The Experience at Farmlinks

The following post was written by our assistant superintendent, Adam Lencke.  Last week, he was given the opportunity to travel to a research golf course called Farmlinks in Alabama.  It's a great opportunity, and this was his experience.  Enjoy!

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Last week I received the opportunity to visit the FarmLinks resort at Pursell Farms in Sylacauga, Alabama.  A select number of superintendents and assistants from the Chicagoland area were invited by BASF The Chemical Company through salesmen around the area to attend this 3 day trip for research, demonstration, and a little bit of fun.

11/30: Our first event was an education portion on pesticides manufactured by BASF.  We saw about 5 comparisons of fungicide programs and their efficacy during the summer on bentgrass greens.  These programs are rated by several factors including turf density, color, disease activity, stress, and overall plant health.  There were actually 20 overall programs in the study.  We finished with a Q and A session with reps from our local BASF distributor.

Frost!

12/1:  We woke up to a frigid morning, and yes, they also have frost in Alabama.  It was a chilly 31 degrees Thursday morning.  The highs did reach in the upper 50’s, lower 60’s.

We started off inside with more presentations on products used around FarmLinks. We covered the GPS system they use for tracking golf carts, Visage Mobile Golf Information.  This program allows the managers to zone off any location on the course to keep carts from getting too close to greens, tees, wet areas, naturalized areas, or anywhere that is potentially unsafe.  It also has an interactive screen on all the carts.  If you ask me sometime I’d love to share more about what this program can do.

After more machine demonstrations we finally got to go outside for a brief talk about their program before we would go to lunch and get to have some fun on our own.

Here is Mark Langner, FarmLinks superintendent discussing with us the daily stresses and current activities on the course.  These greens are cool season grass, just like at Calumet, except they are pure creeping bentgrass.  Ours have some poa annua mixed in.  At FarmLinks they go to extremes to keep poa out by plucking and cutting out any poa annua that seeds itself on the greens.  As you can tell in this picture they just aerified the greens a couple weeks earlier.

We also discussed how much heat Alabama can endure in a season and how they manage over time. Speaking of weather effects, how about this pic!

This is a view of their practice range which is entirely bermudagrass, a warm season species. Everything but the greens have gone dormant for the year because of the low temps, especially those overnight lows of 31!  The actual tee box in this picture is green because they overseeded all tee boxes and fairways with a perennial ryegrass variety.  Perennial ryegrass is known for its ability to germinate in 3-5 days and grow quickly. It is a risky species in the summer however because it is extremely susceptible to just about every disease in the book. 

After the on course tour we broke for lunch and had the opportunity to play golf.  The following are pics from the course.  Note the dramatics of dormancy in the rough compared to the overseeded fairways.

The Par 3 17th.  The lodge behind the green is where we stayed.

The Par 3 5th.  The tee box is 170 feet above the green, and provides beautiful views of Alabama.

Par 3 8th hole.  Farmlinks has amazing par 3's.

FarmLinks was a great experience.  It is a public facility so if you have time and you’re in Alabama, I highly recommend adding it to your “courses to play” list. 

Adam Lencke

Assistant Superintendent

Twitter Added to the Blog!

I have started a twtter account, and have added it to the blog.  For those of you who use twitter, you can follow the link to follow me, and if you don't have a twitter account, my last five "tweets" will show up on the right side of the blog.  Using twitter will be a great way to send out short little notes about what we are seeing on the golf course and to quickly provide up to date information about course conditions.  If for some reason the link to follow me isn't working, my twitter handle is @CCCSupt 

Final Cut

Over the last week or so, we have been making our final preparations for winter.  Beginning last Friday we gave all the bentgrass areas their final mowing of the season.  Surprisingly we still cut a fair amount of grass in some areas of the fairways, but on greens and tees there wasn't many clippings.  I take this as a sign that the grass has finally gone into dormancy and we can stop mowing and begin our last tasks in getting the course ready for winter.

