Sunday, June 26, 2011
I am writing this on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in between syringing greens. We try our hardest to stay out of the way but sometimes we have to inconvenience golf to syringe the greens. Thank you for your patience as we work to keep the greens cool on the warm, dry summer days.
Course Update
The course is progressing nicely as we barrel toward July. The fairways are in overall good shape, the tee boxes, save a few with soil issues on #11 and 12 are handling the traffic well and greens are holding up very well. The project work that has been completed is growing in great and you would never know that there were more bunkers on #6, 9 or 18. It is this time of year that we deal with wilt, bentgrass decline and a lot of traffic on the greens. In the past, the first green in particular has suffered from a great amount of stress. This green has a lot of undulation and the low areas hold a great deal of water. To try and curb this process from happening again, we will be core aerating this green tomorrow as well as some low areas on a few other greens. We will be using very small tines as to minimize disruption of play. This process will help dry these areas out as well as provide oxygen to the saturated root systems. We try our hardest to keep the greens firm and dry but sometimes mother nature does not cooperate and we have to deal with these low, water collecting areas. I hope that this preventative measure does not overly inconvenience play.
Friendly reminder: The course will be closed for maintenance on July 11, 12 and 13. We will be aerating fairways, venting greens, topdressing fairways, laying sod, and buttoning up some other projects. This work could not be completed during play and will be very beneficial to the golf course. We work 12 -14 hour days in order to maximize our closed time. Thank you for this closed time of maintenance.
Green Speeds
A wise man once said, "I would rather have healthy greens than fast browns."
I have heard from many people that greens speeds have slowed over the past few weeks. These people are right; I have seen between 6 to 12 inches less of speed on the stimp meter over the past week and a couple of things have contributed to this.
Four quick notes.
1. The speeds have stayed well within our maintenance standards of 10 - 11.5 on the stimp meter.
2. We mow greens every day that we are open and continue to double cut when possible.
3. We roll the greens 3-4 times per week to help green smoothness and speed
4. If you play golf in the late afternoon to evening, the greens will be slower than first thing in the morning due to growth. During big tournaments, i.e. the US Open, the greens are sprayed with growth regulators to prevent growth and keep speeds consistent throughout the day. We use the same growth regulators, less aggressively, but have to keep our greens growing in order to grow out of stress occurring during the summer months.
We have made two routine mechanical changes to our mowers and two cultural practice changes that have contributed to the drop in speed.
The first mechanical change is the removal of the groomers that go in between the cutting reel and the front roller. I have talked about grooming in a previous post. These groomers help stand up the grass to get a better quality of cut and help keep the grass a little thinner. This process is aggressive but definitely raises speeds. When the weather is conducive to healthy greens in the spring and fall, we groom daily. The added weight of the groomers also gives us a lower effective height of cut. As the temperatures and other stress factors increase in the late spring and summer, we stop grooming to protect the turf.
The second mechanical change has been a move to a solid roller on the front of our cutting units. The front roller is adjustable and the relationship between this adjustable roller and the rear fixed drive roller establishes the height of cut of the mower. The solid rollers are less aggressive than the grooved rollers that we employ in the spring and fall. These rollers raise the effective height of cut and in turn greens speeds. They also reduce the stress from mowing. All in all, both of these mechanical measures are to prevent thinning and reduce stress on the greens. Plant health is the number one goal with firm fast greens being a close second.
The two agronomic or cultural practices that we have been doing that decrease green speed is the application of fertility to keep the greens growing through summer stress and the reduction in the amount of double cutting. As heat stress starts in the late spring and summer, the plant has to keep growing in order to recover. We can limit this growth with less fertility in the spring and fall as the plant is making all of its energy from many hours of photosynthesis. Right now the plant photosynthesizes less due to heat stress. Since the plant is not making its own energy and is experiencing more stress, we have to up the fertility to keep the plant growing. The increased growth is usually offset by summer stress and the use of plant growth regulators. Over the past few weeks we have experienced great growing weather and in turn slower greens. The second cultural practice of reducing double cutting helps prevents mechanical stress on the plant. Every time we cut the plant it has to use reserved energy to recover. The less mowings, the less energy needed to recover, the more stored energy for recovery from summer stress.
If you are not asleep yet, here are a few pictures detailing the mechanical changes we use during the Summer months.
Toro Flex 21 Walkmower Cutting Unit setup used in the Spring and Fall. More aggressive cut = faster speeds = more stress.
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| This is a cutting unit with groomers down and a grooved roller. |
Toro Flex 21 Walkmower Cutting Unit setup used in the Summer. Less aggressive cut = slower speeds = less stress..
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| The solid roller does not allow the reel to cut as much grass as the grooved roller. |
