Course moisture

The course isn't as wet as it was during this picture, but it is starting to dry out a little. Not dry enough to start getting any equipment out there but getting closer.

The Weather Guessers

They have forecasted a low of 34 the last couple of mornings. We have had actual lows of 26. I have been bringing guys in to get these greens mown each morning with no luck. This kills us when they are off by this much. If I knew it was going to be this cold each morning I wouldn't have wasted the labor to bring anyone in. Theses weekend mornings are budget killers.

I guess we will go out and try to blow some leaves in the dry areas and then try to at least get some holes mown after the frost lifts. We should be able to get them all mown by tomorrow afternoon.

Greens and cold

The greens are a little furry today. You have to be careful this time of year with mowing and maintenance. The freeze / thaw process will make the greens real soft and the mowers can actually make the greens more bumpy. The thawing process results in a extremely soft top and a still frozen bottom layer.

We will try to get the greens mown tomorrow. Hopefully we won't have a long frost Saturday morning and we can get the greens cleaned up. Today we are waiting for the frost to lift so we can get out there and get them blown off. It's 26 degrees at 7am....it might be a while. The guys are helping with Christmas decorations today at the club until we can get on the greens.

It's always a fluid process in deciding weather to wait for maintenance tasks on the greens on a morning like this, or just go ahead and send the guys home and save on labor. A lot of times I'll look at the tee sheet and if it's fairly dead, I'll try to save on the labor (on weekends). If it looks like we can get some stuff done without waiting all day and we are going to have some play, we try to do everything we can.

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

Bunkers

Thursday we were working on tweaking the sand depths in 6 greenside bunker. I was pretty happy with the end results but we still have a little more to do in this bunker.

This task took 3 guys about 3.5 hrs, and this is one of the smallest bunkers on the course. It's gonna take some serious time to work through most of these bunkers.

He's back....

That fox came back again last night and dug up 13 green again. I brought someone in to see if we can get him caught and relocated to Charles City.

Greens

The greens were a little slower and softer than they
have been lately. I flushed them yesterday. We are still having elevated sodium levels in the greens from the lack of rain this fall.

The sodium acts as a growth regulator this time of year. Flushing the greens to remove a good portion of sodium helps the greens to continue growing and maturing. We were getting less than a half bucket of grass off the greens the last week, after the flush we got about 2 buckets off each green. This is a good example of how the greens feel and look much better after a flush or heavy rain.

The pond on 4 is getting pretty low. I'm trying to avoid putting more bad water in the pond that will hang around for some time. Let's hope for some rain soon to refill that thing.

Fox

A fox got into 13 green last night and dug a hole in that spot we have been working on back left. He was probably after that organic material that we put in the mixture that we filled the holes with. Looks like we need to do a better job on our "wildlife management".

Hopefully the nursery will be ready in the next couple weeks to be able to give us a few plugs to repair this area. The nursery is coming in good, even with the late seeding. We didn't rebuild it until after member guest. The nursery is used to repair spots like this, but we mainly use it for a testing area. It's great to be able to test different chemicals on this nursery before we put it out on all the greens. We can see how that grass responds to different rates and evaluate different products to make sure they are effective enough out down on all the rest of the greens. This saves us money over the course if the year. If we try something new, we can spray the nursery first and if the product works, I can put it down on all the greens...if it doesn't work...we are just out 2500 sqft of product versus 140,000 sqft.

Carts on grass

Tomorrow will be the last day for carts on the grass for the winter. The Bermuda rough is almost completely dormant and the fariways are getting closer. The reason that we make it cart path only for the winter is to avoid beating down the grass when it's not growing. This will pay dividends in the spring when everything starts greening up. - it's one of the reasons that our Bermuda is so good in the spring and early summer. It stinks this time of year when the weather is still nice, but it's something that needs to be done in order to have great conditions next year.

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

Frost

We are now in the time of year for frost delays. We are waiting for the frost to lift so we can get out and blow off all the greens. We don't have enough time to mow all the greens in front of play with these frost delays. Since the rest of the week looks good we should be able to mow greens tomorrow morning.

The rest of the amigos left this morning. We are down to the nitty gritty with staff. I already can't wait for the guys to come back!

Tree removal

We are still working on tree removal around 13 green. The more sunlight we can get to that green the healthier it will be.

Greens

The thin areas on 13 have come a long way in the last couple days. We did a manual drill and fill on that one spot on the back left. It is very tedious but should work good. We pull out the plugs with a soil probe on a template with holes then use a funnel to fill the holes with a mixture of sand, organic material, calcium, magnesium, and potassium.

Curbs and Rough

Here are some pics of the work going on along the cart path on #2.  We are removing the curb and re-leveling the ground.  The curbing that is around the course breaks easily, limits cart path width and allows us to easily maintain these edges.  The first pic was taken after we removed all the concrete and the second was taken after the sod was removed and the ground was graded.  The final step is to replace the sod along the path.

