The Fall Golf Swing

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

We are currently in a busy time for golf, outings, and tournaments.  Our workload and staff size is shrinking and with shorter, colder days the bermudagrass has more or less stopped growing.  Our main focus this time of year is golf course preparation and leaf removal.  Projects are kept to a minimum for the most part and our real focus is on golf course maintenance.

The holes from the drill and fill process are starting to disappear.  They have been a real eyesore and took longer than expected to fill over.  This process will not be performed in the fall moving forward.  We had to make a decision.  Over fertilize the turf and see quicker recovery but diminished putting quality.  Or maintain the turf with normal, balanced fertility and provide good putting quality minus a few bumps.  We chose the latter.  Doing this process in the Spring of the year will allow us to be more aggressive and grow the holes over must faster.  This is still a great process and we have already seen improved drainage and firmness.

This morning, we were scheduled for a preventative fungicide application that needs to be watered in.  While we were doing this we took the opportunity to fertilize the turf.  A granular product consisting mainly of Calcium, Phosphorus, and Potassium was applied ahead of the spray.  The fungicide was coupled with a variety of nitrogen sources to continue recovery and maintain healthy turf.  We spiked the greens ahead of this process to break the surface tension and allow for water, chemical and fertility infiltration.  The greens get very dense and tight this time of year so the spiking helps a lot.

The yellow oval in the upper portion of the picture indicates a void left from the spiking process.  This allows for the water, fungicide, and fertilizer to easily penetrate the turf and enter the root zone.  The smaller circle is an example of the turf growing laterally over an old drill and fill hole.  Some holes are totally covered while a few are further behind. 

Kevin applied a 1-7-10 fertilizer package that provided calcium, phosphorus and potassium.  Nitrogen was applied with a preventative pythium fungicide and watered into the root zone.

This is a great time of year to enjoy the golf course and I look forward to seeing you out there.  Have a great week.

Jordan Booth
jbooth@willowoakscc.org