Thick Spring Rough

This time of year we typically hear comments about the rough being too difficult to play out of.  With rapid growth of cool season turf in the spring, and projects being worked on, it is very difficult to keep the rough at a height golfers like.  We mow the rough twice a week, and mow selected spots through the course three time per week.  Once soil temperatures rise and we have consistently warm temps, the rough will become more manageable.  There is a graph below showing the growth habits of cool season turf.  You can see in the graph how much more growth the turf has in the spring.  The link below is a good article from the USGA explaining this topic.

http://www.usga.org/course_care/regional_updates/regional_reports/midatlantic/Spring-Rough-Is-Rough!---June-2010/

Several Updates

The past month has really been busy for the grounds crew.  We filled our irrigation system last week, and had 6 sections of old pipe blow out.  There is this blue pipe we run across occasionally, and it was not happy coming up to pressure this year.  Three of the six breaks we encountered were this blue pipe.  We were able to get everything repaired, and the system seems to be holding pressure well.  The FCC's mandate of going from wide band to narrow band also went into effect beginning this year, so instead of going to a narrow band remote system we purchased 2 MI licenses from Rainbird.  These licences allow us to control our irrigation from our smart phones or Ipad, and saved us thousands of dollars.
The memorial bridge on 18 has also been completed, and looks really nice.  With the dryer weather we have been able to get weeds sprayed, and all the stump holes filled and seeded.  We have four new white tees planned, and hope to get these started soon.  As many of you have noticed, there are some odd looking circles on some of the greens.  This is called Waitea Patch.  It pops up every spring, and usually fades away on its own, but this year it dug its teeth in a little deeper.  It has heeled up on all the greens but 5.  It is no longer active, and we are seeing good recovery.  I think we may actually be out of the cold weather, finally!

Spring Aerification is Done!

We wrapped up our core pulling (aerification) yesterday.  We brought in a little extra help so we could complete the fairways over a two day period.  Other than a couple equipment breakdowns on the first day, everything went really smooth.  Its been 18 days since greens were done, and they are completely recovered.  We give the greens a week to recover and let the sand settle into the canopy of the plant before mowing, then we will mow with some older mowers for 7-10 days so we don't dull our good mowers too bad.  We just began getting into our mowing and rolling routine, so the greens should be getting back into their true form shortly.  Below are several videos of our fairway aerification process.