A little extra help today

As I stated yesterday in my post, we have a fair amount of sticks to pick up every spring.  Today we got an extra little boost, our great friends from Blanchard Valley Center came over to lend us a hand.

Molly and Nichole were the ones that didn't mind getting out in the cold and getting some fresh air.

Ron helped the ladies, giving them great tips on how to properly hold a shovel.  We appreciate their happy spirits and great attitude, they truly are hard workers.  We hope to see them again next week.

On another note, 50 tons of sand was delivered today in preparation for our upcoming greens aerification on March 30.  As I look at the forecast today my hope is to mow fairways next Monday / Tuesday, mow greens for the first time next Tuesday, aerify fairways next Wednesday before the rain hits, then aerify greens the following Monday.

Divot repair

A few weeks ago, I posted a link to a video on Handwatering, produced by the USGA.  They have many other helpful videos that explain the "why" and "how" of course maintenance.  One of the videos is on divot repair.  See the link below:

Divot Repair Video Link

There are two reasons why filling your divots are important: 1. It aids in the recovery of the fairway, and 2. It provides a reasonable surface for the golfer playing behind you.  If not filled properly, one or both of these will be impeded.

We have a great membership that is willing to care for the golf course.  We go through a lot of sand and many divots get filled, but sometimes just filling it isn't enough, it has to be done correctly.

When a divot is not repaired or filled, an uneven playing surface is created leaving the chance for a bad lie in the middle of the fairway.

 

But if the divot is not filled properly, the effect can almost be worse.

Not only are you creating a chance for a bad lie you are also creating mounds of sand that will most likely get leveled out by the next mowing.  When that sand goes through the reels of the mower, it acts as sand paper on the metal.  When cutting grass with scissors like precision, anything that is abrasive will produce undesired results and cause more time in the shop sharpening.

All of the divots pictured were ones that were on the course yesterday, I did not stage them (other than placing the ball next to it).  As you see, this one has twice as much sand as needed.

A properly filled divot is one that fills the void and then flattened to provide an even playing surface and one that will not cause harm to the equipment.  We appreciate all that the members do to help keep YOUR club in great shape.

Fairways on the mend

My last post described the process of verticutting fairways.  We finished all 18 fairways this week and the weather was perfect for this practice.  Verticutting that aggressively takes a toll on the turf and the cloudy, cool weather was a big reason why we verticut when we did.  If the temperatures were higher, we would have seen more stress.  You will notice some stress on the fairways where material was removed, they will be healed in by late next week.

As shown previously, a lot of material was pulled up.

A few strands of turf, such as the one seen here on 16, were as long as 6".  On a fairway cut under .5" you can envision the fairway as one giant combover.  These are the plants that we are trying to slice back to normal length, creating a better playing surface for the player.

Verticutting fairways

Today we started verticutting fairways.  Depending on weather, we will finish the process over the next two days.  Verticutting is the task of slicing the turf with the blades in a vertical position vs. the normal horizontal position when mowing.  This vertical mowing creates channels that cuts the longer blades of the grass that tend to lean over creating a tighter cut on the fairway.

 

The verticutting also pulls the turf up allow us to mow the longer strands off.

To end the process, the fairways are mowed two times in different directions.

 

Equipment

Here is another great article for your reading pleasure:

USGA Article

This weekend, while you are waiting for the frost delay to pass, spend some time thumbing through this overview on golf course maintenance equipment.  FCC has over $1,000,000 tied up in maintenance equipment, this article does a great job explaining why it is all needed. 

Last year the Board put together a plan to ensure funds are available on a yearly basis to replace worn equipment.  We also do everything we can in regards to preventive maintenance to increase the time frame between replacements and keep our equipment operating efficiently. 

At some point in the future, I would like to hold an open house allowing the membership to tour our facilities and get an overview of the equipment.  I think it would bring some knowledge to what goes on behind the scenes.

Committed employees

One of my employees on staff here is Wayne Bartchlett.  He has been working for the the Grounds department for over 40 years and still going strong.  He is always the first one here and will do whatever you ask of him.  He will typically mow greens on the weekends often starting at 5:00am while the others start at 6:00.