As you can see the rough is starting to go dormant.  We call this look "Tiger Stripes" - this happens after the first few frosts when the grass is making its way towards dormancy.  We should have the carts off the paths for at least the next couple weeks until the rough starts to show some wear from cart traffic.  It's done growing for the year so it cant recover from the traffic that the carts put on it.  This wear in most cases won't kill the plant - although it could if the traffic was concentrated enough - but it will severely impede spring greenup and result in an unhealthy plant.

Spot on 13

There is a sizable scar on the back left of 13 green. We had a roller malfunction on this area last week and then there were some deer that got onto it and roughed it up even more. We topdressed and seeded it as well as putting some plugs there from other spots on the green.

The outsides are still slow in recovery in some spots...something we are really working on while soil temperatures are still high enough to continue growth. We have been making weekly nutrient and bio stimulant applications on these areas to promote growth. With some continued pushing they should continue to get better.

Range

We finished the sand at the range bunker today. Still have to put some sod around the edges next week.

We will continue the drainage work at the range next week. Once this drainage goes in I think it will really help the range from staying so wet, especially along the right side.

We borrowed a trencher with a conveyor on it they really helps to speed the process up. It eliminates a lot of the manual work of shoveling up the piles. This may be one piece of equipment that we consider purchasing in the next couple of years to install more drainage.

Greens

The greens are starting to dry down a little after our week and a half of rain and no sunshine. They should start to pick up some speed to get to our ideal speed. I'm still working on the outsides of the greens, babying them back to full health.

The rest of the course is drying out as well, but some of the interior holes are still pretty wet. This time of year the Bermuda doesn't really suck up the water because it's not really actively growing. There's an outside chance that we might be able to be driving on the fairways tomorrow. We will check in the morning to see if it's a possibility.

Bunker at range

We made some really good progress on the bunker at the range today. It's amazing what you can do with some labor and a little dry weather. We will be doing a ton of work at the range tomorrow afternoon. A bunch of drainage will be going in on the west end and work will continue on the bunker.

Greens aeration

We punched greens with a small needle tine yesterday and pulled a core on the outsides of the greens were we experienced thinning this summer.

The greens were actually starting the thin out a little in the low areas from all the rain and no sun for a week and a half. Nothing bad - just some minor stuff that will disappear with some sunshine. The holes will help everything dry down.

Sun

We might see the sun today for the first time in more than a week!

Leaves

The course is trashed after that rain last night. We are working on blowing everything but it gets difficult when it stays windy - nothing really goes where you want it to go. I guess that's the price you pay for a little rain but I'll take it because we really needed the rain.

Rain

Received a much needed 0.6" of rain yesterday. The Bermuda doesn't really suck up the water this time of year because it's not actively growing. For this reason it does not green up as fast as it would after some rain in the summer.

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

It's dry...but it could be worse

We could be at Murifield. The Presidents Cup has some really wet, soft conditions. Some of the approach shots aren't even releasing from their pitch marks on the greens and the ones that are have some huge ball marks. I took this picture where it a little difficult to see but the spike marks are terrible...you can see every footprint. I'll take our fast and firm over that soggy and soft any day of the week. I couldn't imagine having a tournament of that magnitude and get that much rain the week of the tournament - you can see that they haven't even been able to mow fairways.

Leak 9

Had to isolate 9 this morning because of this leak near the tee. You can kind of see the turf bubble to the right of the head. This is probably a blown service tee (the fitting that attaches the head to the mainline). Add it to the last for Monday.....

Practice bunker

Still working on the practice bunker at the range. Once we cleaned it out, the edges were pretty screwed up and needed some work. We should have a good chance to knock this out the next two weeks once we get through all
the tournaments.

Irrigation

There's only one employee that enjoys it being this dry and having to spot water every morning....Duff. Lots of heads to chase.

Soil applications

Making an application of a wetting agent and some nutrients today. It's important to keep our nutritional levels where they have to be this time of year to take advantage of some great root growing weather.

The second pic is of the gyp-pot-mag we put down behind the sprayer. This is a combo product that allows us to make one application with one guy and get all the gypsum, pot ash, and magnesium down we need versus making 3 applications with 3 different products (using 3 guys). This is a great product to use outside of aeration to keep the levels where they need to be. When we have holes in the greens I use the three separate products and put them down much heavier.

All of these products have to be watered in to get them into the soil. This is the reason some days you may see us turning on the heads in the morning just in front of play. On days that we are just watering to keep the moisture levels up, I set up the computer to have the heads run at night.

Rolling

A pic of the roller following behind the mowers. The greens are rolling really good and the edges are almost recovered.

Dry!

The course is extremely dry right now. The rough is starting to so dormant early because of the extreme dryness and some really cool nights. This makes for some good playing conditions, just not a real pretty, lush look.

The tees and fairways still look really green because we have better irrigation coverage in the fairways and we also apply wetting agents to these areas to help prevent them from drying out as bad.

Sweep n fill

Trying a new drag system on the greens today. This is brushing the sand nicely and also is standing the grass right up - which is a good thing. I think this brush would work great after aeration when trying to fill holes with sand.

