Weeks of Aug. 1st and Aug. 8th

 

First, let me apologize for not being able to publish the blog last week. The storms we received on Thursday, August 4th, overwhelmed the crew and recovering from that took priority.  I will recap last week in this week's blog post.

WOW, what a brutal stretch this has been.  Hot, humid, dry, and wet all together.  The last 2 weeks will be one the crew and I would like to forget as soon as possible.  The course held up well and, with the help from the members and staff,  we made it through this stretch with only some minor bumps and bruises.  

Let's start by recapping last week.  On Monday and Tuesday (August 2-3) we completed our summer aerification on greens.  The crew crushed it and we were able to reopen earlier than expected on Tuesday afternoon.  We like to punch greens the first week of August to help recover from July and in anticipation of typical August storms - like the ones we have had lately.  

After aerification the crew concentrated on mowing the course and catching up on details during the middle of the week.  

On Thursday night we got a crazy storm knocking out power to the club, trashing the course with debris and even catching trees on fire.  Two trees just left of #4 green had limbs fall on the power lines that started the fire.  It took BG&E a couple hours to get the power shut down so the fire department could extinguish the fire.  Power was restored around 6:30pm Friday just in time for another round of storms.  

I would like to say thank you to the membership for understanding and following the cart restrictions last weekend.  I heard from many Superintendents that last weekend was the start of major turf decline and carts were a major factor. I believe that the little turf damage we received last weekend is because we kept carts off the fairways.  The decision on cart restrictions are not made easily but are made for one reason and that is turf health.  

Also, last week we started spraying for our new native area establishment and finished spraying this week.  The areas will receive 2 more applications before seeding.  The target date for seeding is the week of September 5th. We will have to restrict play from these areas for 2 days after each application.  We will put signs up and the pro-shop staff we be communicating the restrictions after each application.  

This week the painting crew has started the final touches to the outdoor dinning areas and the pillars. 

This week we had an outbreak of "Fairy Ring" on the fairways.  Fairy Ring is a fungus that causes hydrophobic soils which leads to localized dry spot killing the turf.  We made an application to all the infected areas, had the crew hand water the chemical in and - with cooler temps in the forecast - we should see these areas start to recover.  

For the rest of this week we will be catching up on mowing and getting ready for what looks like a beautiful weekend for golf.  

Thanks for reading.