On Tuesday we took advantage of the warm weather and applied dormant fertilizer to the greens and the tees, and then watered it into the soil .  Dormant fertilizer helps the turf to stay strong through the winter and helps it to green up quickly in the spring.  Wednesday we began applying preventative snow mold fungicide on the fairways, and we will complete the greens and tees today. 

Tomorrow, we will be blowing all the water out of the irrigation system, so if you are out on the course don't be alarmed by sprinklers popping on and off. 

It's November Already?

Wow, I'm looking back at my last post and realizing that it's been a month since I've posted up any new content.  October seems to have just flown by, and I apologize for not keeping the blog up to date recently. 

In the last month, the course has taken on it's fall look.  About half the trees have lost their leaves now, but we still have a long way to go with leaf cleanup as the silver maple trees make up about 30 percent of our tree population, and they have barely begun to shed their leaves.  As you can imagine, leaf cleanup is our main task in the fall, and it continues until Thanksgiving, some years it carries into the first week of December.  Other changes that occur to the course during the fall is the 'Washington' creeping bentgrass that is present on on most of our greens turns purple, it is most noticeable on the 18th green.  This is a physiological reaction to the colder temperatures, and has no impact on the health of the plant. 

A few weeks from now, we will be giving the golf course it's final preparations for winter.  On November 18th, we will be blowing irrigation system out, and during that same week we will be spraying preventative fungicides for snow mold disease and applying dormant fertilizer to the greens and tees.  The final step in winterizing the turf will be a heavy application of topdressing sand on the greens around Thanksgiving.  This heavy topdressing helps to protect the plant from the cold dry winds we can get here, and it has also helps the turf green up quicker in the spring. 

Although we are nearing the end of the golf season, we are still working on some projects.  The main project that we have been working on this fall is reducing the collar widths to a uniform size of 48 inches.  Those of you have been out to play this fall have probably noticed the areas of collar that are being mowed down to greens height.  We are a little over half way in the slow process of reducing the height of cut now, and there has been very little area that has been damaged.  Over the past few weeks we have been working on "Phase 2" of this project which is making some areas of collar into rough, and reducing the collar size from the outside. 

This past weekend, I got a chance to get away from the area and visit my alma mater, Penn State for a football game.  When I planned this trip in June, I was definitely not expecting the weather conditions to be what they were.  Hopefully we don't see anything like this for another month or so.

I know it's 80 degrees now, but....

Accuweather is forecasting a nasty winter for the Chicago area.  It's calling for colder than average temperatures and above average snowfall.  So if this does come true, just remember that snow cover protects the turf from the cold and dry winds.  As long as we don't get any snow mold disease, which we treat the turf for in late fall, the turf should be stronger in the spring. 

Enough about that, lets enjoy this weather we are having for the next week!

Today's greens aerification and topdressing went very well so we will have all 18 holes open for play tomorrow morning.  The grounds staff worked very hard to make sure that we got it all done in one day for the members to be able to enjoy the golf course during this great weather coming up this week.  Most of the work is totally complete, there are just a few greens that need a little more sand to fill the holes and some minor cleanup work that can all be done during play.  If you come out and play tomorrow, I believe that you will be as happy with the final result as I am.  The greens are rolling suprisingly smooth and they still have good speed.

Here is today's process in pictures

Jesus coring the green using 3/8" coring tines.

Alfredo and Paul using the core harvester to pick up the plugs.

Adam applies and sand which is left to dry.

Dave uses the brush to drag as much sand into the holes as possible.

Blowers are used to move the sand around and help fill in the holes.

The green is rolled to give us the final product.

The final product.

As you can see, all this works ends up with a nice final product.  We know that this is a disruptive process, especially when the weather is nice and the greens are rolling well, so we do everything in our power to minimize the disruption and still have the process be effective in benefiting the greens.

