Rolling Road GC Golf Course Management

TOO HOT for this early in the season.  Last weekend and early in the week the weather was nice before turning HOT.  The second half we saw low 90's with very little humidity - combined with the lack of rain this week, the grass is starting to get a little crunchy.   It was great to see everyone last weekend for the Jimmy Angelo Memorial Tournament and the Father Child event on Sunday.    The 7-day forecast looks brutal.  The humidity will kick in by the weekend with real-feel temperatures above 105 degrees.  This is going to be a tough stretch.   The team was able to complete all weekly details at the beginning of the week before the heat started. Our two summer interns, Will and Morgan, worked on topdressing areas on some greens to help the grass fill in faster.  We have seen some great recovery from the herbicide kill but these upcoming temperatures are not going to help the recovery process. The story this week was hoses everywhere.  The team did their best every day trying to g

  It has been a tough past 10 days for the maintenance team.  Most of our blog is to highlight what has been going on during the past week, but in this week's blog I would like to highlight some issues we have been experiencing this spring out on the course. October 2024 will mark my 20th season as a Golf Course Superintendent. Just when you think you've seen it all, something surprises you - and this season has surprised me and the team every week with a new challenge.  Let's start with the fairways.  We have been experiencing some of the worst Localized Dry Spot (LDS) I have ever seen.  Small areas in all the fairways are not taking water - even though directly next to it has adequate moisture - making it tough to maintain consistent moisture in the fairways.  Even with our normal wetting agent applications, nothing is helping to get these areas wet.  The crew have been out hand watering these LDS areas every day for the past week or so even after we received 1.6" of

  First full week of June and Member Guest Week.  It was a very busy week for the crew getting ready for this year's 3-day Member Guest.  As always the weather was tricky this week but the team crushed it.   The 5 remaining fruit trees came in this week and the team wasted no time installing the trees at the Orchard.  These are the last 5 trees for this year's Orchard plantings. We are hoping to expand the Orchard in years to come.   The team started off the week with details as our focus.  They tightened up mowing lines, cleaned any weeds in the native areas and trimmed/cleaned all flower beds on top of normal weekly details.   The team was also focused on moisture management this week, checking all playing surfaces.   The crew also found time for a small irrigation expansion between the 15th tee box and the 18th green. The team was able to mow the entire course before the rain Wednesday night,  which dropped over 1.6" of rain and had 21 tornados reported.  We got lucky w