First Week of June

 It certainly was a busy week on the golf course.  Although Memorial Day offered the golf course maintenance staff an afternoon free of work, the lost time made the remainder of the week a little crazy.  Besides the normal weekly mowing and course upkeep, we were also able to get some special projects completed this week.  As many of you have noticed, all of the annual flowers were installed on Tuesday through Thursday.  As I had alluded to in the May Divot, the flower beds will most definitely have a different look this year, and we believe that the much more intricate designs will be well-received.

On Tuesday, five pallets of sod also arrived, and we used it to improve a number of areas on the course.  Most of the sod was laid where a large silver maple was removed on the left side of 10 green.  This tree, and the extensive amount of cart traffic that traveled on both of its sides, made it impossible to maintain a stand of turf that would allow for fair shots.  Last week, on the same day that the aforementioned silver maple was removed, a large poplar that was between 11 and 12 was also taken down.  The poplar had a very large crack that made the tree a tremendous safety concern.  Getting back to the sod, we also spruced up the cart path surrounds by 13 green, 17 tee, and 18 tee, and in my opinion, this work has made the paths look almost like new.

As part of our Audubon environmental initiative, we've also recently created a few no-mow areas on the course.  These areas are located to the right of 3 forward tee, on either side of the cart path by 9 green, and on the left side of 16.  These areas were sprayed with a herbicide to kill the unsightly weeds, and we expect them to evolved over time.  The area by 9 green will take a new look when we remove the invasive buckthorn, honeysuckle, and box elder plants that have taken over the wooded areas on both sides of the cart path.  We removed some of the invasives a few weeks ago, but a broken chipper prevented us from getting very far.  In time, it is our hope that this area will take on the look of an oak savanna.

Today, we replaced some of the damaged turf areas near the center of 7 green with plugs from the back right perimeter of the green.  Hopefully, these will be the last of the plugs.  Although they are unsightly and occasionally slightly bumpy, the plugs that we installed in 7, 8, and 14 green have greatly enhanced recovery during the chilly spring (more on that later).  Due to the number of plugs that we knew would have to be done, we took the majority of them from the chipping green.  Unfortunately, the many different colors and compositions of creeping bentgrass and Poa annua that populate our greens make these plugs stand out, but they will blend in over time.  If you look at the ugly plugs that line much of the chipping green, we hope that you'll agree that the mismatched plugs on 7, 8, and 14 look a whole lot better than the alternative.

Returning to talk of the frigid spring (ironically on a 90+ degree day), Chad and I received an email from Dr. Doug Soldat, who's a Soil Science professor at UW-Madison.  His email contained the graphs that I've copied below, and the data that was collected at the Arlington, WI agricultural research station really illustrates the the growing degree day lag that's been discussed in prior posts.  Of course, after today's heat, I'm just about ready for some cooler weather...

Please note that the graphs will only show up when using the Firefox browser, and they'll be a red "x" in Internet Explorer.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm not tech savvy enough to correct the problem.

Although they may be difficult to read, these graphs show the normal growing degree units (the solid blue line), along with years that have had significant deviations (both high and low) over the past 30 years.  2011 is represented by the black dashed line.

The Greens Blues

As has been the case for much of the spring, it was another chilly morning on the golf course.  Luckily, we didn’t get any frost, but several rooftops on my drive to work were frosty.  Thus far in May, the average nighttime temperature has been 44 degrees, and compared to last year, we are nearly two weeks behind in the growing degree days (GDDs) that I’d discussed in an earlier (May 4) post.  Clearly, it’s been a miserable spring to play golf and to recover from winter injury.  Considering the weather, we are satisfied with our recovery to this point, but we recognize that the greens still have a ways to go before they’re up to everyone’s standards.  It’s been a frustrating spring for all involved, and despite doing everything in our power to get them healed, we still don’t have any say in the most-determining factor: the weather.

Many of the previous posts have chronicled our efforts to promote germination and recovery, so I won’t go into too much detail about that.  However, to-date, we have applied 2.0 pounds of nitrogen per 1000 square feet, and as a reference, we applied 2.4 pounds over the course of the entire 2010 season.  So, the nutrients are available for whenever it is that the weather decides to warm up.  Also, we have yet to apply our growth regulator to the greens, and last year, we made this application on May 15.  We’ve also spent a significant amount of time replacing damaged turf on the affected greens with healthy plugs from the chipping green.  All told, 200 plugs have been patched in to 7, 8, and 14 green.  Essentially, we just need some warm temperatures.

The main reason why the greens haven’t yet fully recovered is because the Poa annua simply isn’t germinating.  Recently, the living Poa has begun to produce seeds, and the whitish seeds are very visible on the fairways and on some of the greens.  These seeds will lie dormant in the soil for years and will germinate when they are presented with the proper conditions.  And, because of the large amount of Poa that we have on our greens, there are a lot of seeds waiting for some warm temperatures.  A study by Dr. Calhoun at Michigan State University found that the ideal soil temperature range for Poa seed germination is 68-72 degrees and that germination drops significantly once the soil temperature drops below 58 degrees.  At 8:30 this morning, the soil temperature on 8 green was 46 degrees, and this is why the greens are recovering more slowly than anyone would prefer.

