HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

Update....

2011-12-19T09:53:00.003-05:00

The wet weather has hindered most of our late fall tree work plans, but we hope to get out on the course (on some frozen ground) in the new year. Currently we are renovating our parts room in our equipment manager's shop area. As our maintenance facility ages, the need for updating is increasing. We will be repairing and painting the walls, painting the floor and installing all new shelving to provide a safe and efficient parts storage room. Once completed, we will commence the painting portion of our winter. All of the course accesories and furniture will be sanded and stained or painted to give it a fresh look for the 2012 season. We will also be building new divot boxes for the par 3 tees.
We have also been compiling all of our required material for our annual desk review through the IPM council of Ontario. This is a legal requirement for us in the golf sector that allows us to continue using plant protectants on the golf course.
Happy holidays!!!

Golf Course Update

2011-11-17T06:30:00.004-05:00

The end of the 2011 golf season has come...our staff has been working away at preparing the golf course for the long winter months. We are currently deep slicing the fairways and will then move into the rough. The weather has cooperated nicely for our winter protection/snow mould preventative fungicide application. Greens, Tees and Fairways were all sprayed this week. It is important for us to complete this in perfect conditions, as we require the product to dry completely into the plant for long term efficacy. We also have begun our dormant/late fall fertilizer applications to Greens, Tees and Rough. This application will aid in carbohydrate storage for winter, also helping with spring green up. We have one more Vertidrain aeration to perform on our Greens next week. More holes = More drainage.
The crew has been continuing to work away at bunker edging. Using a pitchfork, we have been ripping back the overgrown, sandy edges (mostly on the backs).The edges are then tamped down by hand to roll the edge to the sand. This practice returns the bunkers to the original size and shape. As mentioned before, the look of our bunkers is more natural with this technique. No longer do we have a sharp, defined soil lip at the edge. This task will be completed by the week's end. As the temperatures slowly drop we will schedule the permeable cover installation on our Greens. Historically we have the covers down by American thanksgiving...it is a benchmark for us, although it is all weather dependent.

Golf Course Update....

2011-11-04T07:19:00.007-04:00

We the recent weather trend (almost 2 weeks without rain!) our department has been very busy and productive. We were able to complete our Vertidrain/Deeptine aeration and topdressing on Greens, Tees and Approaches. Again, this process creates deep channels for air, water and sand to reach into the rootzone. We will be Vertidraining the Greens again prior to closing in attempt to create more drainage channels for water build up throughout the winter. We will not be topdressing this time, as the covers will be installed in the coming weeks.

The drier weather has allowed us to complete a final mowing in the rough as it has been a couple of weeks since we were last able to get the mowers out. Leaf blowing and mulching has been running at full tilt and the golf course is looking cleaner every day. With all of the rain soaked weather that we have experienced, we have noticed a few drainage issues. Clogged tiles have been found in a few instances. This is common in a year like this one with a high volume of water running through these systems. We have been working away at cleaning out and repairing some of these areas.

Our Green surrounds at HCC have been plagued with some washboarding resulting from some sod work done during the bunker project in 2003/04. In certain areas that were cut for bunker mounds, less than ideal amounts of topsoil were left for the sod to grow in. We are experimenting with some different techniques in repairing a couple of these areas. On #4 we have stripped the area left of the green and amended the area with old bunker sand and topsoil. The theory is that the sand will provide a better growing medium and the sod will experience reduced compaction. In the surrounds at #18 Green the topsoil was of higher quality than that on #4 so we amended it with straight topsoil. These areas will be sodded and rolled today.

As for our plans for the next week, we will be winterizing the irrigation system, pump house and course washrooms on Monday/Tuesday. We will also be deep slicing the fairways and rough with our Superject aerifier. If the weather holds, we will complete this prior to our winter/snow mould fungicide application. Course closing is set for November 13th as the last day of play...we hope to see our members out enjoying the golf course over the next week or so.

Golf Course Update...

2011-10-18T11:40:00.003-04:00

It seems that weather has been the topic of choice throughout the 2011 golf season. It certainly has been a season of extremes. Currently we are preparing for yet another onslaught of rain. Even a brief shower brings water to the surface, puddling on fairways, tees and some greens is evidence of the saturation point. Environment Canada is forecasting up to 50mm of rain between Tuesday night and Thursday afternoon. What does this mean to the golf course? What this means is that we will be under water! Current conditions are making it difficult for even daily maintenance to be completed. Today we are mowing everything that we possibly can. Growth has yet to slow down as we have not had cold temperatures or even a frost yet. Cart traffic has been severely limited in the past few weeks due to the saturation of the soil. We understand that this causes issues for players requiring carts, but the golf course simply cannot handle the cart traffic in these conditions. The wet conditions are a result of consistent, unrelenting rains coupled with the clay soil that HCC is built on (very heavy clay).

As mentioned earlier, it has been difficult for our staff to perform normal day to day fall maintenance on the golf course. Leaf blowing with carts and tractors has been minimal. We have utilized back pack blowers to the best of our ability (as tedious and labour consuming as it is!). Leaf mulching is normally a daily task, but has also been hindered by the elements. We have however been able to complete some of our cultural practices (topdressing has continued). In conditions like these it is even more prudent that we complete practices like deep tine aeration and fairway solid tine aeration. These practices help provide channels for water and air to travel down to and through the root systems. During saturated soil conditions pore space is severely restricted. We need to open up these soils and provide free draining air/water space.

We are all hoping for better weather ahead. Let's try to have a good last 4 weeks of the golf season!

*Just as a reminder we will be performing our Deeptine aeration of our greens on Monday, October 24th.

October dates to note....

2011-10-03T13:19:00.003-04:00

I just wanted to make note of a couple of dates this month that we will doing some cultural practices on our greens...
Tuesday, October 11th- Topdressing
Monday, October 24th- Heavy topdressing and Deeptine aeration
*During the Deeptine operation the greens will be closed and the pins will be put into the approaches, once the green is finished, it will be reopened.

*As the weather allows us, we will doing some cultural practices(topdressing,verticutting, etc) to our tees and approaches and fairways.

Verticutting on Tees....

2011-09-29T11:03:00.004-04:00

In between the rain events this month we have been plugging away at our long list of cultural practices. In mid-September we took advantage of a nice sunny day and ran our Sisis Verticutting unit on our tees. Verticutting is also known as dethatching. For compaction relief and thatch reduction, we have gone to solid tining tees in conjunction with deep verticutting on tees as opposed to the traditional hollow tine aeration. in the first picture you can see the amount of material that the Sisis brings up. We follow up with a blowing and finally a healthy topdressing of straight sand to fill the lines. In the third picture you can see the finished product. This process not only reduces thatch, but also provides a firmer and more level teeing surface.

Bunker Edging...

2011-09-29T10:19:00.004-04:00

Since labour day the weather has been a virtual roller coaster, we have had lots of rain, some sunshine, warm temperatures and a variety of all three in one day. Throughout this weather our staff has been hard at work trying to restore our bunkers to the original shape and size. Over the years turfgrass begins to encroach into the bunkers, especially on the back or low sides. We have been using the pitchfork method to work our way back from the inside edge. The pitchfork is inserted repeatedly moving back from the edge until the original soil edge is found. The edge is then torn back to this soil/sand interface. Then the existing edge is tamped down to force the grass edge down to the sand, therefore reducing the soil lip on the back sides of the bunkers. This creates a more traditional, Stanley Thompson look to the bunker surrounds. As you will notice from the first picture, the red stakes are in place prior to the edging. In the second picture you can see the amount of over growth and shrinking that the bunker has experienced.

Coming events...

2011-09-02T05:25:00.003-04:00

Labour Day marks a few things for us at the Grounds Dept. First and foremost it is our Club Championship weekend. A lot of work goes on throughout the club to ensure a great weekend is had by all. Secondly, we begin to lose a few of our summer staff members, our students are a valuable portion of our staff and we will miss them. Third, the end of summer is upon us, this summer has been very stressful for both turf grass and staff...the heat and humidity has taken it's toll on both. September is a welcomed month with the shorter days and the cooler temperatures. Last but not least, now that we are on our way out of the most stressful time for turf grass, we will be ramping up our cultural practices again. Next week we will be lightly topdressing greens, we will then be venting all of our greens as well. This is a very non disruptive process as the holes that we punch are very, very small. There is no recovery time with this process, the greens will be back to normal (actually better) once the process is complete. This practice is vital to the health of our greens, the heavy rains are clogging our root zone and the high temperatures are restricting root growth. September is a perfect time to encourage root growth to sustain a healthy plant going forward into the fall and winter.

Aerification Recovery

2011-08-11T07:52:00.004-04:00

As many members have noticed, the recovery from our August 2nd greens aerification is coming along nicely. The greens have recovered completely. We are now back on our growth regulation program and you will notice the greens begin to play as they were prior to the completion of the cultural practices. The weather has been just about perfect.....good for golf and great for growing grass. As you will see in the first picture aeration holes are no longer noticeable. In the second picture, you can faintly see the overseeded bentgrass growing in the holes.

A busy couple of days....

2011-08-04T07:04:00.006-04:00

During our annual course closure we strive to complete as much as possible...through extensive planning and organization this was evident this year. With the golf course closed we are permitted to perform our procedures in an efficient and very effective manner. As you will see in the list of completed activities, our Grounds Dept. worked tirelessly to complete about 5 days of work in 2 long days.

Tasks completed on August 2nd/3rd:

All greens aerified with hollow tines (cored)

Cores shovelled off by hand

Greens top dressed

Greens over seeded with T1 bentgrass

Greens brushed

Greens fertilized with Potash fertilizer

Greens fertilized w/Soluble Ammonium Sulphate 12-0-12

Greens rolled

All Fairways and Approaches were Verticut using our Sissis Veemo Vertical Mower

Fairways and Approaches were blown clean

Fairways and Approaches mowed

Tees solid tined using 5/8 tines

Tees top dressed

Tees dragged using a steel matt

Practice tee top dressed and matted

All of the rough was mowed (completely)

All bunker banks were fly mowed

All mowing around the landscaped areas completed

The Elm Tree on #5 we removed, along with stump grinding and clean up (5 total)

Our Grounds Department greatly appreciates the time allowed to complete these very crucial cultural practices. If it were not for our dedicated and talented staff, this process would not have been so successful. I truly appreciate all of the hard work and commitment from our entire team...HCC Grounds.

Reminder: Golf Course and Practice areas Closed Next Week

2011-07-29T09:59:00.003-04:00

Reminder: The golf course and practice areas will be closed on Tuesday, August 2nd and Wednesday, August 3rd for Maintenance.
The golf course and grounds department will be working at greens and tee aeration, along with fairway verticutting. Topdressing, overseeding, fertilizing and mowing will follow all of our clean up efforts.
*As with all of our cultural practices, completion is weather permitting, of course...
Check in with the twitter page/blog to follow our progress....

