Merry Christmas

It's Christmas day, all staff members are home with their families today where they belong.  The course is closed, but will reopen weather permitting tomorrow for those itching to play some winter golf.  Have a safe and enjoyable holiday. 

A day with Jim

Many superintendents will agree that the single most important position at a golf course is the Equipment Manager or Mechanic.  Without the mechanical knowledge, fabrication skills, preventative maintenance and attention to detail that a good mechanic possesses, maintaining a golf course is not possible and our facility is no different.  Without equipment to operate and carts for golfers, we wouldn't have much to offer our guests. 

Jim Bloesch has been the Equipment Manager at LRGC since grow-in was well under way in 1994 and has remained an incredibly valuable asset to the operation.  Prior to working at Legacy, Jim worked as the Equipment Manager at Riverdale Dunes, Heather Gardens, the local Toro distributor and prior to that was an over the road trucker hauling freight all over the country. 

Some of the equipment originally purchased when the course opened is still running as well as it did the day it arrived.  Jim has seen three new equipment packages and 5 cart fleets through his time here and adapted his maintenance plans to suit each wave of new machines.  Aside from a strict attention to detail in his PM schedule, Jim is an excellent fabricator, having built everything from implements for cultural practices (see our spiker post), to smaller items that make everyday tasks that much safer/easier.  He is responsible for the layout and organization of our entire shop, so we can efficiently store and access all of our equipment.  Here are a couple items Jim has built recently that makes our job easier:

Trailer for hauling inoperable carts back to the shop

Stabilizer for lifting bulk fertilizer bags with our forklift, a very dangerous endeavor before this baby was built

  These are small examples, but Jim is great at understanding the challenges we face in certain tasks, designing a safe, easy-to-use solution.   

It's rare to find Jim idle at any point in the day, especially during our growing season when he is constantly grinding bed knives and reels, servicing, troubleshooting and repairing damaged equipment throughout the day.  On top of all that, Jim also maintains our fleet of 64 Club Car golf carts for the golf shop. 

Because Jim operates at such a high level of efficiency, we are able to spin-grind all of our reels/bed knives on tighter intervals than many courses, which results in a much better cut and conditioning.  In a typical month during the growing season, Jim grinds:

Greens mowers:  10 reels x 4 times/month    40 reels
Tee mowers:  9 reels x once/month               9 reels
Fairway mowers: 15 reels x once/month       15 reels
Step Cut:              3 reels x once/month         3 reels

That's 67 reels per month, not including the rough mowers, utility vehicles, hand held power equipment, fly mowers, topdressers, sprayers, tractors and implements that all require preventative maintenance as well!  Keep in mind that with each reel, he grinds a bed knife also.  Reels and bed knives can only be ground so many times until they must be replaced.  That is an even more time consuming process he has to plan out in advance.  An EM of lesser experience and expertise would likely be overwhelmed by the volume of work Jim accomplishes everyday.  All tasks are done with same precision each and every time no matter the circumstances.    

It is important to note that grinding must be performed when the machines are not in use, so his time management skills are put to the test on a daily basis.  Throw in unplanned repairs and equipment breakdowns and it's a wonder he has time to eat lunch or take a break at all.  So the next time you are out on the course and you see a mower cutting to perfection, know that Jim is the one behind the scenes keeping that mower running as good as the day it was purchased.  Big thanks to Jim for keeping our operation going.

Tis' the season

We are STILL covered with snow and the forecast doesn't appear to be offering much in the way of melt.  We were ready for moisture three weeks ago, but at this point we are all experiencing some cabin fever. 

Since the snow arrived we have completed our GPS project, finalized our fertilizer/pesticide early order with the Heritage, taken a full inventory at both courses, created and printed new irrigation maps for the controllers, began working on our safety training information, and many of us have taken some much needed time off.  If snow persists and we cannot continue working on our tees, we will start refurbishing course accessories like tee markers, trap rakes, flag sticks and course signage.  This is an annual tradition and while time consuming, it's a great way to stay out of the cold and still improve the appearance of the course.  After the first of the year we will begin taking delivery of the years inventory and we will be busy storing and organizing everything for the growing season.

