3rd week in a row

The Thursday's men's group got crushed again in the weekly walking contest. That's the 3rd week in a row that the Wednesday ladies group has won. Some greens you can see every step someone took on and off the green. Pick um up!

Hoses

Can't wait to put these things up for the year! Another 2 months.

We have to water the edges more than the rest of the greens. It's the newness in them - they dry down so much faster. New greens are sweet most of the year, but cause me to pull my hair out for 3 months of the year.

Greens

Greens look pretty good. They are still a little wet from a flush on Sunday night.

The only edges that are a little thin are on #5,12&13. We knew we would still struggle with the edges in the second year but the problems are about 5-10% of what they were last year. These temps have really helped. If this continues, I will start to speed them up a little. You still have to be a little careful through August, especially with the young age. They could use another light topdressing. I might try to do that later this week. The topdressing keeps air to the roots, firms them up and increases greens speed.

Irrigation vs not

Pictured is a great pic of some Bermuda on the right side of the cart path on #3. We sodded this area a year or two ago and you can see a perfect circle from what gets hit by irrigation.

Missing water

Mike and I were on a mission to find 50 gallons a minute of water coming from the pumpstation for the last couple of days. We started by isolating half the course and seeing if it stopped....then we worked backwards from there. Took a while but we found it in the no mow on #8 next to a drain.

Bermuda collars

The Bermuda collars were really knocked back the last couple of weeks. It was from the growth regulator applications that are made on the greens.

We were spraying them "choppy" like you can see in the second picture all winter and spring. Once the collars were completely grown in and healthy I made one application without spraying choppy. It knocked the crap out of the Bermuda. We spray the same chemical on tees and fairways and double the rate that these collar areas got from the overspray. We have since gone back to spraying them choppy. This is a pain because we mix the regulators with other products like fungicides and fertilizers. The edges of the greens that don't get sprayed have to be hit with a separate mix without the growth regulators (they still need fungus protection) with a different machine. We are one of the only places around that have to do this. Most guys just spray the entire green and don't ever experience this amount of setback in the Bermuda. I'm not sure why ours is so sensitive. May have something to do with the relative newness of the Bermuda around greens after the renovation. It just takes more time, money and chemicals to do it the "choppy" way.

Pick em up!

Thursday men's group officially lost the walking on greens challenge for the week!

Sand on the greens.

The greens have been soft and spongy with the small amounts of rain we have been getting and the higher humidity. Topdressing helps to firm them up, speed them up, and help with drainage in the top inch.

It has been 3 weeks plus since our last light topdressing. I know people don't like the sand, but it's one of the most important cultural practices that we do on greens.

This time of year I don't want to drag the sand on greens with a brush or drag. This mechanical damage can be the straw that breaks the camels back on a plant that is already weak from the heat and shorter root systems. For this reason we just water the sand into the profile.

Rolling and immaturity.

We are taking advantage of the cool weather and rolling behind the mowers. I didn't roll 10,11 and 12. These greens are the weakest ones we have and I didn't want to do anything to set them back.

I have not been rolling as much as we do in the spring and fall. The rollers really beat up the edges. You can see the ridges it put on the edges from the pic below. This is because of the immaturity of the greens and our sand mix. Our root zone is larger, bulkier sand. It will take longer to set up, but was the better choice for long term sustainability with our water quality.

Topdressing

Putting a light topdressing on the greens this morning. They are in desperate need of a light dusting. Topdressing helps firm up the greens and allows for oxygen exchange in the soil.

Greens speed

The greens were a little slower than they have been lately. This was due to the increased humidity, raised height of cut, we put some more water on them to try and avoid any additional wilt, and they are coming out of regulation. The growth regulators help keep the greens from getting surges in top growth which slow the ball roll down. I am being careful with them. The next 2 weeks are really important, so we need to minimize the stresses regardless of the weather predictions.

Spraying growth regs today along with a fungicide.

Rain

Not that I'm complaining......but how is this missing us?

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

Yikes

The greens were lighting up this afternoon. We chased our butts for 4 hours. I kept the greens a little on the drier side this morning while watering. It was so humid this morning, I didn't want to get them too wet. Then this afternoon the humidity completely left and the wind picked up. Dryer is almost always better than wetter. The greens tend to do better with all the traffic when they are drier. The new 007 is great grass but my only complaint is that it takes a long time to recover from wilt. The good thing is it doesn't wilt easy.

We were a little late getting out there on them because I was trying to get the water up and running from the leak this morning on 14. That 1 hr earlier would have helped, but only so much.

All-in-all a forgettable day. On to tomorrow.

Another one

Didn't need this today. Greens were really dry this morning (which is good) but can't really afford to have 14 isolated all day. This irrigation system,,.... #frustrating. Just finished fixing a blowout on 6 Friday.

More damage

Someone drove a scooter across #6 green last night. Those skinny tires left some decent ruts.

Greens

The greens are staying a hair too wet right now. There are some low areas that are thinning out a little from all the traffic on a moist green. All the greens look pretty good except 12. 12 is staying wetter than the rest and that right side walk on is really thinning out.