Green Speed @ HCC

2011-07-06T12:57:00.003-04:00

Green speed is a hot topic at any golf club. At HCC we strive to maintain our greens at a minimum of 10' on the Stimpmeter. This is a speed that allows us to utilize a number of pin positions on our already smallish greens. Attaining speeds higher than 10' on a daily basis would not only limit usable pin positions, but also limit the amount of enjoyment some of our members would take away from a game of golf. Consistency and trueness of roll has proved to be more important than speed.
During periods of hot and dry weather and in preparation for competitive events you will see the green speed increase. This is also true for roll in the fairways and approaches. It is the nature of our soils...fast and firm.
Green speeds are like anything else when dealing with mother nature...there are so many variables that things can change within the course of a day. This is in part why we do not post stimpmeter readings...stimpmeter readings are just a number. Our putting greens are treated the exact same as any other greens on the golf course. In my opinion, that is where we should be testing greens speeds before a round.

Please read this article from the USGA regarding posting of green speeds...
http://turf.lib.msu.edu/1990s/1990/901117.pdf

Cultural Activities...

2011-06-19T06:42:00.002-04:00

We finally seem to be getting back on track with the condition of the golf course. We have been able to consistently mow all areas for a couple of weeks now. Summer condition and consistency is more apparent every day.
Now that we are caught up with mowing, we will begin some cultural practices that have been previously postponed due to wet weather. Tonight (Sunday@ 5pm) we will be lightly topdressing our greens. They will then be brushed and irrigated to work the sand into the canopy. This will help to keep the greens smooth and firm.
On Monday we will be deep verticutting our tees. This process looks rather messy but cleans up very quickly with some of blowing.
On Tuesday we will be topdressing and sold tining the tees. Again, this is not very disruptive to play.
As always, our staff works diligently to complete these tasks efficiently and effectively while keeping the disruption to a minimum.

Amending wet spots....

2011-05-30T15:00:00.004-04:00

We are always up for different ideas and methods of improving conditions at HCC. Today we tested a method of amending the root zone of certain areas on greens. There is a process known as the Drill and Fill. This is a machine that through one step process drills deep holes, usually 3/4" thick and immediately fills the deep channel with sand. This is a very aggressive process to root zone amendment, however necessary in some greens. Today we tried a simpled down version of this process on our upper putting green. There is a perpetual wet spot on the south side of the green that was on our hit list. We first laid down a sheet of plywood with 3/4" holes drilled out ever 4" square. Then with an 18" long auger drill bit we drilled out the root zone material. Once that was cleaned up, we filled all of the holes with topdressing sand. Now, time will tell if the area firms and dries up. If so, we can then continue the process on the few remaining perpetually wet spots on greens (#2, #18, PG). Above is a picture of the finished product.

Greens Venting..

2011-05-30T04:56:00.004-04:00

Today (Monday) we will be venting our greens. This process involves using our greens aerifiers to punch very small holes with solid tines. This process does not affect play or the roll of the golf ball. However, it does greatly affect the amount of beneficial air that we can get into the root zone of our greens.

This season we are using a very precise moisture meter to measure moisture in our greens. The maximum % that our greens should ever read is approximately 35% (at field capacity). Currently we are getting readings of anywhere from 40-59%. This tells us that the soil has reached complete saturation and cannot take on any more water. Our greens are drained, but the amount of precipitation that we have received is overwhelming to the soils and drainage system. With this much water holding in our greens profile, there is little room for vital root growth. The heat and humidity that is upon us now coupled with these high moisture levels can be very detrimental to the health of our greens. This is a preventative measure that can reap huge returns down the road this summer.

As you can see from the picture, the venting tine is dwarfed by a pen. Once rolled, the holes are virtually undetectable.

Here is a link to a video of this process at Oakmont CC....6 days before the Women's U.S. Open

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbKlvUzFkqw&feature=player_embedded

April & May Showers????

2011-05-29T07:10:00.004-04:00

Needless to say the rain events of the past 2 months have been troublesome for the management of the golf course and grounds. As mentioned in a previous post, we are very behind on our spring tasks and jobs. To date we have yet to touch up our bunkers with new sand. Shifting and adding new sand with the consistent rains to date makes little sense. With the forecast looking better, we will be looking at some bunker work in the next week or so. Mowing has been sporadic. The rough is very thick and lush, our mowing has been haltered by saturated soils. We have yet to have a solid week of our regular mowing routine in all playable areas. Let's hope for a great June!!

Golf Course Update...

2011-05-15T08:43:00.002-04:00

Since my last post the golf course and grounds dept. has been very busy. Last Sunday/Monday we were able to complete our spring aeration on greens. With the saturated soils that we have been dealing with this spring, we decided to use our newly acquired Verti-Drain deep tine aerifier in place of our standard greens aerifiers. This machine allows us to create deep channels in our putting surfaces. These channels not only allow water to drain freely to the bottom of the root zone, they create a perfect opportunity for air, sand and nutrients to reach deep into the root zone. During this practice we were able to top dress with a large quantity of sand (actually 45 tons for 3 acres of greens surface). Sand topdressing not only dilutes organic matter levels, but it also helps to speed up recovery and provides a firm and smooth putting surface. Our membership's patience is greatly appreciated during these processes as well as during the recovery time. In this instance, recovery time was minimal. With the rain that we have been receiving in the past 24 hours, I would expect to get back to a regular greens mowing schedule on Monday.
Another accomplishment this week was actually getting the golf course mowed. This proved to be a challenging task this season. We are now back on track with our mowing schedules. Our rough is very lush and thick right now. The spring weather that we have experienced this season has created a monster! We have began to mow our rough at our regular summer height, it just seems a bit extreme right now. As we begin to dry out, the rough will be back to it's regular playability.
We were also able to put down a few skids of sod this past week. All stump holes and some cart path edges/endings have been tied in. Our plans for this coming week are to continue mowing, perform some fertilization and work away at solid tine aeration and topdressing of approaches and tees (weather permitting). Although, with a quick check of the forecast, mother nature may have different plans for us....

Deep Tine of our Greens...

2011-04-30T10:25:00.003-04:00

We will be using our Deep Tine aerifier on our greens this spring. This process is even more prudent in a year like this one. The weather that we have experienced this season (record breaking saturation) requires us to do more than our normal spring solid tine aeration. The pore space in our greens profile are clogged with water. We need to create deep channels (6-8" deep) for air and sand to get into. This will allow our greens to maintain the health and consistency that we aim for throughout the season.

The process will be the same as years previous. First we will heavily topdress the green, then run the Deep Tine aerifier over the green, followed up by a brushing in of the sand. The final step is a rolling with our greens roller to smooth out the surface.

We will be starting this process on Sunday May 8th at 4pm. At this point the greens that we are working on will be closed and the pins will be located in the approach. This will be continued on Monday May 9th, to be completed by the end of the day (our goal is to get all greens back in play be Monday evening).

Weather...

2011-04-28T07:19:00.006-04:00

I don't need to mention that the weather has been challenging (to say the least). This "season" has been marred with terrible weather for both golf and golf course maintenance. Currently we are in our second week of opening and we have only been able to allow carts out for one morning (they were pulled by noon...because of more rain). The wrath of this weather has been felt across the province and we are definitely not alone. Numerous golf courses in our area have been closed because of flooding, etc.

When it comes to golf course maintenance this weather is tough as well. Our program for spring maintenance is at least 2 weeks behind where we would like to and should be. Simply because of the saturated soil conditions we have not been able to negotiate around the golf course with equipment, barely even carts or utility vehicles.

Some of the tasks and jobs that we are behind on are:

- Bunker work (shifting sand, edging, general maintenance)

- Mowing and rolling (limited on greens, tees, approaches, fairways, no rough mowed yet)

- Topdressing (greens, tees, approaches)

- Sod work (stump holes, cart path edges, bunker surrounds)

- Cart path work (general spring repair)

I could probably continue this list for quite some time...but I need to go out on the course (for a walk) to assess the wind damage from these 50plus km winds for the last 24 hours....

Spring Preparations...

2011-04-17T09:16:00.006-04:00

It has now been two weeks since we removed the covers off of our greens. As mentioned before the greens wintered very well. We have since had both good and bad weather (typical) to continue spring preparations for opening on Monday (the 18th).

Greens have been rolled, mowed and verti-cut numerous times. Last week we took advantage of the good weather and put out a good topdressing of sand on greens. Timing was good with the rain on Saturday to work the sand into the canopy. Tees, collars, approaches and fairways have been mowed a couple of times (removes the brown tips that dormancy creates). We have been rather fortunate that all of the playable areas are in good shape, especially considering the very long and harsh winter that we experienced here in London. Last week we were able to get out on the fairways with the Superject and create some air channels for our clay soils to "breathe".

Our irrigation system was pressurized at the end of last week. This is always nice to get out of the way with as few breaks and leaks as possible. It's nice to confirm that we did a good job of winterizing both the system and the pump house.

We also had our arbourist in on Friday to grind out any remaining stumps from our fall and winter tree work. All stumps have been back filled with topsoil and are awaiting sod or seed.

Clean up was completed by midweek, but we are out again today picking up the remnants from this weekends high winds.

The crew is also out raking bunkers in preparation for play tomorrow. The bunkers also wintered well and will be receiving some fresh sand in the near future. By the end of the day we will also have all of the course accessories (ball washers, bunker rakes, tee blocks, yardage stakes and cart exit posts) out and ready for use.

Covers are off!!!

2011-04-02T14:53:00.004-04:00

The sunny days this past week began to warm up the air and soil temperatures under the covers...therefore we removed them to avoid any disease related issues. All of our greens wintered well and are looking healthy and happy...

Treated vs Untreated

2011-03-22T13:17:00.003-04:00

Here at Highland we treat our greens, tees and fairways with a winter protection fungicide. The rough on the property is far to vast to treat with these rather costly fungicides. Therefore every spring we experience rather heavy snow mould infection in the rough. Above is a picture of the tee bank on #15. On the left you can see where the fungicide was applied and protected (for the tee surface). On the right is the result of severe disease infection on unprotected turfgrass. The rough will come back once the warmer temperatures arrive and some air and sunshine get down to the plants. But it is definitely set back from the treated areas.

Spring is here..kind of

2011-03-22T11:44:00.006-04:00

This week marked the first of spring, but it sure doesn't feel like it. With expected snow and freezing rain we have held off on course clean up until next week. The golf course has wintered relatively well considering the extreme winter that the London area experienced. All of the snow has melted with the exception of some in the bunkers and very low lying areas. The turf looks good in the treated areas for the most part. The fungicide that we have traditionally used for snow mould protection on fairways (Quintozene) has been removed from the market by the regulatory agencies of Canada (PMRA). With this on the horizon, we decided to use a couple of different products in order to make a more educated decision for our next winter protection applications. The newer products are of a more precise and advanced technology. These products are a blend of fungicides that have multiple modes of action. This means that they are protecting the turf grass in multiple ways. The advantage to this technology is that if one mode of action fails under certain environmental conditions, protection is still there in other forms. This proved to be very effective here at Highland this winter. The fairways that we used the old technology on have a moderate amount of snow mould damage on them. The fairways that the new technology was applied to are in considerably better shape with minimal to no disease infection.