Just a reminder, the course will be closed December 25th and January 1st, two of the three days we are closed all year. 

GPS

The course is still buried under 6 inches of snow and with the temps barely climbing above freezing for the next week, we are hunkered down working primarily indoors.  One of the projects we have been working on the last few days is our new irrigation map.  Our irrigation computer operates Rain Bird Cirrus, and one of its many features is a map which displays our irrigation components over a map of the golf course.  Since 1997 we have used a fairly basic map utilizing a hand drawn version of the golf course taken from our scorecard.

This version worked well for many years, but we could improve upon this map and accomplish a couple other things if we made a GPS based map.  Any course built in the last 12 years was likely GPS'd during the construction process.  We weren't one of those courses.

In working with the City's GIS department, we put together a plan to map and catalog ALL irrigation and drainage components, calculate yardages for sprinkler caps, and verify the actual size of all playable areas.  It sounds simple, but the last piece will be very valuable for future project estimating and pesticide and fertilizer planning and calculations.  All of the pictures are of #14 and #15.

Wish they took aerial photos in June, not March...

To start we borrowed a Trimble handheld data logger for basically the summer of 2010 and began collecting data.  The data collection process was completed outside of normal maintenance duties, so it took a better part of a season.  We mapped sprinklers, valves, electric valves, splice boxes, drain basins and cataloged each by type, size, brand, model, and date installed. 

Any and all traced areas can be quickly measured

 

The completed GIS map, the yellow dots are sprinklers with yardage, the red dots are front center and back of each green.  The yardage info can be displayed in a tighter extent, pretty handy for replacement purposes



The second portion of the project was to define/trace various areas of the course (ie greens, rough, bunkers, etc).  We completed this portion during the winter of 2010.  To bring the new map over to our irrigation software, we enlisted the help of Brian Keighin, Owner of Irrigation Technologies a local irrigation designer, consultant, expert.  With his knowledge of both ArcMap, Auto CAD and Cirrus he was able to help us take the data from GIS into Cirrus.  The result is an aerial photo with dots representing sprinklers in their exact location.  Not quite done yet...



The dots are just dots at this point, stations from the database still need to be added to make the map usable in Cirrus



Looks a little bare without the shading.

Completed map in Cirrus

The last piece of the project was to populate our Cirrus map from our database, which basically entails placing individual "stations" where they belong on the map and labeling them properly.  I have a dozen more stations to add and the map is completely finished.  A nice added feature we incorporated was to display the address of each home bordering the course so that when a homeowner voices a concern we can quickly identify where they live and address the problem properly. 

We want to thank Joe Simpson, Dave Murray and Sandy Malesky in Community Development for all of their help in making this happen.  They were great to work with and excellent in explaining things in layman's terms so we grass-guys could understand. 



#8 Tee

I forgot to post these pictures last week when I took them.  #8 has progressed nicely and is basically ready for sod, though by springtime it will likely need some more finish work and cleanup.  Because we filled in a natural drainage way  between the two tees to add teeing ground, we had to add a drain basin to the south side of the tee.  It should capture water that would have ran between the two old tee boxes.   

 

The tractor is parked on what will be part of the tee surface.  Here's a pic of the added ground between the tees and to the south of the blue tee.

   

Overall, we are pleased with the way it came out, with a minimal amount of money and time we were able to add around 30% more teeing space to each tee box.  After the latest round of snow melts I will try to take pics of the finished product.

Let it Snow

Another beautiful day here at Legacy Ridge GC, today it's beautiful only if you love free moisture in the form of snow.  Though we can't continue working on our new tees, it is most definitely a blessing to have this blanket of snow.  One because it will insulate our drained-but-not blown out irrigation system, and two the recent weather pattern has left the course thirsty for moisture. 

