Mother Nature: Good and Bad

It's been a very busy few weeks on the golf course, and this morning's rain is finally giving me a little bit of time to provide an update.  Over the past two weeks, the majority of our summer crew arrived, and it was just in the nick of time.  Thursday's windstorm created an absolute mess on the golf course, and all hands were needed to make the course playable again.  In the eight years that I've worked at Blackhawk, it was the messiest that I've ever seen the course.  Our crew did a tremendous job of getting everything back in shape for the Memorial Day weekend.  There may still be a few more leaflets and sticks lying around than normal, but the course's transformation from Friday morning to afternoon was remarkable.  Below are a few pictures that illustrate the mess that we had to deal with:

Two large maple limbs (above and below) broke off between holes 10 and 12.  Both of these trees were already slated for removal, and Mother Nature just gave us a head start on taking them down.

A large section of a crabapple on the range nearly hit our irrigation satellite.

This linden tree on the left side of 7 actually broke off below ground.  Thus, there's no stump to grind.



Two trees also snapped off by the lift that runs up the hill behind 9 green.  One was a box elder, and the other was a tree that had already died.  Luckily, no one was on the lift when either fell.

While the large limbs and downed trees did take a significant amount of time to deal with, the majority of our time was spent blowing smaller sticks and leaves off of the greens, tees, fairways, and green banks.

The picture above shows what the edges of most of the fairways looked like after they had been blown off.

But, on a positive note, we finally received some much-needed rain overnight and into this morning.  It had been 19 days since our last rainfall, and with warm air temperatures, low dew points, and windy days, our irrigation system was working overtime.  Although the course was playing very fast and firm, unirrigated rough areas were beginning to exhibit drought stress.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!  

Aerification Complete

Despite the semi-uncooperative weather from Sunday evening through Monday morning, the greens aerification has been completed, and all-in-all, it went very well. 

On Sunday afternoon, our fantastic group of overqualified part-time workers allowed us to aerify and clean nine greens.  Then, it rained 0.7" and was cool and drizzly on Monday.  Because of the muddy, slimy mess that additional aerification would have resulted in on Monday, our efforts were instead focused on backfilling the holes on the front nine.  Tuesday brought ideal aerification weather, and we were able to aerify, clean, and backfill the back 9.  Between classes, six UW-Madison turf students lent a hand on Tuesday and did a great job as usual.

Below is a photo journal of the process that we use to aerify your greens at Blackhawk:

First, select greens are deep drilled.  This machine has 5/8" diameter by 10" long drill bits that are spaced 5" apart.  The holes that are created by this machine really help the greens drain well and break the layer between the native soil that the greens were originally built with and the layer of sand topdressing that has been built up over the years.

The deep drill doesn't bring up a lot of soil, but the deep holes stay open for a long time.  Because deep drilling is a slow process and because we only own one machine, we're not able to use this method on all of the greens each year.  This year, eight greens were deep drilled.

Core aerifying was completed on all of the greens, and if the green was scheduled to be deep drilled, the drilling was done prior to the coring.  These machines bring up a 1/2" diameter by 3-4" long core on 2" spacing.

The significant mess is then shoveled to the collars for collection.  This is the most back-breaking portion of aerifying, but with enough workers, it's not too bad.

A heavy layer of sand topdressing is then applied to the greens.  Given the variable moisture of our sand, it's always tricky to put down the correct amount of sand, but Chad got as close as is possible.  This year, approximately 22 tons of sand were used.

Once the sand is good and dry, the greens are drug four times to get the majority of the sand into the holes.

Since the machine drag isn't able to get all of sand into the holes, a large crew that's armed with backpack blowers, shovels, and brooms follows behind and systematically works the sand across the green until the holes are filled and a minimal amount of sand is on the turf canopy.  Although time consuming, this allows for the best, smoothest finished product that we can provide.

Lastly, the green is rolled to smooth out any ridges that the aerifiers may have made, the hole is cut, and it's ready to go.

Although it's going to undoubtedly create a wet golf course, the 0.3" of rain that we received this morning helped to further clean the greens by pounding the sand into the turf canopy.  With the temperatures that are forecasted for the next few days, we are optimistic for a speedy recovery and for hole-free greens in the near future.

Speaking of weather, Mr. Rath emailed Chad and me the following, "The average temperature for March 2012 was 50.1 °F which was 16.1 degrees above normal. The average in April was 47.9 °F,  2.2 degrees cooler than March! April was also near normal for Madison, finishing 1.3 °F above the average temperature of 46.6 °F."  This was the first time in Madison's weather history that March was warmer than April.  

Greens Aerification

It's just about that time of the year again...  If you've noticed, the tee sheet on Sunday, April 29 closes at 2 pm for that twelve-letter curse word: aerification.  Right now, the weather looks cooperative for Sunday and Monday, and the course will be closed as scheduled to allow for greens aerification.

Last week, we applied fertilizer to the greens to provide them with ample nutrition to cover the many millions of sand-filled holes that we are going to be creating.  Now, we just need Mother Nature to warm things up to get the grass growing.  Hopefully, she will cooperate and everything will heal quickly.