Weather and Greens Aerification

It's been a rainy week here as evidenced by our postponed greens aerification.  Leading up to today, we have had rain on six of the last seven days, and if you go back a little farther, seven out of the last twelve.  Add it all up and we've had 2.3 inches of rain in the last week and 2.7 inches in the last twelve days.  All this rain and dampness leads to a very soft and wet golf course, especially this time of year.  As the days get shorter, the sun gets less intense, and temperatures are lower the course takes much longer to dry than it does in the summer.  Two and a half inches of rain over the course of two weeks in July would probably be a welcome reprieve from having to irrigate the golf course, but now it just leads to a wet course.  The course seems to be starting to soak up the water now, but there are still some very wet and soft areas.  The course should be able to dry out over the next week as the forecast is calling for sun and higher temperatures for the next week or so.

Monday's forecast for sun and 70 degrees is holding strong, and that has us excited to get the greens aerified.  That is the ideal weather for aerifying anything on the course.  The plugs should come out of the ground nicely and be easy to pick up, and the sand topdressing that we put down to fill the holes will dry quickly and be easy to spread around.  Also, the warmer temperatures that are called for next week will get the greens growing again, and the holes should fill in quickly.  The plan for aerifying the greens remains the same as it was on our first attempt.  We will try to get all of the work completed on Monday, October 3, but some of the topdressing work may have to carry over into Tuesday.  Work that continues into Tuesday may cause the back nine to be closed for part of the day.  As always, I will post updates of the process on the blog and keep the pro shop informed of our progress.   

Greens Aerification Postponed

Due to the rainy weather we are having today, aerification of the greens has been postponed.  We will try again next Monday, as the forecast for the next few days isn't looking very conducive to aerifiying either.  Hopefully, the weather cooperates with us next week. 

Greens Aerification Reminder

We will be aerifying the greens next Monday, September 26th.  Please take this into consideration when making your golf plans for the week.  The plan is to finish completely on Monday, but as always, that is subject to change depending on how the process goes.  We are going to be pulling small cores, since we weren't able to get that done this spring, and then heavily topdressing with sand to fill the holes.  On Monday, we will definitely be able to complete the aerification, but may not be able to finish all the topdressing work.  If we are not finished we may need to keep the back nine closed for part of the day so that we can finish up.  I will post up our progress Monday afternoon.

Seeding, Collars, and Broken Things

With the fairway aerification behind us, it was time to move onto some other projects until we aerify the greens on Monday September 26th, so you may notice some of the projects going on this week.  The first is the pile of dirt in the driving range that has been an eyesore for the past year or so has been graded smooth and seeded.  Now we just have to keep the seed moist, and it should start to turn green in a few weeks.

Another project we started this week and will be ongoing throughout the fall and next spring is our collar uniformity project.  Over the years, the collars around the greens have become extremely varied in size, mostly larger, because of greens mower operators trying not to scalp the collars, so we will be working to achieve a uniform collar width of 48 inches, except in the areas that are intentionally expanded.  Without a uniform width for the collars, the collars will continue to expand because there is no standard width to use for marking collars for the mowers to follow.  Expanding collars and shrinking greens will result in lost hole placements and even more uneven collar sizes.  It's not an easy process to reduce the height of cut from a half an inch down to less than an eighth of an inch so we are going to take our time to minimize scalping of the turf and to try and have as little turf loss as possible.  We have marked all the collars and have made our first height of cut reduction down to a quarter of an inch, and for the most part it went pretty well with only a few areas getting slightly scalped.  In addition to reducing the height of cut, we will also be doing some extra aerification, topdressing, and verticutting to help the turf adjust to the changing height.  Also there will be some areas where there is no benefit to shrinking the collar to add green area so we will be shrinking the collar from the outside by removing bentgrass from the outside and sodding it to bluegrass rough. Hopefully, we will be able to achieve greens height this fall, but it may not be until next spring.  Look forward to a few new hole locations and a cleaner look to the golf course. 