Professional Development continues..

2011-01-17T13:57:00.005-05:00

Last week the management of our Golf course and Grounds Dept. attended the Ontario Golf Superintendents Association Annual Conference and Trade Show. This year's program was packed with seminars regarding the hottest topic of late, Integrated Pest Management. As all golf courses are required by provincial law to be fully certified (to continue to apply pesticides) by 2012, these were very well attended lectures. Speakers from all facets of the turf management field shared information including completing the certification process as well as implementation of alternative practices and products. This is always a great opportunity to network with friends, colleagues and instructors.

Winter came quick...

2010-12-10T09:44:00.003-05:00

Mother nature brought winter on with a vengeance this week. Between late Sunday and Wednesday we received over 1 metre (3.3 feet) of snow. This year in an effort to increase the value and accountability to the grounds department, we assumed the responsibility of the snow plowing and removal duties here at the club. Over the next couple of years the costs of snow removal equipment will pay for itself with the savings previously paid out to contractors. Some may think that we are already regretting taking on this task but it is actually the contrary. Performing these duties "in house" allows us to focus on our property like no contractor possibly could. We were able to monitor conditions and evaluate as the storm continued, 24 hours a day for the 3 days.
Other than plowing and pushing back snow banks we have been working away on some equipment and are in the beginning stages of staff recruitment for the 2011 season.

Golf Course update...

2010-11-29T14:50:00.003-05:00

Mild weather has returned this week (at least for a few days) and we are taking advantage of it. Today we put a little bit more fertilizer out in some of the rough areas that tend to be in "rough" shape come spring time (heavy shade, tree competition, poorly drained). We are also out topdressing approaches and the practice range tee. This application of sand will help protect the approaches from the drying winds of early winter. As many people have noticed from our twitter feed, last Wednesday we put down the permeable covers on our greens. It was a perfect day with sunshine and virtually no wind to speak of (wind can reak havoc on cover installation). With fall and early winter comes opportunities for professional developement. This week I will be attending a full day seminar in the Kitchener area. There will be talks concerning IPM, Turf disease diagnostics, renovation work performed at Toronto GC and an interesting lecture from Ed Farnsworth, the Golf Course Superintendent at the Deerhurst Resort. Mr. Farnsworth will be speaking about the behind the scenes experience of the G8 Summit meetings held at the resort earlier this season. Also on a more wintery note, the plow and salter are ready to go when ever mother nature decides to let the snow fly. Please continue to check the blog, I will be posting on the continued "ongoings" during the off season.

Wet, wet, wet...

2010-11-23T06:51:00.004-05:00

Since the golf course closed (8 days ago) we have had more rain than we did in all of October. We were able to complete all of the fertilizing and spraying that was scheduled before the wet weather set in. The weather has made getting around the golf course rather difficult. We have removed a number of smaller coniferous trees that were encroaching on larger, healthier trees throughout the golf course. This will allow the larger native trees to flourish and grow to their natural shape and stature. As the rainy weather has kept us inside for a few days, we have made progress in the sanding and painting of course hardware (stakes, martin houses, yardage markers, etc). Our equipment manager Al, has been servicing the club's fleet of golf cars for next season as well. Today we are going to continue the bunker work on #17. Our intention is to have the liner, sand bags, topsoil and sod installed by the week's end. We will be breaking from the bunkers on Wednesday to put down the covers on our greens. The temperatures are forecasted to drop and become favourable for putting the greens to bed for the winter. Hopefully we can still get a few nice days to complete some other projects on our list....

Golf Course Update

2010-11-12T06:49:00.002-05:00

As our season slowly comes to a end our department has been working away at year end projects. We installed drainage in a few areas of the practice range and short game area. These areas were perpetually wet and caused turf and aesthetic issues. We have also been chipping away at the bunkers on #17, smoothing out the faces and recreating the grass edges. These bunkers suffered some severe frost heaving in the faces during the winter after they were built. Our team has removed a number of trees and brush from around our maintenance facility to allow some expansion of our operation. We are working away at clearing space to install aggregate bins and sufficient staff parking. This will also allow delivery trucks and semi's to access our facility without any issues. We are also removing the fallen trees and brush from the woodlot on the right side of #16 fairway. This is a challenging area to work as it is a peat bog and remains wet even in the hottest and driest of summers (like 2010).
In preparation for winter we have applied our snow mold protection and dormant fertilizer to our fairways. We will wait until we are closed to apply both fertilizer and plant protectants to greens and tees.
The weather has been outstanding to say the least, the weekend looks great and just as we close on Sunday night the tempatures begin to drop to a seasonal level.

Golf Course Update...

2010-10-30T07:49:00.004-04:00

This past week proved to be rather productive. We completed our greens topdressing and solid tining on schedule. We also managed to install the burlap bags in the fairway bunker on #17, again to create a bullnosed edge that will hold up to the test of time. The wet weather has made mowing difficult, we are trying to get a couple last mowings on our fairways and tees before we apply our snow mould protection and late fall fertilizer. This week looks promising to complete the last mowings of all the short stuff. Greens will be mowed today (Saturday) and again on Monday. Following the mowing on Monday, we will be applying another healthy application of topdressing sand on greens and approaches. Once the sand settles into the turf canopy we will be applying our snow mould protection to greens as well as some late season magnesium and manganese fertilizers. Once we close the golf course, we will be applying our dormant fertilizer to greens. On Tuesday and Wednesday we will be winterizing the irrigation system. This takes us about a day and a half as we also winterize the halfway house, course washroom and range shack. The pictures above show our work on greens this past week. the rain that we recieved on Tuesday night worked the sand in nicely, making room for some more this week....

Closing Date for the Practice areas

2010-10-21T16:58:00.002-04:00

Just a reminder...we will be closing both the Practice Range and the Short Game Area for the season as of November 1st. Therefore the last day to use either of these areas is Sunday, October 31st. Following closing we will be solid tining, topdressing and fertilizing the practice tee and short game area. We will also be installing some drainage in both areas as well.

Bunker Work

2010-10-20T11:00:00.011-04:00

We have been working on some of our bunker surrounds. Between mowing grass and blowing leaves, this time of year has left little time for project work. We focused our energy on the greenside bunker on #5. The grass was thin and weak due to drought stress and sand accumulation from bunker play. As you will see from the pictures, we stripped the sod and began to rebuild the edges. This bunker had lost its original shape from edging, trimming and wear and tear of mowers, etc. To restablish the size and shape we dug back as far as the sand was into the surrounds, where the grass had grown through the sand into the bunker. Once we found the soil edge, we used soil filled burlap bags to establish a rolled over lip, to create the old style look that our golf course deserves. This method will eliminate the soil lip that creates issues with contamination and an unnatural look. In some cases we will not need to use the bags, for example on the back sides we can usually just dig out the soil and bullnose the lip as we have in the past. The burlap bags are great for our steep faced bunker edges that are predominantly on the front/greenside of the bunkers. As we work through some bunkers, we will begin to maintain the surrounds differently. There will not be a clean edge created by weedeating. There will be some additional labour in regularly blowing sand back into the bunker from the grass edge. This labour will be offset since we will no longer be weedeating the edges and dealing with washout contamination from the soil edges.

Topdressing on Thursday...

2010-09-28T13:39:00.003-04:00

We are planning on topdressing greens on Thursday of this week. Again, we will be verticutting the sand into the green and then brushing it in...

It has been a while...

2010-09-26T08:25:00.004-04:00

It has been a while since my last post.....we have been busy trying to keep up with the extremely warm September weather. Areas all over Ontario have experienced record breaking temperatures in the past 2 weeks. The golf course has faired well, with the exception of some very dry areas in the fairways. These areas have been dry most of the season, they truly need a good couple days of rain to perk them back up (looks like we are going to get it this week).

With the temperatures going back to seasonal, we will see the grass start to slow down and start to preserve itself for the long winter ahead. We have now started to help it along with some cultural practices and fertility.

Last week we verticut greens to help reduce the amount of tillering in the canopy of the greens. This will open up some room for the topdressing that we will be putting down this coming week. We will be trying a new procedure this time with our greens topdressing. We are going to verticut the sand into the green before we brush it in. This practice has been performed by some of my colleagues with success and as always, we are willing to mix it up a little.

We have been applying some fertilizer in the past week on greens, tees and fairways. On greens and tees we put down a granular fertilizer to provide us with a long term feed and help the turf grass strengthen for both the cultural practices and the fall/winter season. On fairways we applied a liquid stabilized nitrogen with an acidic soil conditioner through the sprayer. This again provides some strength and also will help keep the fairways growing and aid in prevention/recovery of fall dollar spot.

Dollar spot is a disease that effects turf grass in our region the entire golf season. It is particularly hard and expensive to control on fairways. The heavy morning dews and its ability to flourish in both warm and cool temps, make it a tough one. We do our best to reduce severity of infection by adequate fertility and daily dew removal (with our drag hose). Our goal is to go into the winter with no scarring from Dollar spot, the voids created from the scars create opportunity for Poa annua germination in the spring. This is one of the undesirable grasses that is very susceptible to disease, drought and other turf grass stresses.

We have begun working on some bunker surrounds on #5 green and the bunkers on the 17 th. On #5 we have removed the sod and will be bull nosing the lip and resodding the surrounds this week. This bunker receives an incredible amount of play, combined with the fact that it is south facing (constant sun exposure) and that it receives very little water through irrigation makes the sod very stressed in the heat of summer. We will be installing a perimeter irrigation head on the left side of the green to help keep this area irrigated during the summer months. On the 17 th we are resodding the lips that we bull nosed in the spring. Through this new process we had some successes and some failures. When we bull nosed the bunkers on 17, right after we finished cutting out the soil and tamping the sod down, it began to get warm and dry. This was very detrimental to the sod. When you remove the soil and existing roots form sod, you are relying on overhead water to help the sod survive and re-root. We did our best to water these areas a few times a day, but it was not enough. We decided to live with the dried out surrounds for the summer and wait until the weather turned cool to give the new sod a fighting chance. It is our goal to get both #5 and #17 sodded this week.

We also have some minor drainage work planned for some areas of the practice range and short game area. I will be posting later on the process that we have decided to use to remedy some of the "wash boarding" in our green surrounds.

Once the rain is out of the forecast we will be mowing down all of the Native areas on the golf course. We do this to aid in weed control and prevention of woody species invasion.

Another sign that fall is here is that the leaves have started to fall. We have begun our leaf management by blowing and mulching leaves that are in play.

Seasonal staff done for the season

2010-09-10T05:20:00.002-04:00

Every season Labour day marks the end of the work year for a number of our team members. Our department utilizes a number of university and high school students during the heart of the golf season. Once these integral members of our staff are gone for the season, we begin to reduce our mowing frequency, limit bunker raking to a couple of times a week and start to look at round numbers before moving pins and tee markers, etc. This allows us to continue small projects and keep up with the leaf control (once they begin to fall). Your patience and understanding is appreciated during these busy times. Our department does their best to stay ahead of golf at all times, but with limited sunlight in the morning and early tee times this is often unavoidable as well.

