HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

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...

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...

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, th...