Remember me saying something about our tractor having a major breakdown last week?  Well this is what it looks like right now, and yes it's in two pieces, actually there is third piece on the work bench.  Our equipment technician, Tom is tackling this major project.  A bearing inside the transmission of the tractor failed and tore up quite a few other parts inside.  This is the only way to get at the parts.  As always, I'm very glad we have him here.  I could never remember how to put that all back together.

The Process

Here we go as promised, the fairway aerification process in pictures!

Step 1 - Pull the cores, and leave them on the ground to dry.

Step 2 - After a few hours of drying in the sun, the cores are ground up with a flail mower.

Step 3 - Drag the ground up loose soil back into the turf and into the aerification holes.

Step 4 - Blow off the excess soil and left over tufts of grass and thatch.

Step 5 - Mow the fairway with baskets to pick up excess soil and cut off grass that was
tufted up by the drag mats.

The Final Product - From a distance you can barely tell anything happened!

As you can see, it's a lot of work, but the result and the benefits are worth the work.

Aerification - Day 1

Yesterday's aerfication went really well.  We were able to complete all the front nine fairways, number 10, and number 12.  Most years, we are wrapping up work on number six (our last front nine fairway) as it's beginning to get dark.  This year, we were almost finished with it by 3:30!  For almost the entire day, our equipment ran well, which is a rarity.  I say almost because our tractor that runs the big blower had a major breakdown towards the end of the day.  Fortunately, our friends at Ravisloe are going to be bailing us out today with a spare tractor.  Tee and collar aerification also went well, as the front nine is complete and ready for play. 

I had planned on getting pictures of the whole process up on the blog yesterday, but it was a very hectic day and didn't get a chance to take the pictures.  Since we don't have quite as much work to complete today, I will try to get pictures up later this afternoon.

Remember that the back nine is closed today until the aerification is complete.  If all goes well again today, we should be able to open the back sometime in the afternoon.  Check with the pro shop for the latest updates.

Feels like Fall

We've had some cool mornings lately, but this one really feels like fall, there is a steady breeze out of the north, and the guys on the crew donned gloves and sweatshirts.  Today was also the first day in months that I grabbed pants out of the closet instead of shorts, and I was very glad I did.

As usual, with fall comes aerification, tomorrow we will begin process of aerfiying the tees, fairways, and collars.  The weather that we have could not be any better for it.  The rain that we got over the weekend has the soil nice and moist, but not saturated, and the sun and 70 degree temperatures will get the plugs to dry without burning up the turf.  Perfect.  Since the weather appears that it's going to cooperate, all that we have to have now is cooperation from our aging equipment.  If all goes well tomorrow, we will work from before dawn until dark to get the front nine and hopefully a little more completed.  Wednesday, the back nine will be closed to golf until we are finished with our work, which hopefully will be done sometime late afternoon, and Thursday golf will be back to normal.  Of course, this is all a big if.  Fingers crossed that everything goes well.  We did some test runs on the nursery to make sure everything was working properly and it is for now, but the equipment really takes some abuse during this process and anything can happen when a machine is punching holes in the ground for 12 hours straight.

Remember that the greens will not be aerified this week.  We will be aerifying them on September 26th so get out and enjoy the best golfing weather of the year.

It's a busy Monday out here on the course and the greens are really getting a workout.  Today the greens were aerified with needle tines and then topdressed with sand.  On top of the sand topdressing, we also applied a potassium fertilizer to help with fall rooting and gypsum to maintain soil structure and to help remove harmful salts from our irrigation water that build up in our soil.  The sand, fertilizer, and gypsum were then dragged into the turf canopy and hopefully, some will work its way into the small aerfication holes.  Next the greens were rolled to smooth out the small bumps from the aerifying and now we are spraying the greens with a surfactant which reduces localized dry spots and helps water move deeper into the ground.  After all this work, the greens will get a deep watering this afternoon, so they may be a little on the soft side tomorrow.