Working on the collars...

2010-08-30T08:30:00.003-04:00

At this time of year the collars start to show some wear and tear from the traffic, compaction and the heat and humidity of the summer. Collars typically recieve twice the wear of a green. Golfers tend to walk on the collar, we go over it with the greens mower, collar mower and the roller. Often turning is avoided on the collar, but sometimes bunker placement and greenside mounds make turning on the collar unavoidable. This morning we vented the collars with needle tines and followed up with an overseeding of bentgrass and a roll. This is a very nondisruptive process and will show great benefit in the long run.

The Elm on #5

2010-08-27T09:40:00.003-04:00

As many members have noticed the large Elm tree on #5 is looking stressed these days. Once we noticed some decline we brought in our Arbourist to evaluate and recomend further action to protect and save this specimen. Upon further inspection we have not found any direct signs of Dutch Elm disease. Typically you will find canals or tunnelling from the Elm Bark beetle in infected wood. The beetle creates voids and carries the disease to other parts of the tree.

Trees can be stressed for a number of reasons, drought, heat and humidity are all very detrimental to trees.

At this point we are going to do our best to allieviate as much stress on the tree as possible. We will be roping off the area to the left to reduce cart traffic and compaction. We will be aerating the turf around the tree to help with nutrient and water penetration down to the rootzone. This winter we will be doing some pruning and further inspection of the wood. Next spring, we will begin a preventative Dutch Elm disease fungicide treatment. Following these reccomendations from our arbourist will hopefully protect and prevent any further decline of this very important Highland specimen tree.

Topdressing on Monday...

2010-08-20T20:00:00.002-04:00

On Monday we will be resuming our greens topdressing program.We have been postponing our regular program due to the high temperatures and humidity. Topdressing greens helps us provide a fast, firm and smooth putting surface as well as reducing the thatch level. Thatch levels that become excessive can be detrimental to putting green quality in the long run. Scalping, puffiness and inefficient consumption of fertilizers, plant protectants and water are all undesirable results of excessive thatch.
We will be applying a light topdressing followed by a brushing, then a rolling and finally a light watering. The watering helps to "knock" the sand into the canopy of the green and also reduces the stress caused by the previously mentioned practices.

Gully off of #15 tee marked as lateral hazard

2010-08-14T08:59:00.003-04:00

The Golf Committee has decided to mark the gully off of #15 tee as a lateral (red) hazard. I marked this area this morning. The hazard will remain permanently. This was implemented to speed up play off of the 14th (lost balls from errant approach shots). Please take note during your next round.

Video on Turfgrass loss

2010-08-11T07:47:00.001-04:00

Here is a video explaining the factors contributing to turfgrass loss, particularly in the weather that the Northeast is experiencing this summer.
http://www.youtube.com/user/paceturf

The past 2 Days...

2010-08-05T04:38:00.003-04:00

During the past 2 days we were able to complete a lot of work that would be unfeasible if the golf course was not closed. On Tuesday we core aerified greens, removed the cores and applied a light topdressing of sand. On Wednesday we applied a light fertilizer and rolled the greens smooth. We were not able to fill the holes with the first application of sand, simply because having a lot of sand on the greens in 38C weather could be catastrophic. Sand on greens heats up very fast, much like the sand on the beach. This heat can cause very rapid wilt of turfgrass, therefore I did not feel it was worth the risk. The forecast is for cooler temps on Friday, so we will be applying another topdressing of sand to our greens very early in the morning, in front of golf. In combination with our rolling program, this topdressing will help the greens heal relatively fast.
During the closure we were also able to deeply verticut our fairways and approaches. This process is long and labour intensive. Our crew was able to remove all of the thatch and mow all of the fairways by early Wednesday night. There are some areas of the fairways that did not fair as well as most. We will be going out and seeding these areas over the next week.
We also cored and cleaned up the tees. We will be topdressing the tees first thing this morning in front of golf. The plan was to complete the topdressing of tees during the closure, but we had aerifier "issues" yesterday and were only able to use one machine. For this reason we were unable to finish until Wednesday evening, leaving no time to apply and brush in the sand on the tees.
Our staff worked tirelessly in near 40C weather to complete all of these tasks. Cultural practices are of huge importance to successful golf course management and maintenance. These tasks require and incredible amount of labour and scheduling. I commend our crew for their hard work and dedication for not only this week but the entire season of commitment to our department. If you happen to see some of our staff out on the golf course, if you feel that they are doing a good job, please let them know. A few kind words go a long way.

Course Closure...Cultural Events

2010-08-01T10:02:00.002-04:00

Tuesday, August 3rd and Wednesday, August 4th the golf course and practice facilities will be closed. During these days we will be completing the following (weather permitting) :
Core Aeration of Greens and Tees
Verticutting of Fairways and Approaches
Topdressing of Greens, Tees and Approaches
Fertilizing of Greens, Fairways and Approaches (Tee were fert. last week)
Bunker Weeding and Smoothing
Mowing of all playable surfaces
With a little luck and some cooperation from our equipment, we should have the golf course cleaned up by the time we reopen on Thursday morning.

Golf Course Update

2010-07-15T16:20:00.004-04:00

The heat has been the story lately. It seems that we are in the midst of another heat wave with 35C + temps with high humidity. As mentioned before these temps' limit the amount of abuse our greens can withstand. We are typically topdressing, verticutting, double cutting and rolling greens to maintain speed, but with this type of environmental pressure we do reduce these practices for the sake of the health of our turfgrass. One of the issues in this type of weather is the fact that the night time lows are not so low. We have been averaging about 20C overnight. The turfgrass plant continues to grow and metabolize throughout the night. This exerts an abnormal amount of energy and to put it frankly the plant gets tired. The poa in our greens starts to look a little weak and stressed. We are on a fertility program that is light and frequent, that aids in the strength and vitality of the plant. This can only do so much, at some point the plant needs a breather. We were fortunate to receive a little shot of rain early in the week. That rain helped recover some of the drought stressed areas (fairways and rough) from the hot/dry previous couple of weeks. As mentioned in the previous post we will continue to be out on the golf course with hoses both watering (when need be) and syringing (cooling off) greens. We do not water with a blanket program on our golf course. We make decisions daily on the needs of each specific turfgrass area. We look at the need for overnight water, hand watering, syringing and the amount of water to apply. We manage water this way to maintain good fast and firm conditions, to maintain plant health and practice the responsible and efficient use of water.
With these high temperatures often comes thunderstorms. This can be very detrimental to our turfgrass (depending on the amount of rain recieved). With the heat continuing to be so high, saturated soils with high soil temperatures can lead to disease issues and root die back. This is one of the reasons that we tend to manage the golf course on the dry side.
On another note, we have been rather busy on the golf course with non-water related tasks as well...
Some of the tasks performed lately are:
-removal of some dead/dying trees
-stump grinding
-bunker sand shifting and smoothing
-course detailing (edging, weed eating, garden maintenance)
-rough fertilization
-early morning broad leaf weed control
-tree trimming
-fairway divoting

Focus on water management...

2010-07-03T11:09:00.005-04:00

The golf course has dried out considerably in the last week or so. This is a good thing, up to this point (with the consistent rains, etc) the turfgrass has been "spoiled rotten" with water. Some areas of the greens, fairways and tees have turned brown with the lack of rain, some of the weaker species of grass have gone dormant (not dead) and will remain that way until the next rain. This is the grass' natural way of dealing with drought stress. Our staff has began to hand water some of these areas (mainly greens and tees), as there are some areas that need a bit more water than the irrigation can supply.

Playability of drier turfgrass:
As most of our members have mentioned, the golf course plays much faster in this dry state. This allows drives to bound down fairways and run out to great length. The greens are very firm, which allows for some interesting shot making as well. The turfgrass is very healthy in this state, it is much more resistant to disease, etc.

The fine art of hand watering:
When drier conditions are present you will see our staff out with hoses hand watering. This is a very positive practice that allows us to maintain fast and firm conditions and reduces water use. The theory is that to water these high and dry spots (with sprinklers) we would need to over water other areas of the just to supply sufficient water to the dry spot. This would be a very inefficient use of water and would be detrimental to the playability of the golf course. The only drawback that is that we are out on the golf course watering during play, this is the nature of the beast, we need to supply water to the plant when "the plant" needs it, not when it is convenient for all of us. We practice hand watering both preventatively and curatively, it all depends on the conditions and the time of year.

The tools in the tool box:
We use a few different tools to help aid in the penetration of water to the root zone. Wetting agents and surfactants are products that help wet a chronically dry area and also drive water down to the root zone of the turgrass plant. We apply these to our greens regularly. On fairways and tees we use similar products and apply them by injection through our irrigation system and in an applicator on the end of a hose. We also use a machine called the Hydroject, this is a machine that injects a stream of water to the root zone to aid in penetration. This works amazingly well and will be used this upcoming week on fairway spots.

As with any task on the golf course our staff do their best to stay our of our members' way. Unfortunately, there are times when interference is unavoidable. Our staff is doing all that we can to provide good consistent playing conditions for all of our members.

Venting Greens...

2010-06-28T11:47:00.004-04:00

This week we will be venting our greens with needle tines. These tines make a hole that is less than an 1/8th of inch. With our greens being completely saturated from the incredible amount of rain that we have recieved this season, there is no room for air movement in the soil. We need to create very small channels for air movement to the root zone. When roots don't have air, they die. This has not been evident yet, but with the warmer temperatures of July upon us soon, trouble could be lurking. This will be a very non-disruptive process to our members and play. We are going to vent all of our greens over then next few days early in the morning as to not disrupt play. The process is simple, we vent the green using the aerifier and needle tines, roll them smooth and then mow the green. The holes virtually dissapear and are of no effect to roll. I realize that the word aerifier starts to scare people, but this is necessary and again is very clean and non-disruptive. Check out the pictures above, the tine is dwarfed by a pen and you can see how small the holes are compared to a golf ball.

Golf Course Update

2010-06-10T05:24:00.003-04:00

The weather has been the hot topic of discussion to say the least. Last week we received a number of rain events that totaled over 4". Our golf course does have adequate drainage in the greens, fairways and some rough areas, but this amount of precipitation on a clay based property is beyond our capacity. The golf course is soft, lush, and spongy. Our focus has always been on playability and these conditions are not conducive to our theory of fast and firm turfgrass.

Greens - Obviously our greens are saturated and rather soft. This leads to larger than normal ball marks and slower ball roll. We have applied surfactants that draw the water down through the profile to help dry and firm up the surfaces. We topdressed on Tuesday evening and brushed the sand in, only to have it rain the next day and settle it into the canopy. The sand will help firm up and smooth the surface as well. These patterns of hot, humid and wet weather have increased disease pressure, we have had to apply more fungicide than usually required to our greens. Along with these fungicide applications we have applied a growth regulator to help slow down the growth that occurs throughout the day and to reduce poa seed head development. We have not yet consistently hit our target green speed of 10, but with these practices, some dry weather and the purchase of our new greens roller, we will be there very soon.

