As the wildlife activity increases another green has been shut down for the season. The latest green to be closed is #6 which was one of the most heavily damaged ones last year.
The fencing has been put up and but unfortunately some minor damage has already occurred. That being said the entire green was dormant seeded and then covered with a heavy layer of sand to help insulate and protect the green throughout the winter. The hoof marks appear to have only scraped away the turf leaving the crown of the plants in tact which should allow for a full recovery. If not new seed is in place to help repair these areas come spring.
Additional greens will be closed as deemed by the wildlife traffic. Eventually they will all be shut down by the 1st of December.
Close Up of Hoof Damage
Due to the overwhelming positive comments we received this year about our new expanded intermediate rough cuts, we will be adding a few more. These new areas will be found on holes #1,#3,#7,#15 and #18. All in all these areas will make up about 40,000 sq ft or just under an acre of new intermediate rough.
These extra cuts are targeted in areas where the higher handicap players tend to hit, now these areas will be more player friendly and help with pace of play.
What are the blue dots around some of the greens are for ? The answer is that we are marking the locations for fence posts that will installed to support material to protect the greens from winter wildlife damage. The post will be spaced every 25 feet to provide enough support for the fencing material. Once we have layed out the initial post configuration we will then locate the underground irrigation system components before any posts are installed.
You all are aware of the damage that was caused to the greens by the Elk last year and we will be doing all that we can to avoid a repeat of that damage. Currently the greens are scheduled to go on temporaries beginning December 1st as they are every year, at this time the greens will be closed off with fencing for the remainder of the winter season. There is also a chance that some of our more trafficked greens will get fenced off before the December 1st date, the most likely candidates for this would be greens #4,#6 and #10. In one night the damage caused by the Elk can require month’s of recovery time that includes wasted man hours installing thousands of replacement turf plugs to the greens.
These fences will be eight feet tall in order to keep the wildlife from jumping over them. We are still currently engineering the final configurations of the fences, but at this point they will be constructed out of steel fence post and tennis wind screens will serve as the fence boundaries. The reason we are using a fabric as the fencing itself is so that we can still easily access the greens during the winter for maintenance purposes. A more rigid material will become unworkable in the middle of winter when temperatures are routinely in the single digits.
Once again the Board has stepped up and provided the necessary funding for this extremely important project of protecting our greens.
In the next several weeks we will begin to install the post for the fences at the greens locations in advance of the ground freezing. These post will be in play, so if your line is effected you will be allowed to take a drop from the obstruction. These post will be an inconvenience for some of our later season play, but I believe the benefits will far outweigh the damage that is caused annually. The wildlife is spectacular to see up close and personal, but it comes with at a price.
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| Urine Burn |
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| Hoofing It Up |
The wear and tear on the golf course continues to mount as another summer month has come to an end. The Golf Shop has put together a GREAT!!! video that shows the correct way to care for the golf course while your out playing. I would personally like to thank The Director of Golf George Kahrhoff and Assistant Golf Professional Brian Nishi for taking the time to put together this great teaching tool. This goes to show that the Golf Shop and Golf Course Superintendent can work well together.
In an earlier post I mentioned a grow in taking place on our North Chipping Green, well the grow in is complete in just 42 days! We have shifted the maintenance of this green from a grow in to being included in the normal daily maintenance of the other established greens on the golf course. This includes daily mowing, grooming, fertility, irrigation and topdressing.
You all have heard the old saying it's like watching paint dry or grass
grow. Well now you can actually watch this take place. I documented the grow in process by taking a daily picture of the green to show how things change from day to day.
Enjoy the video.
Everybody is quick to point out the flaws in the maintenance of the golf course, but it seems as if rules and etiquette don't apply to anyone. With more than 5200 rounds in the month of July, the golf course is getting worn out. You need to do your part while playing to help maintain your golf course and help with the overall member experience
Do your part, fix your ballmarks, replace your divots, rake bunkers and follow all cart signage and traffic ropes. These seem like things that should go with out saying, but that is not always the case.
I have a staff of hard working men and women that give their all each and every day to make CCCP a better place and it becomes frustrating to them when people seem to take for granted the effort that is put in every day.
Here is what my staff gets to see most mornings on the golf course at first light. There is a lot of activity taking place on the course after hours of which is not helping anyone out. Practicing on the golf course is prohibited! If you see someone out practicing on the course at night tell them to stop, or if you are not comfortable doing that call the golf shop or even Emergency Services and let them handle it. These people who are out routinely practicing at night are ruining your golf course.
