Golf Course Update

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.

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The Practice Range Tee

Last fall we utilized a “new to us” method of revitilization for our practice tee. Our contractor TDS, fraize mowed the surface of the tee to remove organic matter as well at to aid in leveling. The tee was then aerified and seeded to a new variety of creeping rye grass. We chose this type of turf grass as research shows rapid recovery and a low growth habit. We were able to get some great growth in the fall, but the tee is still not ready for traffic and full use. The plan is to utilize the mats until growth has filled in some of the voids etc. We will then begin to slowly set up hitting areas on the grass tee. For a while we will alternate between grass and the mats with a 50/50 ratio of use. Once the grass tee is established and is in adequate recovery mode, the practice areas will be back to normal. As always our membership’s patience is appreciated as we try to improve these areas for use.

Venting Greens...

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 pic...

Spring Greens Aeration...a week later!

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

HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

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