Tees and Fairways - We have yet to irrigate our fairways this season. Even through the hot stretch of weather, we were able to keep the water off and help those roots dive into the soil. The tees are enjoying the flushing rains and are looking good. We have consistent growth and good divot recovery.

Bunkers- Our bunkers have already had a long hard season. They have been severely washed out repeatedly. Just as we added fresh sand to the green side bunkers, we received 2.25" of rain and had considerable contamination. We have shoveled, raked, smoothed and added sand to a number of them, but this is an ongoing process. On a positive note, the bunker that we renovated on #15 with new drainage, liner, sand and "bull nose" edges did not washout or get contaminated. This may be a sign of things to come in our bunkers...

Overall I feel that the golf course is in good shape. However, it is not playing the way that I would like to see it. I learned a long time ago that there is nothing you can do about the weather, but we will continue to cultivate and "train" the turfgrass to play well even when the elements provide us with these challenges.

Also, as you can see from the blog page, I have started a Twitter page. This allows me to post quick notes and comments with regards to conditions, tasks and other points of interest. Please check in regularly to keep up to date on what's going on...

Rain....again

2010-06-03T08:52:00.004-04:00

I had t0 post on the subject of rain...simply because rain is the most prevalent element at HCC these days. Since the installation of our weather station (May 9th) we have recorded 5.25 inches of rain. It is not always the amounts that cause the problems, it is the fact that we have had two downpours of over 2" and a few other light rains.
Anybody that has played the golf course since Monday knows the condition of our bunkers, they are extremely washed out. Our staff held off on repairing the bunkers because of the forecast for rain on Wednesday. Luckily we only received 2/10 of an inch yesterday. We have started to repair the bunkers and hope to be back in play by the weekend. We will then begin to add the appropriate amount of new sand to each bunker systematically. On a good note the bunker that we renovated on the 15th, held up substantially better than the others.
Greens topdressing has been postponed until next Tuesday evening after the Ladies 9 hole Member/Guest. Again, thank you for your patience and understanding.

The week ahead...

2010-05-31T05:21:00.002-04:00

It looks like the heat is going to break for us this week (after today). Last week was a challenge trying to get regular May tasks done with the pressure of 35 degree days upon us. The Grounds Dept. spent a great deal of time watering sod that we installed the previous week and also adding sand to our green side bunkers. This week we are going to get back to some cultural practices. We will be topdressing greens on Tuesday and following up with a brush and some light water. We will also be putting the finishing touches on the green side bunkers. The rough has been a popular (or unpopular) topic lately....it is growing very quickly and the seed heads have been very persistent. This is a deadly combination when trying to manage up to 50 acres of rough. We have been mowing and adjusting mowers regularly, it is definitely a challenge to keep up to though. We will be continuing some seeding and sodding in some areas of the rough this week. If the forecast hold true, we will see some seasonal temperatures by mid-week.

An update on greens...

2010-05-21T05:23:00.002-04:00

Since my last post we have performed some grooming of sorts to combat the seeding Poa on our greens. With this nice warm weather the greens are firming up nicely, so that adds to the bounce and roll that we expect from them. We have been verticutting, double cutting and rolling for the past three days to help knock down the seed heads and smooth out the surface. We were also able to put out our growth regulator to slow down growth throughout the day. We anticipate that you will find a much better roll and more consistency throughout the golf course.

Why are our greens so slow???

2010-05-18T11:53:00.002-04:00

This is a common question these days here at HCC. Every spring our Poa greens go to seed (notice the yellowish grass in the picture). This is a natural part of Poa's life cycle. If you play late in the day, it will be worse, much worse. The plants go to flower with the sunshine and become big and bushy. This creates a very slow and rather bunpy putting surface. We apply a growth regulator to help regulate the growth throughout the day. Currently (today) we are near the tail end of the last application. We were scheduled to apply this morning, but rain and very windy conditions prevented us from doing so. We will attempt to go with the sprayer on Wednesday morning. You will notice some of the Grounds Dept. staff out on the greens performing a number of practices to combat the seed head production (verticutting, brushing, double cutting and possibly afternoon mowing).

Bunker Work

2010-05-18T05:40:00.016-04:00

The Grounds Dept. staff has begun working on shaping up our bunkers. Most members have noticed that the bunker boards have been removed from the bunkers on #17. We decided to try a different technique of edging on these bunkers. We have "bull nosed" the edges and removed the soil lip that exists on our other bunkers (this creates a grass or "living" edge). There have been a number of "comments" about the height and severity of some of the bunker lips/edges. These have been produced by a combination of inverted edging and the use of bunker boards during construction. This is a very labour intensive task, but I believe this will reduce both contamination and some playability and maintenance issues that we experience.

The process is as follows, we first pull back the sand that is at or near the edge, we then insert a spade horizontally into the lip and pull out a "chunk" of soil. Once the "chunk" is removed, we then tamp down the sod and roll the lip down so that the grass meets the floor of the bunker. This method produces a much more classic and natural look. It will also reduce the bounce back effect of the soil lips that we are all used to. We are going to monitor the performance and member feedback on these bunkers and then make a decision in regard to the rest of the bunkers on the golf course.

Superjecting the Fairways

2010-05-16T18:43:00.005-04:00

On Monday we will be starting the process of Superjecting our fairways. This is a very non-disruptive process that will take just a few days to complete. We planned on verticutting our fairways this week, but have postponed it due to the extensive bunker work (labour) that is required as a result of last week's storms. The Superject relieves compaction and allows some air movement down to the root zone.

Weather Station

2010-05-16T10:49:00.003-04:00

This past week we installed a weather station on our property here at HCC. This tool will provide us with up to date weather information for our golf course. The weather station has a number of sensors and meters within it. We can now monitor and record data on wind speed and direction, humidity levels, UV levels, temperature, evapotranspiration and rain amounts. The ability to have these accurate records is essential in pursuit of our Integrated Pest Management Certification. Having an accurate rain gauge on the property is very important, as the closest monitored weather station is located at London Airport. The variance in location is now completely out of the equation.

The evapotranspiration (ET) data is the amount of water removed from the soil profile from natural elements like temperature, wind speed and humidity. We use this data in conjunction with our irrigation control system to match the amount of water lost with amount that we apply through our irrigation system. We have been using this method of irrigating on our fairways and tees for the past season or so. In the past we had to rely on data from Environment Canada which is accurate, but not site specific. I am working on some software that will allow me to post the weather information on this blog for all of our members to view. The forecast for this week looks great so I look forward to seeing some high temp. numbers as opposed to and ever increasing rain gauge (as it was last week).

Cultural Practices are abundant at HCC

2010-05-11T05:18:00.004-04:00

Our greens aeration was completed on Monday. By starting the process on Sunday evening, we were able to complete this cultural practice in a timely manner. On the greens we heavily topdressed, solid tine aerified, brushed in the sand, verticut, rolled, fertilized and watered. I am happy to say that all of the greens were in play by the time the first group played through on Monday. This was a great feat considering that we were delayed by 2.5 hours with a frost on Monday morning. Our grounds staff worked very hard to get this process completed in a timely manner to reduce the disruption to play.
Today we will be solid tine aerifying the tees. We would rather core the tees, but with alot of rain in the forecast, it would be too messy. We will topdress following the aerifying (not before...too wet) and then we will move on to topdressing the approaches later in the week.
Next week we will be verticutting our fairways with our new Siisis Veemo Verticutting unit. Some members noticed that we used this unit on our approaches a couple of weeks ago with great success. This will be a rather time consuming process, but well worth the effort.

Storm Damage

2010-05-10T06:54:00.003-04:00

With the high winds on Saturday we expected alot of damage and debris. There was only casualty, this ash that was on the right side of #5 fairway. As you can see from the pictures, it had a weak crotch and was beginning to rot at the base of the double stemmed section. This was not a specimen tree by any means. The small, double stemmed trees are very vulnerable to these types of storms. We have been systematically removing them, but still have a few left.

Tonight's the night....

2010-05-09T05:07:00.007-04:00

Today at 4 pm we will start topdressing our greens in preparation to solid tine aerify. The forecast is for colder than normal temperatures, but as long as we stay dry for a couple of days we should be fine. We will be doing as much as possible tonight, as it looks like a good chance of frost for Monday morning.

Just a reminder...

2010-05-04T19:36:00.002-04:00

This Sunday at 4pm we will begin our heavy topdressing and solid tine aerification on greens (no cores). We are going to start on the 1st and work our way through to the 18th. In the past two years we were able to get the front 9 finished on the Sunday evening shift. The remaining holes will be done on Monday. With good weather and cooperative equipment we should be able to complete the same amount of acreage this year. During this process the pins will be placed in the approaches, again until the green is completed. We are scheduled to aerify tees on Tuesday, the tees will be core aerified, matted, blown and cleaned up in 1 day. We will then follow up on Wednesday with a heavy topdressing on tees. As always these tasks are weather dependent/permitting.

Taking advantage of a bad break...

2010-05-04T15:15:00.007-04:00

This is the bunker covered in mud and clay, early Sunday morning.

A few hours later, our staff had collected all of the sand off of the bunker slopes and floor ready to be hauled away.

Those of you that played in the Men's Opening day on Saturday would are already be aware of the irrigation leak that washed out the greenside bunker on #15. Luckily (for me) I was not off the property at the time that a member noticed the break, I was able to isolate the green and stop the damage before it got out of hand. Unfortunately the broken pipe was directly on the top of the bunker bank on #15. The bunker was completely contaminated and washed right down to the clay base. The drainage was also contaminated with mud and clay. It is no secret that most of our members are not satisfied with our bunkers here at HCC. The Green Committee is looking at some current methods of renovation to solve the issues with drainage and the high lips that our bunkers currently have. We are going to take advantage of an unfortunate incident (the irrigation break) and renovate the bunkers on #15. Realizing the right bunker is to be rebuilt now anyways, it only makes sense to use this oppurtunity as a test plot. The irrigation break is now fixed and we have begun to remove the bunker sand and will then continue onto restructuring the lips and installing new drainage. Weather is always a determining factor with spring projects, but we hope to complete this one in rather quick fashion.

