Catching Up

We've entered into the week prior to Memorial Day Weekend.  What I and a lot of people view as the "kickoff" to summer, and the golf season.  Yes, the season has been active so far, but by conditioning and golf course preparations, we view it as this weekend.  It's been a busy spring.  A lot has been going on throughout the golf course and we are very happy with where things are.  Cultural practices and projects are wrapped up and we now maintain our focus on course maintenance.

Spring is very busy with cultural practices.  Such practices include; aerification, topdressing, verticutting, and grooming.  All these practices are carried out on; greens, approaches, tees, and fairways.  All these practices help condition and prepare the turf for the season.  It prepares the turf against the repeated traffic from golfers and maintenance.  The cultural practice programs that we instituted 7 years ago are showing positive results.  One can't change things in a day, but over years with consistency you can.  Some practices may not always be agreed upon by the membership but in the long term it is for the overall health and care of the golf course.  Some practices will continue throughout the season, but invasive practices will wait till after Labor Day.
Projects have been wrapped up and its great to see new seed emerging from the ground.  All new
native areas have progressed, some more than others.  Weather has been a big factor in their slow development.  The area around the new sod nursery was seeded 4 weeks ago and is the furthest along.  The berm along the fifth hole is showing great coverage on the fwy side.  This side was seeded with fescue while the top was seeded with taller native grasses like; Switchgrass, Little Bluestem, Big Bluestem, and Indiangrass.  In play areas; between 2 and 7 along with 13 and 16 were seeded 2 weeks ago and we are seeing germination.  I anticipate if we can see a little warmer weather along with some moisture we'll see these areas progress much faster.  Patience, we all have them, right?

Fescue seedlings emerging.

So now that we are here at Memorial Day, what is there  to expect?  Expect a golf course that is conditioned to the best.  We take great pride in our playing surfaces and detail throughout the golf course.  Playability of the golf course is very important and practices that are carried out have that in mind.  Greens speeds are coming up now that we've gotten through aerification and we've seen some warmth to get turf active.  All other areas are rounding into shape and have their necessary practices carried out to get to season conditions.


There will be some very minor adjustments that you'll see.  These are just minor things we wanted to see how they worked out:
1.) Ballwashers next to the greens.  I'm sure this will get some conversations started but I ask you to think about it.  When you play where do you want your golf ball cleaned?  On the green.  So why put

ballwashers by tees where most likely you've just had it cleaned at the green, either by your caddy or by yourself to putt.







2.) Intermediate rough extensions to fairway bunkers.  This is just an adjustment of mowing lines and

bringing bunkers more into play.  A lot of fairway bunkers had bands of dense rough between the fairway and bunkers.  We've now mowed these areas to intermediate height which increases the possibilities of the ball to reach the fairway bunker.