I caught a picture of him last week, he was mowing #13 green, the last green he had to mow - it was only 7:00 am.

Latest

I apologize for the lack of posts in the recent weeks, we have been quite busy around here.  Not with projects per-say but with day to day routine maintenance.  The reason we are so busy with this now is that half of our crew just went back to school.  Most of our seasonal help is now gone for the year, a few have come in to help for a few months, but for the most part - we are doing all our work with a crew of 8 vs. 17 during the summer.  The months of August and September are always hard for us because expectations are still high, course conditions must remain top notch, but our crew size has been cut in half.  

So what are we doing to get things done.  Well, we are not doing many "extras" or projects.  We have curtailed our work down to the "must be done" such as mowing and focusing on the details.  As we get further into fall, we will begin to curtail some of our regular maintenance and began to focus on a few projects.

We do have a busy fall planned with 3 decent projects on the books:
Mid September - all the cart paths around the clubhouse and the 1st area will be repaved
September/October - the 15th hole snack shack will get a face lift
September/October - 6 new gold tees will be built on holes 1, 4, 11, 15, 16 and 18

The rain keeps coming

Last night we took on another .7" at the golf course, giving us very saturated and wet conditions.  We've now had 4" of rain in the last 10 days.

We had to squeegee fairways and greens this morning.  The water on #8 fairway had to be pumped off. 

We spent 20 man hours cleaning up the debris from the fireworks.  All of the fallout landed on 8 and 9.  We had it back to normal before the first groups made it through.

 

Changes

This past week we implemented a few changes around FCC.

Toward the back end of the driving range we added 4 new flags.  From the front of the back range tee, these flags are at 40, 60, 80 and 100 yds.  This will give you chance to practice your short irons.

We tore out some landscaping near the Clubhouse and added new bushes.

The old bushes were dying and overgrown.

 

Last week we started mowing fairways only in the afternoons and evenings.  We have one individual that comes in at 12:00 and works until 8:00 pm. to mow fairways.  This allows us to mow them when they are dry, therefore getting a much better cut.  This also saves us time and gas by not having to send out blowers behind the mowers.

 

We mowed down 5 spots to test out a new "Gold" course.

 

Our current Gold course is only 80yds longer than the Red - essential we don't have a Gold course.  Chad and I have set up 5 new teeing areas for the Gold tees.  We mowed down temporary tees on 1,4,15,16 and 18.  The Gold course is now playing at 5,700yds.  If all goes well, we may build tees in the future, near these areas.  This will give us a Red course at 5,300yds, Gold at 5,700, White at 6,400 and Blue at 6,850.  We will then eliminate the White/Gold course.

Soil testing

Every year we have a soil consultant come out and take soil samples - we then test them for levels of nutrients that the turf needs.  We also test the tissue of the grass to determines what nutrients are in the plant, this gives me an idea of what the plant has and what is available to the plant.  Last week we took samples to get this testing done.  We also took samples of our water to determine salt levels and other contaminates. 

 

We found 4" roots on our poa greens, that is good for this time of year.

Every other year we will perform a physical analysis of the soil to determine how the greens drain and if the rootzone of the soil is adequate.  This will give us the information we base our aerifications on.

Today's activities

Besides the normal mowing, we worked on a few other things today:

There was a dead Ash tree next to #10 ladies tee that was removed this morning.

We trimmed the sprinkler heads on over half of the golf course.

We sprayed some of our Ash trees with an insecticide to prevent injury from the Emeral Ash Borer.

Flowers and red lines

Today we started planting our annual flowers for the year.  Annuals will die if hit with a frost, therefore we wait until the frost threat is over.  The rule of thumb (for this area) is the threat of frost is done after Mothers Day - this year we had frost the day after. 

This is one of our many pots.

 

This morning I went around to all our tees and painted lines where the tee box should be located.  Over time, through mowing, the tee boxes shrink or enlarge in certain areas.  About once a year the tee boxes need to be redefined.

Lots of mowing

You can probably guess what we have been doing lately - lots of mowing.  It's that time of year where we could mow the rough and fairways everyday if we had the manpower.  We are doing our best to keep up with the mowing, but you will find the rough is thick in certain areas.

