Mother nature, weather and a team that can't be beat...

The reality of managing a golf course is that we need to deal with mother nature both in good times and in bad. This past weekend was our 2015 Best Ball tournament and I would suggest that we were arguably in the best shape of the season to date. Tournament season is a lot of work but is also very rewarding as we are able to groom the golf course to challenge both members and guests. Everyone on our team pitches in in their own special way to produce a great product...This is also the case when things go sideways. On Monday night a rather large thunderstorm rolled through HCC dropping close to 3" of rain and a considerable amount of debris left in it's path. I am happy to say that within 12 hours the golf course was able to be opened to walkers for play. The tremendous amount of rough and fairway drainage that has been installed is proving itself worthy by leaps and bounds. As of today (within 36 hours) we are able to mow all surfaces and allow golf carts out, whereas in years past a storm like that could have wiped out a few days of play and maintenance.
The largest maintenance issue as a result of the storm is our bunkers. This dramatic storm completely washed out and destroyed most of our bunkers. Our team spent the entire day pumping, bailing and shovelling out water and contamination as a result. Today the team (9 employees) is putting for a effort to groom, shovel and rake the green side bunkers. This will take the entire day to get them able to be put into play. Once all of the bunkers are "playable" new sand will be added in areas were sand was removed during cleaning. Fairway bunkers will be addressed on Thursday prior to the Senior Invitational. As our team works through this process, the patience and understanding of our membership and guest is greatly appreciated. Below are a couple of pictures to depict what we saw on Tuesday morning upon arrival....

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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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