Challenging weather and Spring Aeration

Challenging is the word that I would use to describe 2013's spring weather. Our staff has barely been able to get around the golf course, let alone prepare and groom it to our standards. We have been unable to mow tees, approaches and fairways on a regular schedule. The rough is out of control, literally. We are hoping to get the mowers out into the rough by the weekend. We will begin our annual bunker sand shifting and addition once the golf course is able to handle traffic. Bunker edging has continued and we will also be removing some of the grub damaged sod around some of the bunkers shortly. Grub numbers were way up last fall in our bunker surrounds, the damage is evident. Once repaired, we will be treating these areas this spring to control grub populations.
As part of our cultural program we will be aerifying our greens very shortly. Starting on Sunday (May 5th) afternoon at 4pm we will begin aerification on No. 1 green and then continue through the holes in order until dark. As we work on the greens the pins will be placed into the approaches both for safety and efficiency. We will continue the work on Monday (May 6th) as needed. Our goal during this time is to complete core aeration, removal of the cores, topdress of all greens to fill the holes, interseed with T1 creeping Bentgrass and apply a Potassium based fertilizer. This process will help to set up our greens for a long and challenging season of play. Notices will be posted in both the locker rooms and the pro shop as reminders. As always, your patience and understanding is appreciated.

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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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