4.19.26 Update

The Agronomy team has been busy making improvements and modifications around the property. We've recently started our pigment spray on our pine straw beds around the clubhouse. This product gives our grounds a nice "refresh", and it allows us to add pre and post emerge herbicides to the tank as well to help eliminate any unsightly weeds, and prevent new ones from emerging.

On #18 we added drainage along the cart path edge and regraded the turf to help better aid surface runoff and to prevent water from pooling up on the concrete.

This had been a historically wet area for us after irrigation and rain fall. The team did a nice job with the project and it turned out great.

Weak approaches were fertilized and topdressed with sand recently. This will be a point of emphasis throughout the growing season to make sure these areas are treated with more attention and give them the resources necessary to perform correctly.

With how firm our greens are currently, to attack a front pin location, you sometimes need to land the ball short of the green and have it hop up to where the pin is. The sand applications will help maintain firmness and give the golf ball the ability to jump forward instead of sticking.

On our greens, as speeds have picked up little by little, we've had to reinforce proper set up with our cup cutters to ensure they are picking fair locations.

Here is a good example from the other week where my cup cutter selected a pin location a little too close to the slope on #1 green. This was a bit too penal for my liking and we moved it shortly after I took this video to a more fair location.

Many of our greens have significant slopes that limit where we can and can't place a hole location. We especially have to be mindful on the holes where we have multi-tiered surfaces like #5 and #7 for example.

Currently our cup cutters are handed a print off of the hole locations and are instructed to cut the cup near the black dot on the paper.

They have discretion to cut the cup in the general area (1 pace of so from where the dot is) based on daily conditions. For example, if there are excessive ball marks or old plugs next to where the location is for the day, we instruct them to move slightly away from these spots so we have a better area around the cup.

Same can be said for when greens are quicker, they are being taught to be aware of how the ball rolls out and to avoid placing the cups next to severe slopes if possible.

We've reintroduced our intermediate cut of rough that borders our fairways. We'll continue to fine tune and mow this section of grass to help it stand out. The cutting unit we use for this job is about 6ft wide so overall, fairways will be slightly smaller.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, we were looking for a way to help improve the practice putting surfaces and get rid of the high and low parts of the turf canopy. We saw a lot more dark spots (low areas) and lighter spots (high areas) compared to the rest of the greens on property so we made the decision to aerify and bury these sections of the greens in sand.

Using our Toro Pro Core machine, we pulled small plugs to help assist in softening up the surface.

Once we blew off the plugs, we topdressed heavy with our drop spreader. I love this tool because it allows us to get an accurate and precise application of sand.

Following the sand application, we let the material sit on the surface for a few days and only rolled it using our heavy rollers. The idea was with the upper canopy softened from pulling the cores, we could help smooth it out with passing our rollers over the top of the grass.

Comparing the pictures above, I think the process helped out and I see less of the "checkboard" appearance in the section we did the work on. We will be more aggressive this summer as we have scheduled closures where we can really work the putting surfaces on holes 1-18. In the meantime, I will continue this process on the practice greens only, focusing on a different section of them this go around.

Thanks for reading and for being a member,

Willie