On days like today we have a pretty standard schedule consisting of snow removal and more snow removal.  In addition to plowing/clearing all of the paved areas around the golf course,

we maintain 5 miles of bike trails and bridges that connect the neighborhood to a large network of trails throughout the City of Westminster.  Depending on the timing of snow storms, we run through bike trails at least twice each day to make sure they are clean and haven't drifted over.  If you happen upon our gator, tractor, or truck plowing, the operator will stop and allow you to safely pass them by.  We would also ask that sledders, snowshoers or walkers please stay off of the golf course at all times.  Golf course features like bunkers, drain basins, and other hazards can be hidden under the snow, making it an unsafe option for snow day recreation.   

Course work

This morning we started the week off right by changing pin locations and mowing greens and collars.  This time of year, mowing is less about managing growth and geared more toward cleaning and smoothing the putting surface.  As long as the weather is warm, we will continue weekly mowing to keep our greens in shape for play.  In the coming weeks we will apply a heavy layer of  topdressing sand as cold weather sets in.  The sand serves as a blanket for the winter, protecting the crown or growing point of the bent grass (and poa) plant from winter desiccation.  Desiccation is a concern without snow cover, and to this point we haven't had much in the way of snow and have been irrigating fairly regularly.

Just as snow protects the plant from desiccation, too much snow cover can lead to snow mold, and for that we are planning our second preventative fungicide application this week.  For this application we will be applying Instrata and Rhapsody, which should carry us through February.  About a month ago we applied Spectro90 which we use for a short term preventative in case of big, early snowstorm.  That product has all but worn off, so as soon as the wind dies down we will put out the Instrata/Rhapsody combo that has worked nicely for us that last couple of years in preventing snow mold.  As winter sets in fully, we will discuss different forms of snow mold and hopefully continue answering the age-old question, "so what do you guys do in the winter".

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone has a safe a relaxing Thanksgiving this Thursday.  The golf course will be closed for the holiday, but will reopen on Friday for play.  We are closed for only a few days a year and with the warm weather we are experiencing the course can use a break from all of the cart traffic.  Enjoy the holiday and we will look forward to moving our projects along next week. 

#8 is moving along

Blue tee will be expanded out to the right

Our next victim, ahhhemm tee project will be #8 blue/black tee.  This will be a little different than what we did on #6, in that we are connecting two tee boxes to create one large tee as opposed to creating a completely new tee.  The primary goal with this tee is to increase teeing ground with a minimal amount of disturbance.  The two existing tees are offset a little bit so we will be adding on to the north side of the blue tee to create a teardrop shape.  Our main focus for the coming days is hauling in soil to bring the grade between the two tees up.  There is only 4" height difference from the black tee top to the blue tee top, so the 40 linear feet between the old tees will have at most a 1% grade front to back.  



This area will become new teeing ground





   

Almost there

Shy of a little fine tuning our work on #6 is just about done for now.  We are planning to wait until after the first of the year to grass the new tee on #6, but in the meantime some moisture will do alot of good in settling and crumbing out the tee as it stands today.  The fine tuning will take place prior to seed and sod going down, but we are happy with the way it came out.

 

#6 Update

After 4 days of hauling 21 loads of material from various areas of the golf course, we have enough material to construct a tee, we think... 

With measurements we took prior to material being moved, we will restake the tee box and begin grading the tee top with the grade box.  Our goal is 1% of fall from back to front of the tee box, and a 4:1 slope off of the sides (or tee ring), tieing in nicely with the surrounding rough.

