This Monday, we were scheduled to lay sod around the greens where the collars are weak. Our plans were changed when the golf course and the sod farm received 2 inches of rain. This rain was very beneficial and really helped the golf course but delayed the sod until Tuesday. On Monday we cleaned up from the storm, core aerated collars, and prepped for sod around the clubhouse putting green and the driving range practice green. Come to think of it, we also spiked greens, and applied 3 different soil amendments based on soil tests. Greens were sprayed on Tuesday due to the heavy rainfall on Sunday. Samples were sent to Virginia Tech's plant pathology lab to check for the presence of any disease. Our preventative fungicide program is strong but we will be double and triple checking everything.
The sod around the driving range practice green was not as bad as the shaping of the soil around the driving range green. Removing all of the sod allowed us to re-shape this green tie-in. After we sodded around the clubhouse putter and the driving range putter, our team started to lay sod between 10 and 12. This will be an ongoing project with drainage and grading taking place but we anticipate having the sod laid for this project by the first week of June. Any sprigging in this area will be completed on June 11-12 when the golf course is closed for maintenance.
Another truck of sod arrived today (~10,000ft2) and our staff fixed the collars around 18, 9, 12, 10 and 11. We also installed drainage behind #9 green, replaced fescue on #1 with TifSport and laid sod between 10 and 12. The collars on 13-17 will be repaired tomorrow. This seems to be a lot of sod in the collars but I assure you that the collars are in good shape compared to years past. We have no other winter kill on the golf course and after next week, all sod installed on the golf course will be in new improvement areas.
This week we look forward to the Meet me at the Rock tournament. The Green and Golf Committees will be represented and really addressing course care. Please remember to fix ball marks, fill divots, rake bunkers and be aware of your cart traffic. Please respect the etiquette of this great game and leave the course better than you found it. Our staff will be mowing all surfaces in anticipation of the event.
The next big course care event that we are looking forward to will be on Monday, June 4 from 5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. The event will be a course care walk through and golf course maintenance open house. We will be walking the top 9 holes of the golf course and filling divots, enjoying some camaraderie, touring our maintenance facility, and hopefully learning more about what our staff does day in and day out to ready the golf course. Dinner, beer, soda, and water will be provided at no charge. I will have much more information about this event in a future post but please mark your calendars.
Hopefully these pictures and video will paint how busy and successful of a week it has been so far.
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| Mowing and installing sod around the clubhouse putting green on Tuesday morning. |
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| Prepping for sod by shaping green surround and adding topsoil. |
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| Spraying greens following heavy rainfall. Samples were sent off to Virginia Tech to analyze our greens for any disease presence. |
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| Greens were spiked following rainfall to allow for surface to dry as well as gas and oxygen exchange. |
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| Sod was installed around the Driving Range green on Tuesday morning. |
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| Collars were core aerated on Monday to relieve compaction and encourage healthy growing conditions. |
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| The course was wet and we had to push some water off of fairways on Monday. 2 inches of rain over 24 hours will do that. It is a true testament to the renovation that we are able to be 90 degrees on 85% of the golf course today. |
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| More fescue was removed and replaced with TifSport on #1. This extended the entrance to this fairway. |
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| Soil amendments were applied on Monday to adjust fertility levels in the greens. |
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| Drainage was installed behind #9 green. This area is shaded and poor soils do not allow for proper drainage. |
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| The sod was lifted and the trenches were filled with rock, pipe and sand. You can see that our team is also finishing sodding around the green. |
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| Ruben is adding sand and organic fertilizer to this finished drainage project. Sod was replaced following leveling of the trenches. |
