HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

We have had a great stretch of weather recently and the grass is really starting to grow. The golf course is beginning to resemble summer conditions and aesthetics. Along with summer conditions comes summer cultural practices. These tasks are required to continue optimal playing conditions while keeping the turf happy and healthy. Next Monday, June 30th we will be topdressing and venting our greens before play. This is a very non-disruptive practice that reaps huge benefits for our greens. Venting and sand incorporation helps to keep our greens breathing and smooth for play. Following this process the greens will be rolled and the 1/8" holes will be virtually unnoticeable to the eye and golf ball! As you can see from this picture, the tines are half of the size of a pen.

It finally feels like the golf season is upon us. The poor weather this spring has delayed a lot of routine practices. I truly feel that we are still a few weeks behind in our typical routine. Below is an update on our most recent projects and tasks: Sodding and repair work: As most will notice we have completed a lot of sod work on our tees. The winter injury that we experienced was not recovering as we had hoped, so we decided to force mother nature's hand and sod the affected areas. We are fortunate to have a decent sized turf nursery to strip the sod from. We will now begin the process of growing in a new T1 Creeping bent grass nursery for future use. We have also completed the sodding of the area adjacent to the 11th green. Previously this area was thin and spotty due the pine/spruce trees that were once there. Capital Drainage: Phase 2 of our Capital drainage project was also completed in early June. Once again TDS Drainage did an outstanding job  on site. One woul...

Now that the weather is beginning to cooperate, we will be continuing our regular topdressing program on greens, tees and approaches. We will be lightly dusting our greens tomorrow (Thursday) morning and once the sand dries, we will drag it in with our cocoa matt. Next week we will be topdressing tees and approaches, followed by a brushing in as well. This is a crucial cultural practice utilized to achieve our goal of controlling/diluting the amount of organic matter that can be detrimental to both turf grass health and playability. As always the entire golf course remains open and playable during these practices.

On Tuesday, May 27th we opened all of our greens to play. The amount of work and effort put in by our staff has been insurmountable. A great number of plugs, numerous topdressings with hand sweeping, fertilizer applications, tarp installations and removals, over seeding, the list goes on and on. Fortunately, we have reached a point where we feel comfortable opening the remaining 4 greens to play. Please come out and enjoy the beautiful weather...it has finally arrived!

As part of our tree management plan we will be relocating a few trees on the golf course. The main component in our tree management plan is to utilize appropriate species of trees when either planting or transplanting. During the winter months we removed some of the smaller coniferous trees on the 5th hole. In an effort to provide a challenge in shot making and strategy we will be transplanting a few Sugar Maples into the rough on the left side of the 5th fairway (on the corner). These trees will be moved from the far right side of the 3rd hole. Once planted, the trees will be staked to allow relief from the immediate area in order to protect the trees while establishment takes place.

The 2014 phase of our capital drainage project will begin today. TDS Drainage will be moving in to start the mainline, collector and slit drainage of 18,1 and 4 fairways and rough. This is the second phase of the project (phase 1 included 9, 3 and 13 fairways). As we all know maintaining a clay based property can be challenging at the best of times, but when you couple wet spring and fall weather with aging drainage systems, complications and frustrations mount. The overall purpose of the capital drainage project is to increase access to the golf course and elevate the playability of the property throughout the entire season. We will be sure keep the lines of communication flowing with project updates, ground under repair areas and potential hole closings to allow for completion of work.

Today we were able to finish up our spring aeration on our greens. As most of our members know we began the process on Thursday on the greens that suffered the most winter injury, as they were already out of play. We continued Sunday night and into Monday. With the looming forecast of rain, rain and more rain, we opted to Deep-tine and Deep Verticut our greens this spring instead of coring (coring in the rain is a messy process that rarely accomplishes the original goals). Switching to this process allows us to properly prepare a good seedbed for our yearly Creeping Bentgrass inter-seeding program, while still removing a decent amount of organic matter. The process was as follows: 1. Straight sand topdressing 2. Deep-Tine aerify to a depth of 8 inches 3. Deep Verticut with our Sissis 4. Blow to remove organic matter 5. Dropseed T1 Creeping Bentgrass 6. Straight sand topdress (again) 7. Hand broom the sand into the canopy 8. Roll to smooth 9. Fertilize with...