Little dry

The greens were wilting yesterday as we were trying to aerate, topdress, roll, drag, fert, etc. I don't like to water them too much before we run the topdresser over them because it will leave tire tracks......but then if they don't have enough they will start to wilt.

No problems though....aeration is here which is the official end of summer in my book!

Verticutting

We verticut all the greens Thursday and Friday. I wanted to get this done before we adrift on Monday. Ideally we would do it in front of the aerators but we don't have an extra 6 guys on staff to do this in front of the aeration. The verticutting really helps to thin out the turf canopy. It helps the leaf blades to stand up instead of laying over on each other. It results in a faster, true roll...especially after the topdressing.

I'm looking forward to aeration on Monday. Fall aeration is the official end of my worrying season. The greens are in decent shape and after the aeration and topdressing on Monday and Tuesday, they should be sweet through the fall.

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

Fox

A fox dug up the bunker on 1 green last night. Maybe time for another "wildlife relocation".

Nice

We are gonna need this.

Greens and sodium

The greens are much softer today than they have been lately. I watered them a little heavier last night and we put some gypsum punt this morning with additional water. This gypsum went out in preparation for a flush tonight. There has been some sodium buildup because of the well usage and lack of rainfall.

I like to flush on a Sunday because we are closed on Mondays and you don't have to worry about all the traffic on soft greens. They should start drying down Tuesday depending on the weather.

Dry

We need some rain. Scheduled to run over 500,000 gal of water tonight.

Common Bermuda

You can see a lot of common Bermuda in the fairways. The 419 Hybrid Bermuda is regulated pretty good with the amount of growth regulators that we have been using but the common is largely unaffected. There is no way to control the common other than complete turf renovation. It's not necessarily a problem, it's just visually not as uniform.

This is a battle that courses with older fairways have. Most people probably don't even notice, but it is something that we try and manage. The common acts differently than the 419 with fertilizers, regulators, watering, herbicides, and growth rate.