At Last

Finally a month later than usual we had our first real killing frost. This morning the temperature bottomed out at a chilly 30 degrees. This will help slow down the growth currently still taking place throughout the golf course.

The timing is good from an agronomic stand point since we have essentially already recovered from aerification just one week ago.

Perhaps the most exciting part of my morning was watching the recently fried annual flowers come out of the ground. My staff started removing the flowers from the clubhouse parking lots and will over the next several mornings remove the remainder of the flowers from the golf course.

First Time For Everything

In the fifteen years that I have been at CCCP this would be the first time that we have not had frost in the month of September.  This months weather was strange in many ways, we had only .07" of rain the entire month when historically we receive over one inch of precipitation sometimes including snow.  We were also significantly warmer than normal with 2 days of temperatures in the 90's,13 days in the 80's, 14 days in the 70's and only 1 day in the 60's.

This weather has been a nice bonus for additional play durring the month of September of which we did more than 600 extra rounds for the month.  These extra rounds are also partially due to not aerifing right after Labor Day.

I am hoping the weather holds for a little longer, so that the golf course can recover from aerification which is set to begin next Monday.

Change Is In The Air

As the Scrub Oak begins to show its fall color the weather conditions are changing as well. Although we have yet to have our fist frost of the season the mornings are beginning to feel crisp and even cold. Last week we have started to have several days in which the temperatures are in the 30's but not quite cold enough for frost to form.
Once we get into consistent frost weather the turf will begin to slow down its growth and prepare for the upcoming winter. This is something I am looking forward to since our staffing levels are dropping off at this point in the season. Currently every day is a struggle just to get things mowed, let alone do any kind of improvements that need to be done.

Keep Off The Grass

As we have daily frost formation on the turf, it is important that all foot and cart traffic remain off until the frost has completely melted. The damage caused can be significant, but with a little care and consideration taken by all on the course early in the morning will go a long way.

Here are two pictures that show how quickly the damage can occur to the turf when a heavy frost cover occurs. The first picture was taken early in the morning when the frost was still heavy and clearly shows foot prints from someone out walking the course early. The second picture show the same area later in the day and the foot prints from the morning are now black showing the damage to the turf.

For more information about frost check out this previous post

http://cccpgcm.blogspot.com/search/label/Frost%20Delays

Toast

In the last week we have had night time temperatures that have been consistently in the mid twenties which has resulted in frost occurring each morning.

The frost is not only slowing down growth of the turf, but it has also put an end to our annual flowers for the year. Over the next several day we will be removing the fried flowers from their beds throughout the golf course.

First Real Frost

Over the last several weeks we have had areas where light frost has developed on the course, but yesterday we experienced our first heavy frost of the season. The temperature was in the mid twenties and was ideal for frost formation.

As we continue to have daily frost the growth of the grass will begin to slow down in preparation for the upcoming winter. The reduction in growth is welcome due to the fact that most of our seasonal staffing has left or will be leaving shortly. We will now be able to reduce the frequency of some of the mowing that takes place on the golf course, which will allow us to keep our focus on the driving range project.

Can You Believe it?

It's June 8th and we had light frost today on the golf course. The temperature this morning at 6:00am was 35 degrees which was as cold as i have ever seen it this late in the year.

Fortunately the frost was light and only occurred in the rough at the lower lying areas throughout the course. None of the annual flowers were damaged by this highly unusual early summer frost.

Light frost in the rough