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.
As the weather begins to cool down we are now able to safely change some of our mowing patterns. The areas which will be changed are some of the intermediate rough cuts.
Currently there are many areas on the course that is currently mowed as rough and is end location of numerous golf balls. These rough areas tend to be thick and slow down play because many players try and force shots they don't have. The end result is lost balls and time wasted looking for poorly though out shots.
These new mowing changes will help with pace of play and make a more playable golf course that creates many different shot options. Below is a picture of the fifteenth hole that has a large rough area between the fairways and green. This is a location that most poorly hit shots end up and recovery from this area is difficult at best. This area is currently being converted into intermediate rough and we will evaluate the member feedback and look at other areas for expanded mowing changes.
While playing golf this spring you may have noticed a different look to the mowing pattens on the fairways. We have been mowing in a light and dark pattern which is more commonly used on golf courses with classical architectural design.
The main reason we are mowing in this manor is due to a reduction in labor. We were asked to reduce expenses in the 2010 budget and the easiest way to do that is with labor. We will not be at full staff until June and until then we have to get by with a smaller than normal staff. This has forced us to change some of the ways and frequencies of how we maintain the golf course.
The quality of what we do is in no way being reduced but some of the aesthetics will not be as they are under normal staffing. The classical mowing patterns allow us to only use two operators to mow the fairways with larger equipment as compared to smaller lightweight mowing which requires seven people to do the same job. Once we reach full staff we will be converting back to the look that you all have become accustom to seeing.
Classical Mowing Patterns On Hole #8
I am beginning to wonder if we will ever warm up and start to get active growth of the turf. The moisture we have been receiving in the last couple of weeks is great, but if soil temperatures do not increase growth will not take place.
We have started to green up but that is it. We are still mowing in a modified (reduced) schedule of what we would normally be doing this time of year because of a lack of growth. Soil temperatures are still in the upper 40's and peaking out in the low 50's durring the day when ambient temperatures are at their highest. It seems like when we start to make positive steps in warming up the soil, we are thrown off track once again with unpredictable weather. A perfect example of this would be that yesterday we had a high temperature of 74 and today we have not gotten any higher than 39 degrees with snow coming down.
Enjoy the video below that shows today's wonderful working conditions.
It has been a busy week of firsts for the season. As usual everything hits at one time durring the transition out of winter into spring. We have been begun to get the golf course back in playable condition for the upcoming season.
This week we have changed cups, removed winter debris from bunkers, put out tee makers, fertilized greens, mowed selected fairways and even aerified many areas on the course.
Last spring we started with an earlier than usual aerification of selected areas and this year I have carried that process forward. With all of the renovation work that has taken place over the last several years, I feel there is a need for additional aerification to alleviate some of the compaction from the heavy equipment utilized.
By the end of next week weather permitting I am hoping to have all of the fairways aerified. This is a slow process because it is being done in a manor not to effect play. We will try to aerify one or two fairways a day and cleanup right behind so that it looks like we never did anything. This different approach works now since it is mid March and we are having limited play.
We will still be performing our normally scheduled aerification April 12th-15th to the main play areas. The bonus early aerification will go a long way to help with recovery from all of the construction traffic the course has been subjected to.
With all of the rain we have had this year the native grass areas are thriving if not out of control. Recently we have begun to selectively mow down areas in the native that are in play and that are overly penal. Most of the time you can't even find your ball let alone play it, so it makes no sense leaving these native areas out of control. These areas have been mowed down to 4" which will now provide a buffer between the mowed rough and long natives grasses.
The mowing will help with pace of play issues as well, so that excessive amounts of time are not spent looking for balls that are just off the maintained portion of the golf course.
The 4" Buffer Cut 
For most of the early season we have utilized our old five gang fairway mowers to help with reducing labor necessary for mowing fairways. Now that additional staffing has been freed up from the responsibilities associated with the irrigation renovation, we have once again begun to mow fairways with triplexes.
The old fairway units required two people and four and a half hours to complete the job, whereas the triplexes require seven people and three hours complete the mowing. The math regarding labor usage is pretty obvious, but the quality of cut and appearance is far superior with the triplexes. These lighter weight fairway mowers reduce the amount of wear due to a lower PSI (pound per square inch) footprint along with the ability to easily remove clippings from the fairways. Perhaps the most noticeable difference is in the aesthetic look to the fairways, the cutting width with the triplexes is three feet less than that of the larger units.
Here at CCCP we have only 20 acres of fairway and the scale of the larger mowers is out of proportion to the size of the fairways. The smaller lines are far more aesthetically pleasing to the eye and accentuate the wonderful movement we have in the fairways.
