Blue Flags & Bird Houses....

I am sure that alot of our members have noticed the areas of the rough marked out with blue flags. These areas are going to become Native grassland areas of our golf course. There are 5 different areas marked around the course to be left unmowed. These areas are not going to be neglected, just not mowed. We are going to do some weed control until we can get a strong stand of native grasses to choke out the weeds. I think that once the grasses grow up, they will add some contrast to our property. For the most part they are out of play, but I am sure a few of us will find ourselves playing out of the long stuff. All that I ask is that our members avoid driving power carts into the areas. Foot traffic is fine, but cart traffic will matt down the grasses and prevent proper growth. You will also note that we have installed a number of bird boxes, we hope to attract some different species of birds to the property that may not have found a home here in the past. Once these areas have grown up to a noticeable height, we will remove the blue flags and enjoy our established Native areas.

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Spring Greens Aeration...a week later!

A week has passed since our annual spring greens aeration. We have had a mixed bag of weather, hot, dry, cold, wet and even frost! These conditions make it challenging to aid in healing, but with the more recent consistent warm temperatures we are seeing solid recovery. We were fortunate to have decent weather to complete the process on time, allowing us to fill all the holes created by the 1/2” hollow tines. As there are some minor depressions within some of the holes we will be beginning our bi-weekly topdressing program early next week. Our team is mowing and rolling our greens daily, while slowly lowering our height of cut to our summer norm. We all know that spring cultural practices are not popular among golfers, but these all important tasks are the building blocks for high performance greens conditions throughout the heart of the golf season. Check out this video produced by the USGA on Aerations effect on putting...

Greens Cultural Management Practices Schedule

The fall is a great time to perform a number of necessary cultural practices. Our goal is to amend the upper portion of the greens surface with enough sand to help insulate the crown through the winter as well as removing and diluting organic matter. Below you will find a schedule of cultural practices that we aim to complete before the covers go on and the snow flies!!! Wednesday, Sept. 30th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt Tuesday, Wednesday October 13/14-Course Closure full core aeration with heavy topdressing. October 19th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt October 26th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 2nd- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 9th- Deep Verticut, followed by a sufficient topdressing. November 16th- Post Course Closure, Heavy topdressing followed by Deep tine aeration. Of course this is all in hope that the weather cooperates...happy fall!

Renovation in progress....

This week we began the scheduled renovation of #12 Tee and #2 Tee. On #2 we are extending the Gold/Black Tee forward to accommodate more use and aid in divot recovery. On #12 we are raising and enlarging the Silver/Blue teeing area. The renovation on #12 co insides with the new cart path through the forest on the right hand side. Rough shaping will be completed on Monday (weather permitting). Following the shaping, a sand based growing medium will be added to the surface. Once the grade is set we will re-connect the irrigation in these areas and wait for the sod farms to open (early April). Once the tees are sodded, we will nurture them to encourage rooting and growth. With some good spring weather we should be back playing on those tees in a short time.

HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

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