'Tis the season

In the last two weeks we have had two good snowstorms that dropped around 12" total, accompanied with some pretty cold nights.  Prior to the 1st storm we drained down our bridge crossings where the irrigation mainlines hang underneath, exposed to the elements.  We have four bridge crossings that we isolate and drain during very cold weather to prevent ice from building up in the lines.  Three of the crossings happen to be on holes 5 and 6, so we isolate those holes from the rest of the irrigation system, the other crosses the wetlands on hole #13, which is also isolated/drain from the rest of the system. 

On Monday we began draining down and blowing out the outlying areas including the clubhouse and entrance areas.  The process of blowing out is pretty straight forward if you understand the layout of your system.  We connect a 185 compressor set at 70psi as close to the water source as possible blowing water out of the mainline first. 

Once the mainline is clear we run each electric valve until it blows only air, working away from the compressor until the majority of the water is clear.  We usually run through each zone a second time to be sure all of the water has passed through.  Blowout of the outlying areas typically takes about one day.  This year we had a little extra time, so we blew out the entire driving range, and area that typically receives the least irrigation this time of the year.      

 

We irrigate the entrance to Legacy Ridge parkway at 104th and 112th including some medians in between.  When the course was built in 1993, there were no homes around the course but the entrance areas had to be landscaped to facilitate the development of the neighborhood.  The majority of landscaped areas along "the parkway" are maintained by HOA contractors and irrigated with direct connections to the reclaimed system.  For whatever reason, the entrance areas remain connected to our system.      

We typically wait until a little later in the year to blowout the on-course irrigation, depending on the weather.  It's a double edge sword, if we blowout too early the weather can dry out and the need to pressure back up arises.  It's also possible to wait too long to blowout, the sprinklers can freeze and crack and blowout will no longer effectively remove water from the lines. 

#6 Tee Addition

We are underway with one of many new tees we plan to build this winter, in this case on hole #6.  The tee is located between the white and red tee box.  Our plan is to use this new tee box as the "normal" white tee and move the blue and black tee forward or back as we deem necessary.  We are planning on a tee measuring about 1000 sq ft in size that matches the shape and height of the existing tee boxes.   

  

The stakes seen in the picture above represent the approximate size of the tee surface, as you can see there is a great deal of slope currently, so we will need about 76 cubic yards of fill material to bring the tee up to the proper grade.  We use the stakes to determine how big of an area we need to disturb to properly tie the tee in with the surrounding area.  

We sod cut a generous ring around the area we need to disturb, using as much of the sod as we currently can, and rototill the remaining turf.  At the moment we don't have a need for all of this sod anywhere on the course, but with multiple tees planned after the new year, we will reuse as much of that sod that we can.  

Once we have turned over all the existing turf, we haul in fill material to incorporate ino the base for our new tee complex.  As I mentioned before, we need about 76 yards of material, so for the next few days we will be hauling 4 yards at a time out to this location in our Adams trailer.  Repeat this about 18 more times and we are ready to start shaping our new tee. 

The new tee will play about 20 yards shorter than the current white yardage, requiring a 190-210 yd tee shot to hit the landing area.  #6 is one of our more difficult and also most interesting holes with a forced carry on the second shot over an irrigation canal to snug landing area.  For most players it is definitely a 3 shot par 5, and without a well placed tee shot, a difficult second shot can make or break the hole for most.   

First Snow

The course was in need of some natural precipitation, and last night we finally got it!  Rain began last night and turned to snow overnight.  We came in this morning to 3 or 4 inches of new snow on the ground with snow still falling.  The forecast is calling for around 8 inches total with this storm, so we the plows on and the shovels out for snow removal.  There is no better source of moisture than mother nature, as much as we strive for uniformity with our irrigation system, natural rainfall insures that every inch of the course receives ample moisture.  The downside to all of this wet snow is that most of our trees and shrubs haven't lost their leaves yet, so some fallen branches are pretty likely.  We will do our best to have the mess cleaned up by the time we reopen, assuming the weather cooperates. 

