First week of Fall

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Fall season is here with cool, dry weather.  The golf course received a wonderful, slow soaking rain Saturday night which helped some turf rebound from the dry conditions.  Irrigation will never 100% make up for rainfall.  Our team has been busy readying the course for tournaments and the Fall season.  Right now our main focus is on playing conditions and putting the bermudagrass to bed for the winter.  It won't be long before leaves are falling and the bermudagrass is dormant.  Right now, our fairway, rough, tee, and approach applications are focused on prevention of spring dead spot and winter weeds.  The following pictures detail a few of the events taking place around the club.

Enjoy the perfect weather.  Go Golf!

Jordan Booth
jbooth@willowoakscc.org

You can tell how the trees affect turf conditions during drought situations.  Irrigation is supplemented with hand watering as necessary but this picture illustrates the on-going battle between trees and turf for water, sunlight, and nutrients.  Larger mulch beds may be the solution in some areas.  Dry conditions allow us a great opportunity to diagnose and adjust irrigation deficiencies.  Our team has been busy making adjustments to perfect our irrigation coverage.  The above average rainfall earlier this year gave us some great insight into needed drainage as well.

A new artificial tee surface was installed at the driving range.  Half of the concrete pad was covered with the artificial tee.  The tee will be used during the winter months to take traffic off of the dormant bermudagrass tees.

There are many benefits to this type of surface:  You can place a tee in the ground at varying heights.  The surface gives to imitate 'fat' shots or miss-hits.  It is a continuous surface that allows for more variability in setup and less wear and tear.  Everyone has seen the an old rubber range mat somewhere that is worn out in the dead center.  This surface is a great addition and will promote better turf conditions in the spring.

Our team over-seeds the front range tee, side range tee and target greens with perennial ryegrass for a better look in the winter.  Winter traffic will be kept on these tees and the artificial surface to promote a great middle and back driving range tee in the golfing season.

Pansies and Mums were installed around the club for great seasonal color.

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A Successful Aeration Week

Thursday, September 05, 2013

Everything lined up well for this week and the weather continued to impress.  With perfect weather, our team was able to complete the double DryJect and Core Aeration scheduled for this week. We also applied dolomitic lime and potash to the fairways to help balance soil pH and other deficiencies.  Overall the week was very successful and we are thankful for the closed days to complete these essential agronomic practices.  We will only be closed on Mondays for the rest of the year.

The DryJect was a great option for us this fall because it will help relieve compaction and improve water infiltration and thatch dilution while healing very quickly for our fall golf season.  The fall is beautiful in Richmond and we want to maximize your playing experience.  We expect the greens to fully heal over in the next 7-14 days.  The course will open to normal tee times tomorrow morning, Friday September 6.

This weekend, the first tee time goes back to 8:00 a.m.  Between Memorial Day Weekend and Labor Day Weekend, we provide 7:30 a.m. tee times on weekends and holidays.  Due to the loss of seasonal staff and a later sun rise, tee times between now and next Memorial Day will begin at 8:00 a.m.  With less staff to get the work done, we need more time to provide the same conditions.  Later tee times also provide a safer, more efficient working environment in the daylight.  The main reason we prefer to work in daylight is to prevent big mistakes such as a staff member not being able to see a very wet area or a hydraulic leak. 

Thanks and have a great weekend,

Jordan Booth
jbooth@willowoakscc.org

The DryJect injects a channel of sand into the green.  This process requires very little cleanup and heals over very quickly.  It still improves water movement and helps to dilute thatch.  We performed this process in two different directions at two different depths to maximize efficiency.

After the double DryJect, our team topdressed and core aerated greens with small tines.  This helps to relieve compaction and remove thatch.  Once all of this was cleaned up, soil amendments were added based on soil tests and everything was watered in. 

This is what the greens looked like before (right half) and after the core aeration(left half.)  The cores are then blown off and picked up.  The greens will be soft and wet through the weekend.

Lime and Potash were applied to fairways based on soil tests.  The lime provides Calcium and Magnesium and raises soil pH.  The Potash provides Potassium which is essential for root production and helps the TifSport prepare for dormancy.

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