In efforts to improve the practice facility and create more purposeful practicing, we have added a fairway cut to the driving range landing area.
Over the last several years the driving range landing area has been more brown than green most of the time due to a non functioning irrigation system. Low and non cost upgrades have been made to the old irrigation system still in service on the driving range. The old underground piping is still being utilized, but the heads have been upgraded and are now being controlled by our new system.
Newer sprinkler heads that were installed in 2005 have been removed from the golf course and are now being used to replace inoperable and inefficient heads that are nearly 25 years old. For the next several years we will limp along with an improved driving range irrigation system, but ultimately it will also be replaced when the driving range tees and landing areas are reconfigured.
The driving range is one of the final areas on the golf course that has yet to be improved and the Green Committee is currently looking at long range plans for improvement. Some of the concepts that are being considered are; raising and enlarging the tees, moving the target greens to create better visibility and even the possibility of several practice par three holes on the east end of the range.
As the turf has slowly begun to come out of winter dormancy, the mowing frequencies have been increasing as well. What started off as mowing once a week has now shifted to twice a week on some areas and greens will now be mowed on a daily basis.
Even thought the grass is beginning to green up and start growing, we typically do not achieve active growth until the middle of May. A general rule of thumb for our area is that once the Scrub Oak has fully leafed out, active growth begins.
Some of the mowing patterns this spring will be different than what you have become accustomed to due to the reduction in early season labor. Many of these areas on the course have been previously mowed with smaller light weight equipment that required more operators to complete the task. We have gone back to using some larger pieces of equipment that will accomplish the same task with less people, but will not be as aesthetically appealing and have a slight reduction in quality of cut.
The golfing season is quickly coming to an end and things on the golf course are beginning to reflect that as well. With the unseasonably warm weather we have been experiencing for the last several weeks, the turf has remained active well beyond what is normal for around here. It appears that this week will be the final mowing of the year for most of the playing surfaces. This is a good two weeks later than normal for the final mowing.
Also today marks the final day for daily pinsheets due to the fact that GHIN handicap posting ends as of today.
As the summer heat begins to kick in the rough is finally showing signs of slowing down. The early fertility that was applied to the rough in the spring to promote active growth and recovery from winter damage worked well, a little too well.
Now that the excess fertilizer has been exhausted from the soil, the over active grow is subsiding. The additional factors of higher daytime temperatures and low humidity have also worked to help slow down the growth of the rough. The rough is still very thick, but it now has become easier to find your ball as well as hit from it.
Additional fertilizer will still be applied to the rough as the summer progresses mainly to allow the grass to have a chance to repair itself from the beating it takes on daily basis with heavy cart traffic.
Have you ever wandered how the bunker grass faces are mowed? The bunker slopes are mowed with a specialized mower called a Flymo. The Flymo is a mower that floats above the ground much like a hover craft. The mower itself has no wheels and utilizes the blade and deck of the mower to create lift. The blade acts just like a helicopter rotor that helps create the lift necessary to fly. If it were not for these specialized mowers, the bunker banks would not look as clean and crisp as the do after being mowed. This look would be hard to achieve with a weed eater or any other type of mowing equipment.
Flymowing Taking Place
Crisp Clean looking Bunker Nose
In efforts to help make the course more playable and help with pace of play a couple of mowing changes have taken place. Some of the in play native areas on holes #9 and #10 have been altered.
On #9 the large native area on the right hand side of the hole has been and will be mowed at regular rough height all year. This area has been problematic over the years due to the fact the “native” area has large populations of Bluegrass and Ryegrass mixed in. Additionally the area receives a lot of water from over throw of sprinklers making it impossible to find your ball and unplayable most of the time.
Mowing changes on #10 are not as significant, but they will also help with allowing you to find you ball in areas that were previously overgrown.
Today began as a normal day with numerous maintenance activities planned all the while knowing that possible storm was approaching. All of the mowers were loaded and left the maintenance facility at 7:10am, mowing started taking place shortly thereafter. 8:00 am the snow started and the mowing operation quickly came to a halt.
The Snow is Starting To Come Down
15 Minutes Later
Today we began to put the course back together from last week’s aerification. In the last several days the course has more closely resembled a war zone with sand, compost and holes everywhere than something that golf is played on.
First Triplex Mowing Stripes on The Fairways
The first mowing after aerification took place today on the tees, fairways and rough. The fairways in particular will be the slowest of the areas to recover due to the nutrient release characteristics of the compost, which tends to be slow and long lasting. It is for this reason that we will mow the fairways without baskets that catch clippings for the first several times. By doing so will allow the compost to work its way into the turf canopy and begin to inoculate the microbial populations and enrich the soil.