Compost is Complete

We finished topdressing compost on fairways approaches and tees!  It took a little while with our schedule split between our two courses, but we got it knocked out.  120 yds were spread over 26 acres for a rate of approximately 4.6 yards per acre.  This is a little lighter than our rates in the past, but we are confident that we will have good green up in the spring and that our nutrient levels will stay strong without a synthetic winter fertilizer application to these areas. 

We are toying with the notion of including rough in our future applications of compost and foregoing any synthetics if possible.  That isn't to say that we won't use any slow release sources, but to this point, we are very pleased with the results and hope to expand our program even further.  For more information about the benefits of compost check out the United States Composting Council website.  On a side note, Chris Johnson has been asked to give an hour long webinar for the GCSAA in January on our compost program here at Legacy Ridge.  We are all looking forward to viewing it and are proud of the notoriety Chris and Legacy Ridge are receiving in the matter.

Nursery Update

The 1/4" Nursery has grown in nicely and will likely be ready for sod when we complete some of our tee additions this winter.  It has been dropped in height down to 3/8" in the last week or two and is now part of the approach mowing order.  It was core aerated with approaches and tees this fall and has been topdressed regularly with sand and compost.  In a way it will be a shame to have to reseed and grow it back in when sod is cut from it, but such is the life of a nursery.  For our efforts we should have a good source of in house sod at a moments notice and at a fraction of the cost of purchasing 1/4" sod.  There is also piece of mind in knowing that it will thrive in our soil conditions and under our agronomic practices.

Greens Update

We are now a week removed from our fall aeration of greens tees and approaches.  We are happy with the progress made to this point.  Greens were verticut on Tuesday to move some sand around and despite a little mess left after the following morning mowing, it worked out great.  We are cutting a great deal of grass when we mow, so we will continue with daily mowing and rolling to get them back under control.  Green speeds are not what they typically are, but that is completely normal and expected.  Speed will come back with time as long as we can keep the roller going. 

Currently our bentgrass is growing at an accelerated rate because of ideal growing conditions and higher than normal fertility levels.  Prior to aeration we give a little extra shot of fertilizer to help our greens endure the stress aeration can cause.  They are certainly not as smooth as they were prior to aeration, but we are confident that within another week, it will be hard to tell that they were aerated at all.  Aeration is and should always be a compromise for golfers and turf staff alike.  We would love to be more aggressive with aeration, but we understand that the sooner we get these areas back into shape, the sooner we can offer the best possible experience to our guests.  At the same time, without aeration at all, the long term health and playability of our green, tees and approaches would be compromised.  Look for fairway aeration to start in the next week or so, and check back for more information to come.          

A group effort

About a month ago, we lost the majority of our seasonal staff to college, high school, and sleeping in.  Since their departure we have had a very hard time keeping up with our daily maintenance, not to a point of disrepair, but not to the standards that we have as an organization.  Going along with the mantra of "Power in Numbers" we will be doubling up at the Heritage next Monday morning to mow out the place and check off detail work more efficiently and timely.  With our staffs combined we can accomplish much more together than seperately at our respective courses.  At this point it is just a trial, but if it proves successful we will likely use it primarily in the shoulder season, when we are understaffed despite rapid turfgrass growth.

Aeration Update

The course reopened after only a day and a half closure yesterday at noon.  We were able to complete aeration of greens, tees and approaches less than a dozen people and in about half the time.  Ordinarily we close at 2pm the Sunday prior to aeration week and reopen the following Wednesday.  This year we were able to bust out aeration, cleanup, topdressing and dragging all in a day and a half.  We encoutered some challenges with our Soil Reliever (deep-tine machine) when we attempted to fit 16" tines for the first time.  After half a day of struggles we opted to go back to our 12" tines which as usual worked flawlessly.  Jim did a fantastic job keeping everyone moving and making adjustments and repairs very quickly.  To my knowledge there weren't any major equipment problems, a testament to Jims preventative maintenance.   