Cart Use Policy

2010-04-28T06:22:00.002-04:00

In Conjunction with your Green Committee and Executive golf, we wish to advise all golf members of our decision to discontinue the "Red Flag" policy previously available for select individuals.
Our Green Committee along with our Golf Course Superintendent and Golf Professional staff have reconfigured all GREEN cart exit posts on our golf course to make for easier access to all areas of the golf course. This change will take effect immediately. If you find some areas difficult to navigate, then we ask you to refer to the pro shop who will be readily available to discuss alternatives with you.
Please also be aware of the NEW Cart Policy posted on all golf carts. We ask you to strictly adhere to the Cart Rules and ask that all transgressions be reported to the Pro Shop. There are serious repercussions to those who do not wish to follow the Cart Rules, so please read the Cart Rules and be familiar with them.
Thank You,
The Board of Directors

The Cart Rules are as follows

Cart paths must be used where available
Cart Paths only on all Par 3's
All four wheels of the cart should be on the path around all tees and greens
All power carts must leave the fairway at or before the designated GREEN exit posts, at the side of which the GREEN exit post is located
All cart users must heed the daily verbal directions of the starters
Pull carts and electronic caddies should not be taken between greenside bunkers and greens. (You may go between the trap and green on the right of #2)

Failure to comply with these rules may result in the following:
1st offence- Warning
2nd offence- one (1) week cart privilege suspension
3rd offence- three (3) week cart privilege suspension
4th offence- total revocation of all cart privilege

In order to self police this situation, we require that everyone please report any and all cart abuse situations to the Pro Shop.

Golf Course Update

2010-04-20T20:49:00.009-04:00

On Saturday and Sunday we dealt with snow, sleet, rain and high winds, but none the less our weekend staff managed to groom our bunkers very nicely (weed, smooth and rake). On Monday we applied a soluble fertilizer to our greens to help the bentgrass compete with the poa annua. We were also able to apply some slow release fertilizer to our tees to help the bluegrass and bentgrass compete with poa annua. Poa thrives in this wet, spring weather, so we try to help the other more desirable grasses along to the best of our ability.

We have had frost delays for the past two days, so during these delays we have taken advantage of the time and hauled fill down to the banks of the new cart path on #2 and we have also continued to back fill the pond.

Today we began to mow the intermediate rough around the fairways, this will take time to even out and obtain the density that we had last year.

Currently, the contractor is completing the ground work around the new eco-flo septic system that we installed at the Halfway House. Once they are done, we will be able to grade and seed the disturbed area.

As usual the Grounds Staff has been toiling with a few other areas on the golf course. We removed the mulch bed adjacent to #7 green and have added top soil and seeded the area with a shade mix. We installed a section of an old greens cover to help speed germination and growth of the seed (as you will see in the picture). We do still have some tree pruning to complete in the area of the seed bed, but it is on it's way. Later this week we will be doing some sod work on the stump holes and the remainder of the mulch beds that we removed from the playable areas of the golf course. The weather forecast for next week is not looking very good, so we will continue to take advantage of the great weather this week.

Survey results in respect to tree care and rough maintenance

2010-04-17T06:20:00.006-04:00

You can see the decaying Maple on the left and how it has effected the growth of the large Oak, the Maple was removed to allow the Oak to grow naturally.

This is one of the trees that we removed by #17 green in the fall. From the outside they looked healthy, but as you can see there was not much left of them. With a close inspection of suspect trees, signs of decay and damage are easier to assess. Therefore trees in this condition are removed.

Our tree management program here at HCC is one that will systematically prune, remove (the dead, dying and diseased) and provide care for the trees on our property. Our goal is to highlight the specimen trees and reduce the tree clutter of unwanted species that impede both play and growing conditions (for other trees and turfgrass). As most of our members have noticed over the winter we removed a number of small coniferous trees that were growing under other deciduous trees and negatively effecting their growth. In removing these trees we have not only reduced the cluttered look and given the native deciduous trees more room to grow, we have also opened up some nice views and vistas of the property. Member comments on tree care were mostly positive and focused on continuing the pruning and care of our trees. We are looking at planting some trees to replace some of the larger, older trees that are starting to decay, etc (an example of this would be the two large poplars between 3 & 4 fairway). The idea is that when we do remove the poplars there are already some trees ready to take over, although smaller we will plant some native deciduous trees that will flourish and become specimens in the future.

Our rough maintenance program is also one that accentuates the design and character of the golf course. Our goal is to have thick, healthy and consistent rough throughout the property. We fertilize our rough to help it grow and compete with weeds, traffic and compaction. In the two seasons that I have been here the rough has been very thick, due to wet and cool weather. Consistency is something that is very hard to accomplish in the rough. Trees, cart path endings and high traffic areas do create thin and unsightly areas at times. We do our best to limit these areas and help keep them healthy by aerating, extra fertilizer and utilizing ropes and stakes.

In the 2009 golf season we started mowing an intermediate rough cut around our fairways. This is a 1" height that is 7' wide. This cut frames the fairways nicely and provides a transition to the primary rough.

Topdressing of Greens postponed until Wednesday...

2010-04-13T08:07:00.003-04:00

We will be topdressing our greens early Wednesday morning (as opposed to today). Last night's rain has softened an already wet golf course to the point were we do not want to drive on or around our greens. We will not be letting out carts this morning, but we will re-evaluate cart use at 12 noon. We are going to focus our work today on continuing some minor clean up, adding topsoil to the new Native planting bed behind #15 tee and sod prepping the stump holes.

Lots to do...

2010-04-11T11:26:00.002-04:00

This week we hope to make up for some lost ground from (the rain) last week. The Grounds Dept. will be out in full force on Monday atttempting to mow all playable areas of the golf course. The rough has grown significantly as well as the fairways. Typically at this time of year we are mowing fairways three times a week. The wet weather of last week has kept us off of the fairways since Monday. Needless to say the fairway mowers will be "bailing hay" tomorrow. We are constantly working on getting the bunkers into shape and they are coming along. We will begin our Greens Topdressing program on Tuesday (weather permitting) and we will also continue to work on our greens nursery up by the Superintendent residence. We are in need of some dry weather to be able to backfill the sides of the new cart path on #2, if all goes as planned this will happen this week.

More rain today...

2010-04-08T14:50:00.004-04:00

Another inch or so of rain today. This much water on an already saturated golf course has over run our subsurface drainage system. As you can see from the pictures, both surface and subsurface systems are running at full capacity.

Spring Weather...

2010-04-08T05:53:00.003-04:00

The spring weather has officially arrived. Last week we were spoiled with the summer like temperatures and conditions for work and golf. This week alone we have received just over 2 inches (50 mm) of rain. The golf course is saturated and this moisture has posed some obstacles to get our work completed on #2. We did manage to get the top coat of gravel on the path yesterday, despite the heavy downpours and occasional lightening. We were also able to apply some fertilizer to our greens and finish up some brush chipping from the winter clean up efforts. At this point, golf carts are improbable for golf this weekend. Currently it is still raining, it looks like we will focus our efforts on some inside work today.

Beautiful day for golf..

2010-04-03T09:01:00.002-04:00

Today at 10am the first group of 2010 goes off the 1st tee! The forecast is perfect for golf. The Grounds Department has been working diligently to prepare the golf course for member play. We hope that everyone enjoys the golf course and the beautiful sunshine! See you out here....

Golf Course Opening!

2010-03-31T07:19:00.002-04:00

We have decided to open the golf course for play this Saturday, April 3rd at 10 am. With the forecast being so good for the next few days this "soft" opening is inevitable. The golf course is dry enough to handle foot traffic at this point. Our staff is doing their best to complete as much work as possible for Saturday (clean up, mowing, path work, bunker work). On Tuesday April 6th, we will close for the remainder of the week to complete any project work, etc. We are looking forward to seeing everyone out here!

Damage in the woodlot on #16

2010-03-28T13:55:00.006-04:00

Last weekend's severe winds brought down some rather unhealthy trees in the woodlot on #16. As you can see from the pictures, the trees that fell are out of play. However, this illustrates the need for constant tree care of the older trees on our golf course. Our department has been working away at this recently, but there is still an astonishing amount of work to be done. In this case of #16, we will get into this area once the ground in the woodlot is dry enough. As mentioned the damaged trees are out of play, but are rather unsightly and could pose some danger. If we do not get to these before the golf course opens, I will notify all members of the potential danger in this area.

Survey results on Fairways and landing areas

2010-03-22T09:40:00.004-04:00

One of the sections of our member survey was regarding the condition of our fairways and landing areas. Overall the comments were very positive. Most of our members have noticed that we have been mowing our fairways shorter than in previous years. This provides a tighter, more dense surface for ball roll and to hit off of.

There was a comment about some areas that are thin and require some attention. On a clay based golf course you often run into issues with heavy compaction and wear areas. Particularly during the height of the season when golf carts are heavily used (including tournaments, etc). Turfgrass has a hard time growing in these areas of heavy compaction because roots cannot navigate through the soil when it is rock hard, etc. We are beginning a new era of fairway maintenance at HCC. We have recently purchased a fairway aerator and a fairway verticutting unit. We are going to be using this aerator (which slices into the root zone) to relieve compaction. I posted some pictures of this machine back in the fall, as you can see there is very little disruption to play.

Another issue that we have at HCC is worm castings on fairways. Although worms are beneficial for soil, the worms create a maintenance nightmare for mowers (and golfer's shoes). The accumulation of castings causes a poor cut and dulls the mowers very quickly. We drag our fairways prior to mowing to help alleviate the issue, but this is a band aid, not a solution. The USGA has done research on the effect of fairway topdressing to help reduce worm castings. This has proven to be true, however it is a process and does take a few years of application to see the benefits. This issue presents some questions for myself and the Green Committee to address in the near future. As I had mentioned, overall the comments on our fairways were very positive. As always, there is always room for improvement.

Course clean up and dog walking

2010-03-18T08:24:00.003-04:00

Today is our first day of course clean up. With the beautiful weather that we have had lately, the golf course has dried up enough for us to get out and begin cleaning up branches, sticks and other debris that has come down over the course of the winter. Our staff will be on foot and carts will be restricted to cart paths only. The weather is going to take a dive next week (cold and rainy), which will slow down this rather large task of course clean up. There have been a number of members out on the golf course walking their dogs and enjoying the sunshine. I would just like to remind everyone to please come prepared to clean up after your pets. Thank you and here's to a warm dry spring!

Greens uncovered...

2010-03-17T06:50:00.003-04:00

Earlier this week we removed the covers from our greens. We are pleased to say that our greens wintered very well. We always try to remove the covers right before the greens start to grow. This reduces the vulnerability to colder temperatures after the covers are off. We have continued some tree work and are actively awaiting the valley on #2 to dry out so that we can continue the cart path rebuild. We have been using pumps to help speed the drying process on #2. I will keep everybody updated on this project's status.

"Highland Oak" Yardage indicators

2010-03-09T09:43:00.005-05:00

This past winter one of our seasonal employees produced some new yardage indicators for our fairways. Rob Williamson planed out some of the "Highland Oak" to make them. As you will remember, we milled some wood from last year's tree removal efforts. You can see from the picture, the new stakes are much more natural and subtle looking. These definitely fit into the classic feel of HCC.

Preparing for the melt...

2010-03-09T09:28:00.004-05:00

With the warm temperatures and rain in the weather forecast, we are preparing our greens for a rather quick melt this week. As you will see in the pictures, we have shoveled out some positive surface drainage channels in the snow at the front of our greens. These channels will allow the run off of snow melt and rain to drain the green surface freely. Some areas of the golf course have rather thin snow cover while some other more sheltered and shaded spots still have up to two feet of heavy snow on them. We will continue to monitor the progress of the snow melt until the snow is completely gone.