Yesterday, we tested out the two core aerifiers and deep driller on the chipping green, and all of the equipment worked like a charm.  Thus, the greens are now 1/20 of the way done.

As we've done for a long time, we're having the UW-Madison Turf Club help us clean the greens and fill the holes on Monday.  These guys provide labor that is otherwise unavailable at this time of the year, and they really do a great job.  This project is also the major fundraiser for the Turf Club, so it's most definitely mutually-beneficial.

With the great condition that the greens are in, you might be wondering why we find the need to make them sandy and bumpy.  However, the benefits are many (thatch removal, increased oxygen in the root zone, deeper roots, better water infiltration and percolation), and a little bit of inconvenience now is worth it in the long run.  Blackhawk's old, Poa annua greens have been mostly unscathed over the past two extreme summers, and diligent core aerification is no small factor in our ability to keep them healthy.  As I've said before, it's a necessary evil.

I'm going to attempt to take pictures to document the entire process and will post the results next week.   

Welcome Rain, Unwelcome Wind

With the good this weekend came the not so good.  After going a full two weeks without measurable precipitation, the 0.9" of rain that we received from Saturday through Sunday was much needed.  I was already seeing cracks opening up in many rough areas from the lack of moisture, and the rain that we received should really help along the seedlings that germinated from this spring's interseeding.  Although we thankfully avoided the severe storms that caused so much damage in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa, the strong winds that accompanied the storm system did create quite the mess on the course.  Most of the branches are on the small side, but there were a few big branches that took falls.

On the slope that runs from the clubhouse parking lot towards eight tee, one half of a large oak split and fell onto the parking lot.  With it went the cable that provides internet to the clubhouse, but that's much better than hitting a parked car.  This morning, Wolfe Tree Services will be coming to cut down the other half of the tree, as it's aimed directly at the golf cart storage building.  Otherwise, one of the towering white pines near the fairway bunkers on the sixth hole had a large branch snap off yesterday, and this branch created a domino effect below it.  We will be cleaning that up today after the guys from Wolfe cut down the hanging branches.

Besides routine mowing and maintenance, much of our time last week was spent picking up ground stumps and filling in and seeding the remaining holes.  All that remains for stumps is a half-ground enormous silver maple between holes one and nine; this stump was worked on for at least four hours and still isn't done. 

The other special project that we had time to start last week was bunker edging.  Over the years, grass has encroached into many of the bunkers.  While you, the golfer, probably don't think that smaller bunkers are a bad thing, the edges become ragged, unsightly, and difficult to maintain due to growing grass in pure sand.  In most cases, we can see exactly where the bunkers are supposed to be, but we also use a soil probe to determine their boundaries.  Last week, we completed the greenside bunkers on holes one, two and five, the fairway bunkers on hole eleven, and the small top left greenside bunker on nine, and the finished products look really, really nice.  We will be doing more of this as time allows.      

Back to Normal

After the unusual weather of March, it seems odd to have frost both this morning and in the extended forecast, but the average low temperature for this time of year is 32 degrees.  Thus, it appears as if we're back to normal.  Some may wonder how this will affect the turf, and aside from slowing top growth, we don't expect to see any detrimental effects from the cooling trend.  In past years, courses have seen some damage and discoloration on their greens when frosty nights have followed an application of plant growth regulators (namely to control Poa annua seedheads), but we have no such worries.

It seemed as if we were finally able to catch up on the grass this week and that meant that we were able to do a little bit of project work.  Without a doubt, the most challenging area to maintain turf on the property is between the 11th green and the 12th tee.  When you combine concentrated cart traffic, a tremendous amount of shade from decades-old oak trees, two hot, stressful summers in a row, and no cart path, what results is one trampled-down area.  As was mentioned in earlier blog posts, we did a lot of overseeding this spring, and although it has been very successful in some areas, this was not one of them.  Thus, the decision was made to strip and resod the 2500 square foot area.  We selected a shade- and drought-tolerant variety of tall fescue-based sod for this area, and this sod will give us the best shot at long-term success in this pesky location.

Feathers have been returned to this wing of "The Goose" effigy mound that stretches between the 12th tee and 11th approach.

We also did some sod work on the clubhouse lawn, in front of 14 greenside bunker, and in back of 6 green.  If you haven't noticed, the sixth green complex looks slightly different this year due to the removal of two white pine trees that contributed a significant amount of winter shade to the green.  The pine straw that remained has been removed, and we will finish sodding this area today.  We believe that this area will not only look better, but given its close proximity to the green, you'll have a much fairer opportunity to recover from slightly mishit shots.  Plus, it will reduce the potential for ice accumulation and winter damage.  The picture below was taken prior to the removal of the two pines (the larger trees in the upper left) on the south side of the green.  We don't like it when the putting greens look like ice skating rinks.

As a reminder, this is the last weekend of the PAR 4 Research auction (www.par4research.com) to benefit turfgrass and environmental research at UW-Madison.  There are a lot of great golf opportunities available to the highest bidder.

Have a great Easter (and Masters) weekend.