Getting greens back into shape will be our main focus in the coming week or so.  We will try for a mow on Sunday and will likely roll on days when we don't mow.  Tees and Approaches cleaned up very nicely and should get a trim over the weekend at some point.  All of these areas are extremely soft and will be for the near future, so be careful with clubs, carts and footsteps as they can be extra damaging under current condions.  We will continue dragging and rolling to move sand around and slowly firm up all playing surfaces.  The importance of aeration cannot be overstated, as much as it is a nuisance to our guests for a week, it is exponetionally important to providing excellent playing conditions the other 51 weeks of the year.  Bare with us and if the weather cooperates we should be back in shape in no time flat.  A big thanks to our staff and the Heritage staff that spent the last couple days helping us out with aeration.  We enjoy having them over and couldn't do all of this in such a short time without them.      

Tea Time

Amazingly we have blogged for almost a season now and we haven't yet discussed our compost tea efforts in the past couple years.  We have incorporated more and more organic fertilizer sources in the past 3 years and after a little bit of research and curiosity we decided to start brewing our own compost tea.  There are a many who say there are few if any benefits to using compost tea, however there is an equal number of people who wholeheartedly stand behind it as an invaluable tool in their agronomic programs.

At the risk of over generalizing, the primary motivation with compost tea is to increase microbial populations in the soil.  Some are attempting to increase fungal based microbes in to the soil to combat destructive turf diseases and lessen reliance on fungicides to fight them off.  Others are more geared towards a bacteria based microbe that can fix nutrients in the soil and lessen a dependence on synthetic fertilizer sources.  We would be in the latter group of tea brewers.

We just so happened to have an old RGF water recycling system that was installed (almost completely) when the course was built.  The intent was to recycle the water used to wash equipment off, however it was never installed correctly and parts quickly became extinct for this particular machine and it has sat inoperable for many years.  We took this as perfect opportunity to free up storage space and make use of something we already have! 

Anyways, we modified it, rebuilt an old aerator pump from one of our lakes and vuola, we have a 250 gallon compost tea brewer.  While it is a little different than most brewers you will find for sale, and louder than a 747 taking off, it certainly does the job.

For no more than $100 we modified our water tank trailer into a compost tea sprayer, which we still use in the winter for spot watering.  The next step, which we are still working on, was to work out our recipe.  Based on what we know and have read, this year we purchased 250 lbs of vermicompost from Full Circle Compost in Nevada.

They actually make a variety of different composts blended with a ton of different products and additives for the very purpose of brewing compost tea.  Our particular blend contains vermicompost, seaweed, hydrolyzed fish, humates, mycorrhizal fungi, and paramagnetic rock dust.  We are very pleased with our progress this year and hope to dial in our recipe further next year. 

We failed miserably at producing our own vermicompost this spring, utilizing food scraps from the Grill at Legacy Ridge (no meat or dairy!), but we will give it another try this winter and see what we can come up with.  If you have any questions about our tea program, please feel free to ask our staff members.

Compost is here

A sure sign that aeration is upon us, 120 yds of compost arrived today and will be a mainstay in our parking lot until aeration is completed.  In the past we have ordered 200yds, but with a tight budget for the remainder of the year, we cut our rate slightly to save a little money.  We have discussed before some of the benefits we hope to realize in amending our soil with compost, but there is no better time than after we pull aeration cores.  Just like we did in the spring after the cleanup of cores is completed we will topdress approaches and tees with a heavy dose of sand.  Depending on weather and timing, we will likely topdress tees and approaches in conjuction with fairways.

The compost serves two main purposes, though we are treating it in this case as a fertilizer source and secondarily as a soil amendment.  While the two go hand in hand, we don't use nearly the amount of compost that we do when topdressing sand to fill aeration holes.  Our concern with using compost alone as an ammendment in the case of approaches and tees is that it lacks porosity and in the profile could eventually lead to a less firm playing surface.  Obviously we have similar concerns about fairways, at the moment we feel the benefits outweigh our concerns in this case.