This time of year we are also not fully staffed.  We use a lot of college and high school help that are not here yet.  So while we are able to get by on the mowing and a few small projects, it has been slow going the last few weeks to get anything other than mowing done.

Winter

Sorry for the delay in posting, you really have not been missing much.  Most of the Grounds crew used up their remaining vacation time (including me) and took off for the last week in December.  When I got back from vacation, I found my hard drive had crashed and I lost my computer.  I just recieved my new computer today.

Last week we spent our time inside because of the bitter cold.  We continued to work on equipment and we also insulated another room in our shop.  Today we were back outside taking down a few trees.

What's happening lately

This time of year is fairly straight forward for work being done on the golf course.  We always prepare the course in the morning and spend the afternoon hours watering and doing detail work (weedwhipping, sprinkler and yardage marker edging, pulling weeds etc.)  I keep a list of projects with me that I like to accomplish over the course of the year and we pick them off as time allows.  Lately we have been working on two projects:

Limbing up trees, we started on #8 and 9. 

We do this for a couple of reasons: 1. Allow the rough mower to get under the trees without cracking the limbs  2. Allow for better visibility of the course and the ability to find ones ball if it rolls under a tree  3. Allow for more sunlight to come through to promote healthy turf.

We have also been repairing our nursery area.  This is the area to the left of #8 fairway.  We grow rough, fairway and greens grass here.  In the event that something happens on the course and we need to repair it with sod, we can take it from this nursery and have the golf course back in acceptable playing condition sooner than if we had to grow the area in from seed.

This is a yearly process.  As we use it, we have to replant it so that we never run out.  This area will be reseed in late August and grown-in during the fall.

Green speeds

Over the course of the last few months, I have heard more than one comment and/or discussion about the inconsistency of green speeds in the past.  Please keep in mind that there are many things that come into play the affect green speeds.  Things like mowing height, rolling, soil moisture, humidity and grass growth during the day.  Some of these items a Superintendent can control, others we can't.  We try our best to be consistent, but on some days Mother Nature takes over.  I am mentioning this because I have measured green speed daily during the past two weeks and I am happy to note that during the last two weeks we have been very consistent in speed from day to day.  The deviation from my target speed has been minimal.  This is mainly attributed to the weather pattern, it hasn't changed much.  The moisture levels in the greens are very consistent from day to day and our maintenance of the greens is very routine.  My hope in the future is to not deviate from the speeds that you are currently experiencing unless Mother Nature thinks otherwise.

Flowers

The Grounds crew has been busy this week planing our annuals.  We purchase 200 flats of annuals every year which mainly get planted around the clubhouse.  This is a great indicator that summer is arriving.



Rough

We have lowered the height on our rough mowers this past week.  Typically during the spring we have to raise rough heights to manage the clippings from the fast growing rough.  As soon as the growth starts to slow down we are able to lower the heights.  We have lowered the height from 3" down to 2.5".  During this process you will see more clippings until we catch up.  We typically see a lot of clumped clippings in the mornings when there is dew on the ground, as needed we will come back to these areas in the afternoon and re-mow them to break up the grass clumps.



The height has been lowered, but more clipping will be present for a few weeks

Tissue testing

About once a month, I will take a sample of the grass clippings from the greens and send them to a laboratory to be tested.  What they are testing is the concentration of nutrients within the clippings, things like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium.  I do this for two reasons, 1 - to make sure the products that I am using are being taken up by the plant and the money that is spent on fertilizers is spent efficiently and 2 - I want to know if certain products should be added or removed from our application schedule.  I don't want to spend money on a product that is not needed, or more importantly, if the turf is deficient in a nutrient, I want to make sure we replenish its supply.

Bag of grass clippings from the greens mower.  This will be sent to a laboratory for testing.

Greens conditions

This past Monday, the Grounds staff verticut and topdressed the greens with sand.  This process really helped in smoothing out the greens.  The verticutting helped by taking out some of the poa annua seedheads that are prevalent this time of year and the sand helped by filling in the old aerification holes.  As we topdress more frequently and as the poa stops seeding, you should really see a turn around in the quality of the greens.