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.

Water

Watering in a fungicide for spring dead spot this morning on 1.

Tees

We topdressed tees and had a guy go around and drag in the sand. This is the reason they are tufted up and not smooth. I watered them last night to help work in the sand, and we are spreading fertilizer and spraying a fungicide for spring dead spot on them this morning. We will get them mown tomorrow.

Leaks

A full day of leak repair today. Got 3 completed.

Pest and fert applications

We have had a lot to do the last week. This time of year we have to get down a lot of things in a short amount of time - and being a holiday week where we lost Monday doesn't help either. We are putting down pre-emerg around the greens, fairways and tees for winter weeds (poa), we are making fertilizer applications on fairways, approaches and tees, and still have to apply a fungicide on all the tees, approaches and some fairways for spring dead spot. This is a disease that we see in the Bermuda in the spring (18 fairway gets it bad every year).

We have also done a medium topdressing on the greens to get them ready to be really good this fall. The tees were also topdressed for the last time this year.

All this chem, fert, and topdressing has put us behind with mowing rough this week. We will try to get it all done before the weekend.

Greens

The greens are still looking pretty good after a few days of hot and humid weather. They really haven't improved in the last few days but that's to be expected with the heat. We really need soil temps to drop into the 60's before we really start to see some fast improvement of the edges. Right now we are around 75. It takes prolonged cooler weather to even drop the soil temps just a few degrees.

We will put a light topdressing on them today which will help the speed and firmness.