Survey results for our Tee areas and surrounding course hardware

2010-03-04T12:05:00.003-05:00

For the most part the survey results pertaining to our tee areas were positive. The tees have been culturally worked rather heavily since I began at Highland. Our department has aerified and topdressed the tees numerous times and will continue to do so. We have seen some results as far as more level surfaces, tighter, more consistent turfgrass cover (divot recovery) and realignment of the tees in general. I would however like to address a few of the biggest concerns from the survey.

1.The recycling of the garbage on the golf course.
Comments were made that we should have recycle containers at every tee. The Grounds Dept. services all of the tees everyday in the heart of the golf season; part of this is emptying the garbage containers. One of the elements of this process is separating the recyclables out of the garbage (once back at the maintenance facility). I feel that this is a more efficient and cleaner way of doing this. For us to add another container to every ballwasher (25 of them) would provide a cluttered look to an already busy area.

2.Sprucing up the benches and ballwasher areas.
The Green Committee has addressed this issue and has proposed a capital plan to renovate these areas completely. New benches and a more appropriate material will be installed around these areas as the resources are allocated. The placement of these course hardware pieces has been evaluated and the relocation will be implemented this season.

3.Daily set up of the Tee Blocks.
Our set up person visits every tee every morning in the heart of the season. Divots are filled, debris is picked up, ballwashers are filled and the garbage is taken away. The tee blocks are then moved in accordance with a 6 day rotation. I realize that at the start of the rotation it appears that the blocks are at the front of the tees on one 9 and the back of the tees on the other 9. This is true, for one day. This method allows us to use the entire tee area and keep the distance relatively accurate to our score card.

Educational Opportunities...

2010-02-24T06:56:00.005-05:00

On Tuesday we attended an educational opportunity provided through the Greater London Area Golf Superintendents Association. The event was hosted by Westhaven G & CC. The association brought in a number of very informative speakers to present a number of topics. Topics discussed were disease management, the benefits of a proper aeration program, interpreting soil reports, the use of specific fertilizers to encourage bentgrass and manage disease pressure, using technology in an environmental approach to golf course management and environmental irrigation management and practices. Golf course superintendents, assistants, owners and sales representatives were all in attendance to share a wealth of knowledge. Professional development is integral to modern golf course management. We as an industry take advantage of the winter months to attend these events as time allows. I am off to the Canadian International Turfgrass Conference and Trade Show in Toronto later this week. This is an opportunity to network with colleagues and attend a number of informative seminars, trade shows and social events.

Winter Tree Work & 2009 Member Survey

2010-02-18T09:09:00.003-05:00

We were out for a tour today marking some dead and dying trees for removal. Our arbourist will be coming next week to remove some trees on our property lines that border some residences. Some of these trees are not in play (in the corner of the property off of the 14th hole) but these trees present a danger to neighbouring houses. As mentioned before we do try to complete all tree work ourselves, but with the risk of damage due to tight areas and the proximity of the houses we have decided to have our arbourist drop the trees.
I have received the member input form our survey done in 2009. I will be putting together a number of posts pertaining to each of the categories that were evaluated. I find this information very interesting and useful. There are a number of ideas and comments that through further communication, I can show our forethought and progress on some of these topics.

A Fresh Look...

2010-01-28T08:43:00.003-05:00

I am sure that you have noticed we have a new fresh look to our blog. I hope that our members will continue to utilize this form of communication throughout this season. As we work through the winter I will be posting different topics pertaining to our department. Topics like weather trends, professional developement and tasks that are completed in the shop will be presented. With the warming trend that we recently went through we continued to have snow cover (for the majority) which is good for the turfgrass. We do have some ice formation on fairways and tees but nothing to speak of on our greens. We will continue to monitor and evaluate conditions throughout the rest of the winter.

January thaw!!!

2010-01-15T13:43:00.005-05:00

With the warming trend that the London area is experiencing, we will be out clearing areas around drains to aid in snow melt drainage. The problem that stems from ice accumulation (solid ice cover of turfgrass) can arise when these thaw cycles begin and the melting snow has no where to go. As the large amount of snow (that we have accumulated) starts to melt, we need to ensure that it reaches the drains before it freezes again. These are the times of the year that we are thankful that we completed our late fall cultural practices that aid in surface water drainage. Some of these practices are Deep Tine aeration and heavy topdressing of greens. As stated before, this practice creates vertical channels for the the water to seep into rather than sitting on the surface (where it can refreeze and suffocate the turfgrass). As with anything in the golf course managment business, a little luck and some major cooperation from mother nature is always welcome. We have and will continue to do our best to prepare the golf course for these weather events (thaws, freezing rains, etc) that we experience every year (with some exception).

Equipment work....

2010-01-14T08:23:00.004-05:00

During the golf season our department's equipment is worked extemely hard. In the golf season our Equipment Manager Alan Wood maintains our equipment at a very high level. Not only are all of our cutting units kept sharp and intune but all of the necessary service work is also carried out (plus there is the occasional break down that needs tending too!). In the winter months we have more time to tend to the more detailed type of work. Paul Snelgrove our 2nd Assistant is helping Alan with some finishing touches on our equipment. As we work through our fleet, not only is every piece serviced and sharpened but every working part of these machines is thoroughly cleaned and buffed. As this inspection is continued all worn or rusted metal is tended to with primer and rust resistant paint. We here at Highland lease our equipment, but we treat each piece like we are going to have if for a long time. We feel that having safe, clean and fully operational equipment produces a sense of pride in our department.

Record keeping, IPM

2010-01-06T13:49:00.005-05:00

Golf Course Superintendents have always been very diligent about record keeping. We keep records on pesticide applications, fertilizer applications, cultural practices as well as budgetary items, health and safety issues and HR related issues.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) has been a component of turf grass management for as long as I have been in this business. In recent times pesticides have come under rigorous scrutiny both on the municipal and provincial government levels. Currently golf courses are exempt from the pesticide ban.

All golf courses are now required to obtain full accreditation through the IPM Council of Ontario. This is a rather lengthy process that we here at HCC have been working on for the past two seasons. Before you can start the process I was required to write an exam to become the agent for the club. Secondly, we apply for the first annual desk review, this accreditation step requires submission of fertilizer and pesticide application records as well as application equipment calibration forms and course condition monitoring sheets, that are filled our daily throughout the golf season. Finally, we are also required to have an on site audit (scheduled for 2010). As I eluded to earlier in this post, this is really just a formalization of what most of us have been doing for years. In early 2009 we completed the second step and are now awaiting the on site audit. Although, it doesn't end there, we are required to submit all of our application records annually.

This week we are getting our "ducks in a row" and preparing our annual desk review package for submission.

Winter is here...

2010-01-04T11:34:00.002-05:00

We would first like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! The snow finally arrived shortly after Christmas with a vengeance. The snow squalls have been very persistent over the past week or so, leaving well over 50 cm of fluffy snow on the golf course. The rain that persisted on Christmas day resulted in some ice on our fairways, mainly in the low lying areas. Ice can be a problem if solid ice cover persists for a long period of time (approx. 6 weeks). If history is any indication of how our winter will go, all of this snow will melt and re-accumulate at least once before spring.
We have already completed some minor renovations to our maintenance facility and have begun to service equipment. Alan Wood, our equipment manager has a long list of jobs and tasks to complete over the next couple of months. The septic bed for the Halfway house is nearing completion. The system is installed and we are just waiting for some favourable weather to put down the topsoil.

Golf Course Update

2009-12-17T13:24:00.009-05:00

As the winter closes in, we are trying to complete some projects out on the golf course. There is work being done the new septic bed for the halfway house (see picture). This is a project that will show considerable reductions in operating costs related to pumping the existing septic tank. The contractor is building an above ground sand based bed. Once the work is completed we will grade and landscape the area to look natural and fit into the golf course. We have also been working on the #2 project of draining and filling the pond and renovating the cart path. The drainage is complete and we have installed a geotextile liner over the pond to stabilize the peat bog. We will continue to haul fill and grade the pond area as long as the weather allows.

On another note, I wanted to share an experience that I had last week. I attended a four day Business Foundations course at the Ivey Business school at UWO. In total, there were 38 Golf Course Superintendents from all over the world. The curriculum was based on Human Relations Management, Financial Management and Communications. This was a tremendous opportunity for me and I am very grateful to Syngenta Crop Protection for inviting me and sponsoring such an event. It was a great experience and of great value to both myself and the club.

Finally, it looks like winter...

2009-12-01T08:11:00.006-05:00

For the first time this season, we awoke to a light snow cover on the golf course. It is finally starting to look seasonal for December 1st. We welcome the cold temperatures. Ideally we would prefer a number of days in the negative temps, followed by snow cover. If this were to happen the golf course would benefit. A nice deep freeze is helpful in controlling insects that "hibernate" deep in the soil. This would reduce insect pressure next season. Therefore, reducing the need for insecticide application. We do not apply insecticides on a preventative basis. Integrated Pest Management strategies are used to detect and monitor and insect activity on the golf course. Our department has established thresh holds for areas of priority (greens, fairways, tees) on the golf course. We also gauge damage on a number of other factors including population, type of insect, time of year and the long term effect of damage. Anytime damage or insect activity is detected we monitor and evaluate if an application is warranted.

Winter Covers are down....

2009-11-25T14:22:00.005-05:00

Yesterday our Grounds staff installed our winter covers on our greens. We had a great day with minimal wind and minimal rain. With the forecast for slowly dropping temps, rain, wind and possible flurries we decided to get them down this week.

On Friday, we say good bye to the last remaining members of our seasonal staff. We have had a great year and I thank them for all of their hard work and dedication. With only a few of us left for the winter, a number of jobs and tasks are still being completed as of today. I will keep everybody posted on the drainage/cart path work on #2.

Winter Preparation continues...

2009-11-19T07:51:00.002-05:00

In preparing the golf course for winter there are a number of tasks that we need to complete in a relatively short time. We have applied our winter protection fungicide to greens, tees and fairways, aerified fairways with our slicing machine, top dressed tees and approaches and fertilized greens, tees and fairways with a dormant application. Along with these tasks we have continued our tree management program of pruning and removal. We are scheduled to put down the covers on our greens next week, just before the temperatures begin to fall. I will continue to keep everyone updated on the progress of tasks and jobs on the golf course.

Superjecting fairways.....

2009-11-12T14:03:00.009-05:00

This week we began to aerify our fairways with our Bannerman Superject aerifier. This machine is very simple, but it provides huge benefits to the soil and therefore to the turfgrass. This type of aeration slices a hole that reaches up to 6" deep. The tines also twist a little and provide a shatter effect that will allow air, water and therefore roots to reach deeper into the soil. As you can see from the pictures, this is a very non-disruptive process. We can all expect to see this machine out on the golf course periodically throughout the golf season.

The machine is equipped with a roller to minimize disruption.

You can see from the side view how deep the tines are going into the soil.

This is a picture of 15 fairway immediately following the process.

Irrigation System Winterization Monday/Tuesday...

