The last few weeks have been a trying and difficult time. The blog has been silent because communication needed to come out in a different way. Battling disease, heat and drought has taken a tremendous toll on the golf course. We are now in the process of recovery and the blog will be updated whenever I get a chance. We are going to be jumping into a lot of good projects over the next few weeks and I want to share all of these things with you.
A few updates,
1. Due to a total of .19" of rain over the last 4 weeks, the water is running low in the quarry but we still have 5'3" of water under the pumps. Last year's decision to move the pumps into deeper water has really paid off. Temporary pumps will be used in the worst case scenario to insure seed germination.
2. We have been testing everything to make sure that we are not battling other issues besides heat and drought.
a. The quality of our irrigation water is good. We test this water source annually but wanted another analysis to eliminate any issues.
b. We do not have any insect or nematode issues. Samples and scouting have both turned up desirable populations well under our very low threshold.
c. We have tested our greens growing medium. The quality of our growing medium (soil) is good. We do not have an over accumulation of salts or any other negative qualities that could have contributed to the rapid decline of the greens. We test our greens every 6 months in order to gauge pH, nutrient levels and to scout for any problems.
d. After the initial disease diagnosis, three separate testings of the greens have all come back negative for any more Pythium Root Rot. Samples from every green were sent yesterday to two accredited university labs to make sure we have eliminated all pythium with our curative fungicide treatments. No seed will go down until we are positive that we have eliminated any and all disease issues.
3. The re-seeding process of our worst greens is well underway. We have core aerated these greens and backfilled the holes with an 80% Sand/20% Peat USGA specified greens mix to aid in recovery and germination of seed. We have edged the greens to eliminate any bermudagrass infiltration and will begin dimpling the greens tomorrow to prepare a seed bed. Seed, topdressing, pre-plant fertility, preventive fungicide applications, and gypsum will all go down Thursday and Friday to begin the re-establishment process. All of the greens will be seeded in an effort to maintain continuity of all of the playing surfaces. We are anxious to get seed germinated and growing but must do our due diligence in preparation for this process. I will be blogging and tweeting about this process with pictures and projected timelines, scenarios and conditions.
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| Edging Bermudagrass out of Greens |
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| Backfilling Voids left from Bermudagrass |
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| One of the new Interns, Tianlong, aerating #1 Green |
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| Topdressing and Dragging in Sand |
4. A list of upcoming projects:
a. A complete irrigation audit is already underway. The system is new and running well but a check of every head will make sure that we are operating at 100% efficiency.
b. The final sod will go down for the year. We need to button up a few open areas as well as the green tee at #12. Multiple applications of lime have been made to adjust the very low pH conditions cause by the poor soils under the tees on 11 and 12. Previous Blog Post: Tee Boxes on 11 and 12
c. We will be leveling sunken trench lines left over from construction
d. We will be fixing and adding drainage on 12, 9 and 3.
e. We will be squaring off tee boxes so that they are straight and properly aligned with the fairways.
f. We will be adjusting bunker depths and fixing liner
g. We will be core aerifying collars, approaches, and high traffic areas to improve the turf in these areas.
5. Our two interns from Virginia Tech are wrapping up their time with us this week. They have worked very hard and have hopefully learned a thing or two. We are pleased to welcome two more interns this week from Michigan State's International Turfgrass Program. Xinyi Lu and Tianlong Zhu have come to us all the way from China and are anxious to learn and contribute. Another team member, Kevin Mark will join us soon in an Assistant Superintendent Role. Kevin is a graduate of Penn State and is currently employed as an Assistant in Training at the Country Club of Virginia's River Course.
I apologize for the long post but I am making up for lost time. Thank you for the overwhelming support during the last few weeks. I must also take this opportunity to thank our staff who continue to work countless, difficult hours to maintain the golf course. A big thank you also goes out to all of the other club staff members, consultants, professors, peers and members of our industry who have given their time, support, equipment, advice and resources to help us rebuild. Please continue to pray for rain and good weather.