We did a light topdressing today behind the sprayer. This should help keep the greens fast, firm and smooth.

Greens

We didn't roll the greens after the mowers today. The greens are quite fast right now and I didn't want to get them too fast and some of the interior greens are a little roughed up from all the mowing, rolling and foot traffic.

The greens look pretty good for being real lean, dry, hopped up on growth regulator, and shaved close. They are really getting tight and maturing.

We will not do anything to the greens tomorrow except water them if we don't get any rain. This will give them a break until Tuesday. Monday they will get a light topdressing, a fungicide and foliar fertilizer spray, and a light brushing. They should maintain these fast speeds for the remainder of the year.

Good article

http://www.usga.org/course_care/regional_updates/regional_reports/midatlantic/How-Are-We-Going-To-Get-This-Done----September-2013/

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

Nevermind....

Put a second cut on them after the roller this morning and the speeds are up. They looked a lot better this morning after another cool night. I made the decision to cut them again to get that extra foot. It's amazing what you can get done with no golfers until 12:30p. All he guys and Lynda have worked hard, long hours this week and last weekend to get the course in shape for tournament time.

Keep em below the holes!!!

Member Guest

I pretty happy with the course for Member Guest. All the short grass (tees, fwys, approaches) are in great shape. The greens are a little slower than my goal for member guest but I had to back off a little - the greens are showing a hint of thinning from all the maintenance. They are still rolling 12' and may increase just a little depending on how dry they get today.

The rest of the detail work is done for the most part and I think we are ready to go. The outsides of the rough along the tree lines are really dry and discolored. It's amazing how fast everything can dry out.

Cutting them close

The greens are really rolling good right now. They are about 12' on the stimp. I have noticed that they are thinning out ever so slightly in the middles where that mowing height is low. I'm not really too concerned with this at this time in the year. The temperatures are favorable for root growth and once we get past Member-Guest I will raise them and water them a little more. For the tournament they are pretty low and real dry. I will slow them down a little after the tournament...but not to much. They should be rolling 11' the remainder of the year.

Greens

We are mowing and rolling this morning. The greens are rolling around 11.5' maybe 12' once they dry out. Leave the ball below the hole because those downhill putts are brutal!

Mother Nature

This has been a really weird weather year. March and April were really cold and wet, May was nice, June and July resulted in record rainfall, August was relatively cool and dry and September has been hot and really dry. This bipolar weather pattern makes it difficult to meet golf course expectations and still operate within the financial requirements. I'm not complaining though...it's nice to see the place dry out a little for the first time in a year.

The dryness makes it easier to concentrate on playing conditions - easier to get the course firm and fast. It's not as visually stimulating with the rough browning out, but it's better than having long, thick, green rough that is impossible to get out of this time of year.

Green speeds.

We verticut and mowed today. They are stimping 11 and will continue to get faster this week for Member Guest. They are getting really dry. We had to put some extra water on them this morning because they were so dry.

Green speeds

I have been steadily decreasing the height of cut the last week and the growth regulator we sprayed on Friday is finally kicking in. The greens have picked up about a foot in the last two days and will continue to increase. We will be verticutting then mowing on Monday instead of giving them their usual break on Monday. This verticutting will really stand everything up and speed them up. They should be really, really good by the end of the week.

Some of the thin areas haven't completely healed on the outsides - a result of a really hot September. They are close...close enough to not keep them from putting the gas petal to the floor on green speeds for the remainder of the year.

Hung head

Had a head stick on last night on 11. It's going to be real wet past that bunker today.

Dry!

I never thought I would say this in 2013 but it's getting really dry out there. The greens really dried out this afternoon. Hopefully this is the last of the heat this year.

Greens

The greens are starting to get good. We are going to apply the growth regulator tomorrow and the mowing heights continue to drop. They starting to really dry out and firm up.

Green speeds

The greens are going to be a little slower for the next couple of days. I fertilized them a little to promote recovery and try to get them filled in. We also need to spray a growth regulator on them but I think I'm going to wait until this 3 days of heat passes before putting it to them. They should really start to pick up pace towards the end of the week. The excess growth is good for recovery, bad for maintaining fast greens. The heights will start to come down and the rollers will once again be out there behind the mowers once we hit that cool weather.

Lines in fairways

We have some paint markings in the fairways and approaches. The fairway lines are marking new mowing patterns. We do this to try to change up or decrease the amount of grain in the fairways. I like to mark the lines to make sure that the guys keep straight mowing lines.

The lines in the approaches are marking where we sprayed pre-emerg up to. We use a different product around greens than we use on fairways, and we mark where the sprayer stopped to make sure there are no skips in poa control.

The Progression of #15 Green

Here is a slide show that shows the progression of #15 green since aeration.

I like to take pictures of areas like this on a regular basis...it helps me to see the progression.  It's hard to determine how fast they are recovering when you see them all day everyday, but as you can see from the pictures we are recovering.