2009-11-09T06:20:00.003-05:00

This morning we will begin the winterization of our irrigation system. This process is rather loud as we are running compressed air through all of our sprinkler heads and irrigation valves. Our staff does their best to avoid startling golfers while turning sprinklers on , but part of this process is automated so please be advised...This also means that the half way house and course washrooms are closed for the season. The weather forecast is exceptional for this time of year. Hopefully, we will see you out here enjoying the last week of golf for the season.

Course hardware will be slowly disappearing...

2009-11-02T15:04:00.003-05:00

You will begin to notice that all of the "stuff" on the golf course is starting to disappear. Yardage markers, cart exit posts, shoe brushes and ball washers to name a few, will be brought in over the next week. We will be leaving the tee markers and the bunker rakes out for another week, but then will come in as well. Next Monday & Tuesday we will be winterizing the irrigation system. This process is rather loud and can be a bit startling at times, please be aware if you are planning on playing during these days. I will be posting some information regarding our winter preparation of the golf course in due time.

Using the Deep Tine Aerifier to incorporate sand.... Illustrated

2009-10-29T20:55:00.007-04:00

The first step is to heavily topdress with a high quality sand that we source out of Huntsville.

Second, the Deep Tine Aerifier is run over the green. The sand is both punched into the green as well as vibrated into the holes.

The third step is the greens are brushed using a tow behind brush. You can see the results here. The majority of the holes are filled to the top. You can also see the large amount of sand that has been worked into the turf canopy, creating a smooth surface and eventually working its way down to help dilute thatch.

Deep Tine Aerification and Heavy Topdressing Completed....

2009-10-27T19:58:00.003-04:00

On Monday we completed our heavy topdressing and deep tine aerification. All of our greens were brushed leaving little sand on the surface and the majority in the 8" deep holes. To ensure that we got as much sand as possible into the profile as well as into the turf canopy, we topdressed all greens again this morning at a half rate (compared to yesterday). The greens will obviously be playing rather "sandy" for a bit now. With the forecasted rain events in the next few days the sand will work its way down and we will be looking at green grass again soon. Just as a foot note, over this day and a half process we put down approx. 40 tons of topdressing sand on just under 3 acres of greens. This process will not only encourage deep rooting next season, but will also help to keep melting ice and snow away from the turf canopy (by acting as drains) during those winter freeze/thaw cycles that can be so dangerous to putting greens. As with most of our cultural practices this also helps us achieve our goal of fast and firm putting surfaces for the future. I will be posting some pictures of the process with description in the next few days.

Deep Tine aerification on Greens...

2009-10-22T21:19:00.004-04:00

On Monday and Tuesday of next week we are scheduled to perform our annual Deep Tine Greens Aerification (VertiDrain). This is a process that we began last year to create vertical channels of sand that reach 8" into the soil profile. This not only relieves surface compaction, but it also breaks up compaction layers from regular aeration of only 3-4" deep. We will then be applying a large amount of sand via our topdresser and brushing it in to the holes. The end result is firmer greens with root depths that reach the full length of the channels throughout the following season. We will be placing the pins into the approaches during this process.

Topdressing continues...despite the weather

2009-09-30T05:55:00.002-04:00

We will be topdressing greens on Thursday, October 1st. We are dealing with some very wet and stormy weather right now, so it is imperative that we get the sand down before the next rain. The forecast is for rather heavy rain on Friday. With the moisture in the ground right now, potentially we could be saturated again for the weekend. These fall storms are good times for us to make note of areas that require drainage work or repair.

Mowing of the Native Areas

2009-09-21T13:17:00.004-04:00

In the spring we decided to let a few areas on the golf course go Native. We did not mow these areas at all this season (until recently). Leaving these areas unmowed reduces labour and fuel expenses. We did however apply a herbicide to some of these areas in the spring. This is not an extra cost, we would have applied in the mowed bluegrass regardless. We will be looking at interseeding these areas with a blend of fescues in the future. These areas proved to be a compliment to the property, adding contrast and framing of the holes in which they are on. We will be mowing these areas a few times this fall and once in the early spring. The reason for multiple mowings in the fall is to "chop up" the organic matter produced from mowing such tall grass. This practice is a form of weed control for some of the woody species that tend to grow in these areas. A mowing in the spring will wake up the grasses an get them growing early on. This process has started and will take a week or so to complete, the recent rain has set us back a bit. Although the areas are mowed, we would ask that carts are not taken into them.

Approaches done, now on to Tees....

2009-09-19T09:17:00.005-04:00

On Friday we finished our topdressing, aerifying and brushing of Approaches. This task went rather smoothly, with minimal disruption to play. This process of topdresing first, then aerifying really works the sand into the profile. The goal of this process is to increase the drainage and firmess of the approaches. This will also help make the approaches tighter and more consistent. In the first picture you will see how the aerifier incorporates the sand into the turf. In the second picture you will notice the sand has not only been worked into the soil but also into the turf canopy. This will help smooth out these areas.

Today we are starting to aerify the tees (this will take us a few days to complete). Since we use solid tines at this time of year, all that is left on the tee is a hole and a little bit of tufting of the turf. We will be topdressing the tees after aerification, simply because of time limitations on the weekend.

More Topdressing to come...

2009-09-15T14:49:00.006-04:00

We completed topdressing greens this morning and were able to brush and water in the sand in before the majority of golf was played. The greens will run a little slow for a bit now. We will be rolling greens tomorrow and then we will resume mowing on Thursday. On Thursday/Friday, we will be topdressing approaches. We will then be solid tining and brushing the approaches to help incorporate the sand. There is very minimal disruption to golf. We will do our best to have the job completed in a timely manner.

A couple of things to mention...

2009-09-10T15:45:00.003-04:00

Every season, at this time of year we say goodbye to a few of our staff members. Our staff is made up of a diverse group. We have retirees, university students and high school students (with the exception of a few full time seasonal staff members). Therefore, Labour Day marks the end of the summer for our summer staff to return to school. As many of our members will notice, a few tasks start to take longer to complete and some mowing is done in the late mornings and afternoons to compensate for staff shortage. September is usually the hardest month, we still receive summer like weather and the grass is still growing at a quick pace. I assure you that we do our best to provide consistent, high quality playing conditions for our entire season. We do appreciate some common golf etiquette a little more at this time of year. Raking bunkers after play, fixing divots and ball marks need to be done more than ever at this time of year.
On another note, fall is a great time to perform a number of cultural practices like verti-cutting, brushing, solid tining and topdressing. Many of these tasks proved to be hard to complete with the very wet summer that we had. I will post our "cultural plans" each week so that there are no surprises when members come out to play. Thank you for your understanding...
*Weather permitting: we will be topdressing greens Tuesday, September 15th.

Topdressing Approaches...

2009-08-28T06:54:00.002-04:00

For the past couple of seasons we have been working on tightening up and firming up our approaches. Through a number of cultivation procedures (aeration, verti-cutting, lower mowing heights and topdressing) we are seeing some results. This week we topdressed our approaches with a rather heavy application of straight sand. The theory with topdressing approaches is the same as with greens, we will dilute the thatch with sand and create a nice sand based playing surface. This will create an area in front of the greens that will be consistent, firm and tight. Here is a picture of Paul putting down some sand on the 4th hole.

Big Tree on #16

2009-08-14T11:23:00.005-04:00

Some of the recent wind/thunder storms have caused quite a bit of damage to our tree inventory here at Highland. Part of our tree managment plan is to prune and/or remove any dead, dying or diseased trees and limbs. This past weekend a rather large tree on the right hand side of #16 (down in the valley) lost a large limb. The entire tree has been leaning for some time. We have now cut the tree down to avoid any injury and/or further damage. This maple was not strategic in any way. This is a good time to remind our members about walking in our woodlots, when you enter them looking for stray golf balls you may encounter some dangerous tree situations (hung up branches, etc). We do our best to eradicate these situations, but the woodlots are vast and we cannot get to all of it during the golf season. Here is a video of Brian Zap of Zaps Tree Service dropping the large Maple leaner on #16. Dropping a tree of this size is rather difficult, especially one that is on such a lean. We try to do as much tree work as we can ourselves, but sometimes things are best left to people that do this everyday....

No Pain, No Gain...

2009-08-08T07:56:00.008-04:00

I have mentioned before, performing agronomic practices that benefit turfgrass for the long term, can sometimes stress the turfgrass in the short term. One of my favourite sayings is of course "No Pain, No Gain". Basically saying that "the end justifies the means".

As I am sure some of our members have noticed our aerification process has brought out some of the vulnerabilities of our property. On fairways you may notice some very dry and stressed areas (top picture) as a result of the aerification on a hot and dry August day. With the very wet spring and summer that we have had, the root growth on our turf is shallow. In some of these areas the aerifier separated the turf at the root ends and has dried out considerably. Fortunately, one of the benefits of aerification is the promotion of root growth. We are doing our best to hand water and manage these areas to promote recovery... if the forecast holds true with rain and nice warm growing weather we should recover relatively quickly.

On our greens, there is obviously alot of sand for the turf to grow through (normal for our greens program). You may have noticed some stressed/scalped area on the outside perimeter of our greens (bottom picture). This is a result of the heavy verticutting that we did. There is an issue with thatch build up on the perimeters, this is attributed to the mowing pattern in which we do with the triplex ride on greens mowers. The ride on machines are very heavy, there is a syndrome aptly named triplex ring syndrome, this is the heavy wear and tear from the tires of the mower circling the greens continuously. We try to avoid this by skipping the perimeter cut as often as we can. We are even starting to cut the perimeter with one of our walking mowers. I realize that the result of this practice (verticutting) is rather unsightly, but obviously if 90% of the green is not effected by this process, there is a problem with these areas. Through diligent aerification, verticutting and cultural management we will resolve these issues, there will just be a few bumps and bruises (literally) along the way. To aid in recovery along with fertilizer, we have put some bent grass seed down in these areas to promote some more desirable grass along the worn areas.

Aerification complete...

2009-08-08T05:23:00.003-04:00

Luckily for us the weather cooperated for our aerification closure days. The members of our department worked very hard and very long during the closure to complete the scheduled aerification and clean up. During those days we were able to aerify, remove the cores, verti-cut, topdress and fertilize all of our greens. We also aerified our fairways along with verti-cutting some aswell. All of the cleanup was done during the closure (although there is a few lingering remnants here and there). Completing this much work would be impossible if were not for the closure. We were fortunate enough to have the proper equipment to complete the job through rentals and loaners from a neighbouring club.

Aerification next week...

2009-07-29T08:24:00.008-04:00

On Tuesday and Wednesday of next week the golf course will be closed for Aeration. We are going to aerify, verticut, topdress and fertilize our greens. We will also be aerifying our fairways and approaches on these days. We will completely finish all of these tasks on greens during the closure. The fairway aerifying portion of the process will be completed during the closure aswell. However, we may have some clean up on the fairways to complete throughout the week. All staff will be working from sun up to sun down to complete as much of this process as possible.