Do your part, it is your golf course after all.
Practicing on the course at night.
The re-grassing of the North Chipping Green is coming along nicely. It has been three weeks to the day since the initial seeding and it almost looks like a green again.
The north chipping green was stripped of sod earlier in the year to use for repairs made to the other greens on the course after some winter damage occurred. We were forced to use the chipping green as a nursery because our old nursery green was abandoned due to a previous construction project. Later this summer we will be reestablishing a new nursery green so that we will have grass available in the future.
The north chipping green was seeded with two improved Bentgrass varieties, The green was split in half as a side by side test of the two different varieties. One side of the green was seeded with A-4 and the other T-1. These grasses will be evaluated for future overseeding into the existing greens based on the their performance on the chipping green. Initially the T-1 is out establishing the A-4, but time will be the true determining factor as to which grass performs best under our difficult growing conditions.
Germination 6 Days From Initial Seeding
We are now in mid season and golf rounds are quickly mounting and so is the wear and tear on the golf course. In the month of June alone we had 4800 rounds and not all of them took the best of care of the golf course while playing.
The picture below shows the twelfth green and in the photo and each golf ball represents an unrepaired or improperly repaired ball mark. There are 165 balls on the green and there should have been more if not for the fact that I ran out of golf balls.
In the Last ten days we finally have had some long over due significant soaking rains. Our precipitation totals are just under 4" of a combination of rain and snow. In one of those days alone we received 7" inches of heavy wet snow that slowly melted down and moved through the soil profile.
Looking at our soils after the precipitation we have observed the moisture traveling down as far 6"-7" inches deep which is amazing. Talk about a natural sodium flush!! This deep penetration of water has moved the sodium out of the rootzone and allowed the other essential elements to become available to the plant. This has produced great color and welcomed growth throughout the golf course.
Below are some images that I took yesterday morning that show how the course has responded from the precipitation.
Anther aerification is in the books and the golf course is on the road to recovery. We were fortunate with the weather coopering until the very last minute on Wednesday. The rain started to fall at 5:00pm right as we were completing work on #18 fairway.
Similar to last fall you will find the golf course very playable after aerification, the greens are perhaps the most playable of all the surfaces. The tees and fairways will take a little longer to return to normal conditions but it will be worth the wait.
The fairways were heavily topdressed with sand to help with drainage and surface firmness to increase ball roll off the tee shots. This will have been the second complete topdressing of the fairways with sand and this process will require several more years to fully realize the improvements. More than 500 tons of sand was applied to the fairways after aerifiction, the majority of the sand worked its way into the aerification holes while a significant amount still sits on the surface. The sand will take a couple of weeks to fully work its way into the turf canopy as new growth takes place in the fairways. Currently the fairways look more like bunkers, but the amount of sand needed to modify the surface requires that we apply these heavy rates to achieve our long term goals.
Applying The Sand
I am not sure which is more difficult, the winter weather or the wildlife damage to the course each year. It seems as if every year we cannot escape winter without some sort of damage. This year with the winter weather being more mild than usual the course is beginning to come out of dormancy in good condition. The exception being the areas that were damaged by the Elk and Deer.
With a lack of snow cover for most of the winter the turf was exposed to the resident wildlife and they had a ball out on the course. Our biggest issues out on the course are the numerous areas of urine burn from the Deer and Elk. The areas in the fairways have already been seeded with Bentgrass and the areas on greens will have to be plugged out. The plugging on greens will not take place until after aerification due to the fact that the repaired areas might pull up from being aerified. This process will take several days to complete and then a couple of weeks for the repaired areas to blend in on the greens.
The hoove marks on the greens appear worse than they are, the damage that was caused is on the surface above the crown of the plant. The plant will regenerate new tissue and repair itself from this damage as soon as active turf growth begins to take place. During aerification additional seed will be applied to these areas to help with recovery.
Urine Burn on #10 Fairway
Last week we went out and heavily topdressed some of the lower lying bowled fairway areas on the fourth fairway. The sand was applied to help us with improving the fairway firmness in these low areas that tend to get wet and stay wet.
Sand Topdressed In The low Fairway Areas
So far this March the weather has been unusually warm and free of snow or any moisture for that matter which has been great to get players out on the course. We have already had more than 650 rounds played in the month of march which is not something that happens very often.