An ideal solution might be to blend a topdressing sand with the high quality compost we purchase, but to this point we are unable to buy the large quantity of sand neccesary and settle instead on compost alone.  We supplement with sand topdressing in isolated areas, primarily swales and drainage areas in certain fairways to aide in water percolation.

On a side note, the compost this fall is easily the product we have received to date.  A new screen had to be purchased by our supplier to reach our specs, but in our opinion it was well worth it.  It should drag in with little or no mess left behind, which is great for everyone.

Tee it Forward

The stakes you have likely been noticing out on the course this summer are marking the possible location of some new tee boxes.  As we mentioned a few months ago, we are in the planning stage of adding or enlarging 10 tee boxes around the course this fall.  Our hope is that more teeing options will give the less-experienced player a shorter scorecard to navigate at our facility.  This in turn should equate to a more enjoyable experience and a quicker pace of play for all golfers. 

As a daily-fee facility we have to accommodate golfers at both ends of the golf spectrum and for many novice players Legacy, like many modern courses, is too long and tight.  So adding forward tee boxes allows us to set the course up more difficult for tournaments as we always have, while setting the white and red tees up at much shorter yardage to accommodate players who don't hit tee shots 300 yards.  The majority of golfers play a tee box beyond their ability primarily because of ego.  This can easily lead to slow play, and often times a less than enjoyable round of golf.  We encourage players to use the guidelines displayed on the Tee it Forward website when selecting a tee box.  It is mainly based on Driver distance, but a golf handicap is another method commonly used.   

As an added bonus we have more tees boxes to give our regulars a new look on holes they have played many times, offering a completely unique series of shots.  We look forward to illustrating our process in building these tees, but for now here is another link if you would like more information about the "Play Golf America" movement. 

Fall Aeration

Yes, that's right, AERATION.  As August draws to a close, we begin to make preparations for our annual fall aeration of our low cut playing areas.  This year we will be deep-tining and core aerating our greens beginning Monday the 19th of September.  In addition we will do our best to complete core aeration of our tees and fairways by Wednesday the 21st. 

The course will be closed until noon on Wednesday and any remaining fairways and tees will be completed shortly thereafter.  This will likely leave approach aeration to be completed while the course is open.  Though this isn't optimal, it is nearly impossible for us to complete everything in such a short time span. 

The aeration process typically goes pretty quickly, as long as we avoid costly equipment problems.  It is normally the topdressing that follows aeration cleanup that takes the most time.  Transporting our topdresser to and from our shop proves to be very time consuming.  We always do our best to make aeration as painless as possible for our guests and members, but some disruption is likely.  Please remain patient and in a couple of weeks, aeration will be only a distant memory.  Thank you for your cooperation.

Where does the time go

In the last couple of weeks, our seasonal staff has dwindled down to only three, two of which are part time.  Unfortunately all of the maintenance tasks completed rather efficiently in the busy summer months are very difficult to complete with a fraction of the staff we enjoy in the peak months.  This means everyone is doing two or three or four things at once, specializing in everything all at once!  It is this time of year that we welcome some cooler weather and dream of frost to slow growth down to a crawl.  We will attend to all of the detail work, it just takes longer and there is an opportunity cost for everything we tackle.  Everyday we will continue to strive for the best playing conditions in the area.  Thank you for your continued patronage.
   

You have to be kidding me!

Early this morning we discovered that an unwanted visitor decided to leave their mark by spinning donuts right in the middle of the putting green. 

The resulting damage could have been a lot worse and luckily it wasn't a large truck or SUV.  Most of the tire tracks rolled out pretty well, but in isolated areas the tires left a 2" deep rut and peeled up some tufts of bentgrass.  Obviously we weren't very pleased with their decision, but we really didn't have time to be upset as our first tee time was in less than an hour (6am). 