Knock on wood...most of them look pretty good for the middle of July. The fans make all the difference in the world. Our usual problem greens (5,6,7,13,14) look great, they all have new fans. 9,10,11,12 are the weakest and none of those have new fans. These new fans are worth their weight in gold. New ones next year for 3,11 and 12! You can bet on those being in the 2015 capital budget.

Irrigation

Had a blow out last night. Screwed up everything we had planned this morning. Glad it happened on a day where we got some rain the night before.

How important is aeration?

Notice how green the aeration holes are? It's important to keep fresh air in the soil.

Picture worth a thousand words

Here you can see the difference between the center of the green with less traffic and moisture stress and a plug taken from an edge with high traffic. The short one was taken at the walk-on on #14. The long one was taken from the center of the green.

It doesn't take a turf expert to tell which one is healthier.

This is the major battle with new greens. Keeping the edges healthy and alive. As the green ages the difference between these areas will become less and less severe.

Flushing

Garrison and I came back out yesterday evening to spread gypsum on the greens. I flushed the greens last night. The gypsum helps to remove the sodium from the soil. We have been running the well a lot to fill the pond on 4.

I wanted to flush before the heat on Tuesday and Wednesday. This will get all the nitrates and sodium out of the soil and bring in some fresh oxygen.

Ideally I would have liked to flush them Saturday night but I didn't want to get the greens real soft then have a full day of play on them on Sunday. The greens took a beating from all the play this weekend, if they would have been soft, they would have got roughed up even more. You can see the pic of 1 green around the pin. The interior greens are even worse.

Knock on wood.....we are still in good shape. Being closed on Monday is a huge help to give them a day to recover. The next 3 weeks are crucial. We're just playing defense and hanging on through July.

Greens

Greens are doing ok to this point. They got a little roughed up today with about 160 rounds on the course. 7, 9 & 13 were struggling a little in June with some algae, thinning and fairy ring. I cored these greens out with a 1/4" hollow tine and didn't fill with topdressing. Made a huge difference. 7 @ 13 look awesome and 9 looks a little better. I think the weakest greens he have now are 11 & 12.

Next week is going to be rough but tonight at 60 degrees is going to be sweet! We need it after 160 rounds!

Mowing Fairways

Trying to get some fairways mown this afternoon. We had a late start this morning due to all the rain and we weren't able to mow them this morning.

We need to get the majority of them done this afternoon because of the big shotgun in the morning. This is the first good mow after all the topdressing. Just wanted to get them cleaned up. The 1" of rain did a good job watering in the sand and helping with some of the dry areas.

Fairway & tee topdressing

Finished top dressing fairways today. Took all week with some struggles with getting sand from the plant and being short a tractor. I went a little heavier to see if we could get away with one heavy top dressing versus two light applications. All this sand is a pain to look at and deal with, but our topdressing program is one of the main reasons that we never have to pull cores on
the fairways. It helps with thatch management and most of all, drainage. It really pays off after heavy rains - we can afford to get the carts out earlier.

The topdressing and verticutting will help the thin areas from standing water this past winter as well. It's been a slow recovery for everyone in Tidewater, but we have really seen some movement lately with the hot weather. These needed cultural practices will result in really good playing conditions for the rest of the year after recovery.

We verticut, topdress, drag (unfortunately tufting up the grass when dragging against the grain), then water the sand at night to get it into the grass canopy, then finally cut it the next morning with a dull mower to clean everything up. The sand will dull the reels as soon as that blade hits sand (like sandpaper on a knife). For this reason I try and limit the amount of mowing after top dressing. It costs about $700 to grind just one fairway mower after dulling it up. We also do the same for the tee and approach mowers (approx $400 a grind).

It should all be gone in about a week. That will be it for our major Bermuda maintenance. I ay hit ally the. Fairways with a fertilizer application on. Monday to really get them bumping. We just need some rain now!!


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Course damage

I'd like to know who is doing this. Fariways are one thing but when they start driving across one of weakest greens with a truck, things could get bad fast.

Misery and hope

It was 80 degrees at 5am this morning. That's disgusting. The Bermuda will like it and it will recover nicely from all the verticutting, aeration and topdressing. The greens hate these hot nights. The fans make all the difference in the world this time of year. They continue to be some of the best money spent come capital time.

I'm happy with the greens to this point although it is way too early to feel comfortable. Got about 4-5 weeks before that time comes.

We are spraying again this morning. I know the guys hate this time of year when we spray greens what feels like every other day. This is 2 days in a row of spraying greens(Tuesday: fungicide & growth regulators then Wednesday: soil fungicide for Pythium Root Disfunction), but we should be good until next week. One application has to dry on the leaf blade and one has to be watered in to the soil. This is the reason you can't just mix both applications into one spray.

Not that I'm wishing......

For 4th of July to get rained out but, we could use some rain. After the tee aeration, verticutting and topdressing on tees and fairways...we could use some rain. Looks like the 4th is our best shot.