HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

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 rec...

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 ...