We promptly rolled with the tire marks to help smooth some of the lumps created and topdressed/ broomed/ drug the areas by hand and rolled again to work some of the sand into the depressions.  Once we reached a satisfactory smoothness, we ran a mower over to pick up any excess sand left behind. 

The result is undoubtedly an eyesore that will hopefully heal soon with some more rolling and topdressing. 

If anyone witnesses this taking place at Legacy Ridge or any other course, please notify local PD immediately so they can handle the situation.  This type of activity shows a complete lack of respect for private property is no different than vandalising or robbing another place of business.  When you consider that the USGA estimates cost of a new green between $4 and $7 per square foot, if our putting green were damaged beyond repair we could be talking in excess of $50,000 to replace it.  It would require severe damage to necessitate that, but had this occurred immediately after the 4.5" of rain we had weeks ago, that could have been a reality.  Too scary to think about.  Please respect our golf course as we maintain it for you our guests and neighbors. 

High Qualtiy H2O, well sorta...

Picture at 5am didn't come out very good...

Over the last three years we have taken samples of water both before and after it has been applied to our greens.  We installed what we call our sampling pits on four greens #6, 8, 10 and 16.  These greens were selected primarily because they have one drainage outfall, or one pipe where all the water exits.  It is important to that other drain lines tie in below the point in which we sample, so the results aren't skewed by bunker drainage or trunk lines carrying runoff. 

We installed what is basically a 10" drain basin that extends 2-4' down to the trunk drain line carrying water away from the green.  There is enough room to reach down with a plastic bottle and draw out water running through the basin.  We drilled holes in the bottom of the basin and bedded it with gravel to prevent water from stagnating in the bottom between irrigation cycles.     

We have the ability to test for a variety of things, our primary focus to this point has been on monitoring sodium content of the water, and therefore the sodium content of our soil.  Soil salinity is measured as the salt concentration of the soil solution in terms of g/l or electric conductivity (EC) in dS/m.  Our reclaimed water was quite high in sodium when the system first began operating, but has since dropped down to more manageable levels.  The key in that sentence is manageable, it must be managed regularly with deep flushing, calcium and magnesium applications, and most of all aeration.  Extreme sodium buildup can lead to a variety of soil and turf problems, in short it prevents water and nutrients from "attaching" to soil colloids, thus creating less than optimal growing conditions.

We measure the EC of the water we irrigate with, we then soak greens with up to 2" of water, the next morning we measure the EC of the water exiting the green, which tells us how much sodium we flushed.  This helps in determining how heavy we need to water and when we need to apply gypsum to aide in the "flushing" mentioned above.  We typically water greens only as needed which normally equates to 6-10 days depending on weather.  Many courses employ a similar means of monitoring their sodium levels, so this isn't anything new, just another way to better manage our facility.       

Summer turf diseases

If you been out to Legacy Ridge or many of the other courses in the area the last few weeks, you have likely noticed some disturbing symptoms of the irradic weather we have experienced lately.  While I can't speak for other courses, what you are likely seeing are a variety of turf diseases due to our higher than normal humidity, torrential rain, and heat.  Though they don't affect the overall playability of the course currently, they are definitely a big eyesore and theses areas will have to be repaired when disease pressure decreases.

We have suffered from a laundry list of turf diseases generally uncommon in this climate, Pythium Blight, Fusarium, and Brown Patch.  We made a curative application of fungicide to the harder hit areas of the course this week and should see improvement in the coming days.  Throughout the midwest and even back east, theses diseases are a constant threat and many courses employ preventative fungicide applications to prevent or limit the damage incurred.  In their climates it really isn't a question of whether, but when they will have to deal with theses problems.  While I was perusing the couple of the blogs we follow, I came upon a post by Mike Edgerton at Meadowbrook CC in Northville, Michigan.  He covered some of the diseases we have been hit with and if you are interested in a little more explanation of them click here.