.

They might not be pretty this last week or so but they sure will be fun to play on!

Disease on greens

I am starting to see some anthracnose starting on a couple of the greens. We have stopped all fungicide applications on greens - no sense on wasting money on greens that are going to be gone in two weeks. Some of our fungicide applications cost $1000 or more per spray. These diseases have no detrimental effect on ball roll and won't up and kill all the greens. It's a great learning experience to see what pathogens are starting up without chemical control. I am scouting greens every morning to ensure nothing gets out of control.

Two weeks left! The countdown is on!

Green speed Sunday

The green speeds have slowed up a little. They are rolling just over 10 today. This is due to the rain we got Friday and we have to fix all the bunkers this morning - didn't have enough guys to roll behind the mowers. Take advantage and fire at the pins!

Course conditions.

We got 2" of rain last night. Carts are still on the fairways but we don't have enough time or guys to fix the bunkers. They are not really bad but I wanted to focus our efforts on greens rather than only fixing a couple of bunkers. We will try to fix them all tomorrow morning in front of play.

Rough

The rough is a little off color. This is from mowing at a lower height and keeping Nitrogen inputs low. If we fertilized it would green it up but it would also keep it thicker and harder to play out of. I am making an effort this year to keep the rough a little more friendly to play but to do this you have to give a little on the "lushness" of the wall to wall green look.

Green speed

The greens are in the best shape I've ever seen them - at least in my 8 years here. They are struggling a little with the heat but are still rolling a consistent 11.5-12 on the stimp meter. This is due to the disregard of prepping the greens to survive the summer.

Greens

The greens are starting to struggle a little with this extreme weather. This is to be expected with the very low height of cut and the extensive mowing and rolling that we have been doing every morning. The poa has really started to check out. We are mowing greens at 0.095" right now - in a normal year we would be mowing at around 0.160" getting them ready for the summer stresses. My goal for the rest of the life of these greens (2 weeks) is to keep them rolling good without worrying about how they look.

Pg2 is at the same height of cut and look at the quality difference - really remarkable. That grass has yet to even blink at these high temps.

Silt fence

We have started installing silt fence on the river holes. We still have 1,4,7,8,9,12,13,14 and the range left. This will all need to be in before the construction starts - required by JCC.

Flowers

Here is a picture of a stump on #6 that Lynda has put a colorful touch on.

Temp greens

We have heavily topdressed the temp greens in an attempt to put forth one last heavy maintenance practice before opening them for play.

We have also fertilized these temp greens to help them grow in.

Greens

The greens are getting pretty beat up from foot traffic today around the cups. It is very important that everyone picks up their feet when walking on the greens. Any slight drag of your feet with golf shoes on can really damage the turf and set it back. It is especially bad after some rain when the greens are soft and easily marked up.

Green speed

The greens have been rolling right around 11 the last few days. They are finally starting to dry out a little.

I have noticed that the ball is "hunting" a little bit on putts right now. This means the ball will wiggle a little left and right when rolling towards the hole. This is from mowing the greens so short and we have not topdressed them in a while. I might do one last very light topdressing this week to help this.

Bunkers

A lot of the bunkers are washed out this morning. We are trying to get as many fixed as we can this morning.

Course Conditions

We got another 2.2" last night. The carts are still on the fairways but the rough is a little wet. The course should be dried out by this afternoon.

We are going to finish mowing rough this afternoon. We got about 2 days behind on mowing this week because of Memorial Day and all the rain later in the week. We should be all caught up by the end of the weekend.