New Week, New Goals

As we start off a new week here, we focus on new goals.  Last week we had high goals and are very happy with what we achieved.  It's always nice and much easier to do when weather cooperates with your plans.  It was great to see so many out on Friday playing some golf.  Hard to complain on a day where the high is 78, light breeze, and abundant sunshine.  As you played I'm sure you seen a great amount of work being done.

Hydroseeding berm along 5.  Lower areas are seed with a
blend while top and back are seeded with taller native grasses.

First, I'd like to take a minute to reflect back on last week and what we achieved.  Seeding of multiple projects were completed.  Such projects include; berm along the 5th hole, berm between 3 tee and 6 fwy, native area surrounding new nursery, and lastly tree'd area right of 7 and left of 12 green.  Couldn't have asked for things to turn out better as we had a gentle, soaking rain last night.

Berm between 3 and 6 prior to seeding.  This area is seeded
a fescue blend to make playable yet penalizing.

Along with seeding, we laid a great amount of sod.  Bentgrass sod was harvested from oversized tees to complete the rolloff project at 6 green.  We chose to do this as it was economical, rather than buying all new sod for the runoff and, we downsized the tees to the exact width of our spraying helping save valuable time spraying.  In the fall we will continue to work on downsizing and squaring the remainder of the tees.

Nursery area seeded.  Big Blue Stem along with fescue
grasses will make up this area.  Trees/shrubs added in fall.

Rolloff area to the left of 6 green.  Will make for some
interesting shots, and a tough back left pin.

This week we continue to work on projects but need to ramp up our mowing frequencies.  The warmer weather at the end of last week and a little rain really got turf active.  Don't think we'll see much growth this week with cooler temps but we'll take advantage by turning on groomers and really work at standing turf up.  Verticutting of greens will take place this week.  This is a method to lightly address organic matter and increase density.  You may have noticed some speckling or pock marks in some greens, the verticutting will help fill those in.  These marks are from fertilizer used in late fall, still not sure exactly why we had this result on only a few areas.  Possibly some contamination in the bag or humidity/moisture made it's way in and activated the material.  All areas will heal; topdressing and verticutting will help aid in recovery.

Drainage work being done to lower part of 10 fairway.

Goals this week are to continue to work on and wrap up any unfinished projects.  We still have a few areas to seed, weather permitting we'll try and address behind 3 and 6 green.  Now that the tee work and rolloff work are complete we are moving on to wrapping up drainage work.  Areas needing some finish work are to the left of 4 fairway, left of 6 approach, and roughs to left and right of 7.  4 and 6 will be prepped and
sodded, while 7 will be prepped and seeded.  A few new drainage projects are on our task list for the week; lower part of 10 fairway is getting some added drainage along with the rough in front of 18 tee.  We will continue to address certain areas throughout spring, as we continue to see very positive results from all drainage we've done to date.
It's great to be back in the swing of things.  This spring has actually been great to get projects completed and start preparing the golf course.  We are looking to be sitting steady once we get to Memorial Day, projects completed and on to maintaining the golf course.  There are a few important dates to remember over the next 3-4 weeks:

1. Fairway aerification is taking place April 27 - May 1.  Course will remain open but please excuse our mess.  We have the target of completing roughly 3-4 holes a day to be finished by the end of the week.
2. GREENS/APPROACH AERIFICATION, will be taking place Monday, May 11th.  This spring we will be utilizing DryJect; http://www.dryject.com/ a great method of getting sand deeper into the subsurface, as well as utilizing our new deeptine to get even deeper.  We are hoping to finish in a day, but may have a few to wrap up with on Tuesday morning.
3. Tee Aerification is being carried out on Monday, May 4th.

All these events are weather permitting.  If we experience rain/wet conditions some may be put on hold.  We hope that everyone that has played is enjoying the course.  We greatly look forward to constantly improving conditions to make things more enjoyable for yourself and your guests.