The recovery that we’ve seen thus far has been due to creeping bentgrass encroaching in the damaged areas, and the increased bentgrass population has been the one sliver of good news.  As opposed to Poa, existing bentgrass plants are able to spread laterally through above-ground runners called stolons, which is why it’s called creeping bentgrass.

We’re certainly optimistic that the 10-day forecast holds true and that Mother Nature  will provide us with a little bit of assistance.  We hope that you have a great Memorial Day weekend and that these warm temperatures will make this spring nothing but a bad, slow, and bumpy memory.

Green Speed and Range Tees

Yes, we’re aware that the greens have been less than fast so far this year, but we’ve had to keep the height up to allow for recovery.  And, although they aren’t 100% healed in, the progress that they’ve made to this point means that it’s time to get them rolling a little more quickly.

This week, we’ve already begun gradually lowering the height-of-cut (HOC), and we’ll continue to do so until we’re able to attain green speeds of 10’ with a combination of mowing and rolling.  As you can imagine, it’s not possible to simply lower the HOC to get this speed tomorrow; doing so would be quite the shock to the plants’ systems.  But, by dropping the HOC daily, we’ll be at the desired height shortly.

After a brief stretch of warm weather, the temperatures over the past few days have once again been below normal, and today’s frost was an unwelcome sight.  This has slowed recovery, but the damaged areas are slowly but surely filling in.  At this point, we’ve done everything that we can, and it’ll take some nice weather to get the plants growing and germinating.  Hopefully, they’ll be almost completely healed come Memorial Day.

Although 6 green hasn't completely recovered from the winter injury, it sure looks a whole lot better than it used to.

Speaking of Memorial Day and recovery, the grass range tees have been healing nicely, and we’re on track to have them open next week.  It’s always our goal to have them open by Memorial Day, as we’re aware that most don’t enjoy hitting off of the artificial mats for longer than that.  By keeping the grass tees closed in spring, we’re able to keep them in as good of shape as possible during the heart of the golf season.

Last week, the crabapples and redbuds finally began blossoming, and it's about time...



17 Green: Before & After

As promised in my last post, here are some pictures of 17 green...

The picture above was taken on April 8, and the image below is from May 5.  Despite the less-than-ideal weather, taking this green out of play for two weeks really helped it to recover.

Thank you for your patience while we had the green covered, and despite the inconvenience, we hope you'll agree that the short-term pain was worth the long-term gain.

Missing: Spring

My apologies if I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but has anyone seen Spring?  As I look out from the shop onto the golf course, it looks as if it's snowed, but thankfully, it's just a really hard frost.

Just how cold has it been?  Well, one of the measures that we use to keep tabs on plant growth is growing degree days (GDDs).  GDDs give a good estimation on things like when you should apply a crabgrass or broadleaf weed preemergent, and we also use them to time our plant growth regulator applications on the greens during the summer.  Recent research from UW-Madison showed that applying Primo (a common growth regulator that we use) every 200 GDDs would keep the greens the most evenly regulated.  This helps to reduce clippings and maintain green speeds, among other benefits.  Anyway, GDDs are calculated by either taking the mean daily temperature from a weather station or by using an average of the day's high and low and subtracting a base number (either 32 or 50) from it.  As an example, yesterday's high and low was 44 and 30.  These numbers average 37, and when 32 is subtracted from 37, we see that yesterday's weather provided 5 growing degree days.  The reason for the lengthy explanation is that as of today, we're at 527 cumulative GDDs for the season.  Last year, we reached this number on April 14.  In other words, compared to last year, the plants are three weeks behind schedule, and that's quite a difference.

We're crossing our fingers that the 10-day forecast holds true and that frosty mornings are things of the past.  Simply put, we need some warm weather to allow the greens to fully recover from aerification and from the winter damage.  Speaking of that, we'll be taking the cover off of 17 green today, and it'll be open for play.  It still isn't going to be perfect, but the cover really aided recovery.  I'll put up some before and after pictures once we get the cover off.

Yesterday, the majority of the crew spent a good deal of time working on the bunkers.  They were edged with a string trimmer (which is a practice that we do throughout the summer), stragglers were pulled by hand, sand depths were probed and marked, and sand was moved from areas where it was too deep to areas where it was too shallow.  Lastly, they were raked smooth.  (I wish that I'd taken pictures of this process, but carrying a camera is something that I'm very good at forgetting.)  Because of this, the bunkers may be a little softer than normal, but they'll firm up within a few days.

As I said, let's hope that the warm weather is here to stay so that you can get out and play (and so that the grass starts growing).