In a previous post I mentioned that the 7th hole has very sandy soil, which isn't all that common for the Chicago area, and I think that the history behind that sandy soil is a unique feature of Calumet Country Club.  Our course sits on the edge, or the beach, of Lake Chicago which was a larger version of Lake Michigan that was created as the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age.  There are also some other pockets of sand on the course, but that is the most concentrated area. 

In these soil samples from the 7th hole rough, you can see that once you get about six inches down into the ground, the soil is pure sand.  The top is also very sandy, but has some organic matter mixed in which gives it a darker color. 

The sandy soil is also home to another unique feature of Calumet, black oak trees.  Most of the trees between the 4th and 7th holes are black oak trees, which grow best in sandy soil.  This line of black oak trees is a natural feature and continues into the neighborhood on the other side of Dixie Highway along with the "beach" sand.  When the course was built, these were pretty much the only trees on the course.  In fact, there is a picture in the men's grill taken in that direction from the clubhouse, and those oak trees are the only trees in the picture.   

A sprinkler got stuck on last night on the front of theseventh green.  This is what it looks like when a sprinker runs for six hours straight.  We will try to squee-gee as much water off the green and approach as possible, but it will still be very soft so please repair your ballmarks and be careful when you are walking on it.  Also, we will probably have to skip cutting this green for today, so it may be slower than the rest.  Hopefully the breeze this morning will dry it out quickly. 

If you have been near the 7th hole in the last few weeks, I'm sure that you have seen a few of these nasty looking bugs hovering around the ground.  Don't let them scare you though, they are not wasps or hornets, they are called cicada killers.  They are not aggressive, and will only sting if you stepped on one or grabbed it out of the air, unless you are a cicada.  As the name suggests, they kill cicadas by stinging them and then dragging them back in to the burrows that they dig in the ground.  They tend to concentrate in that area of the course because they like to dig in sandy soil, and that area of the course is very sandy.  On other courses that do not have sandy soil areas, you will often see them digging in bunkers.

Pile of sand created by burrowing cicada killers

Cicada Killer Mounds on 7 fairway



Warm + Rain = Disease

Unfortunately we seem to have slipped into a similar weather pattern to what we had at the beginning of the year.  Last night we had a very noisy thunderstorm come through the area, luckily we only received a half an inch of rain overnight.  Now though, we have had a steady light rain for the past few hours and it doesn't appear to be letting up very soon.  It appears that it may rain off an on for a few more hours.

So far the course is handling the water relatively well, but there are definitely some squishy areas out there.  With the temperatures that are forecasted, this is turning into a superintendents worst nightmare.  Saturated soil, high humidity, and night time temperatures over 70 degress are an ideal breeding ground for turf diseases, especially pythium blight and brown patch. 

Pythium can be a very devastating disease if it goes unchecked and untreated.  So far we have only seen very isolated patches of pythium in our bentgrass areas, because they have all been treated preventatively for it.  Monday we did have quite a bit of the disease in the intermediate rough, and for the first time since I've been here at Calumet we went out an specifically sprayed the intermediate rough for pythium.  Given the current forecast, it was a good decision.

Brown patch is a different story though.  After the rain on Sunday, brown patch really kicked into gear, and many of our wet low areas got hit, especially #7 about 50 yards from the green.  Brown patch is typically not devastating to turf like pythium is, but all the fairways were treated with fungicide on Tuesday so the disease is no longer active.  The affected areas should be fully recovered in a week or two. 

Course Conditions, July 24

UPDATE:
Due to the continuing rainfall.  There will be no carts for the rest of the day.  Once the lightning clears the area, walkers are welcome to come out and play.

Earlier I posted that we dodged a bullet last night.  We did, but this morning we didn't.  It has been pouring here for about an hour, and in that hour we have already received over an inch of rain, and it doesn't appear to be letting up any time soon.  The lightning display has been incredible too.  As of right now, there are no carts, and it's likely to stay that way for the whole day.  As always, we will evaluate the conditions later in the day and I will keep the blog updated with the latest information.

Course Conditions, July 23

So far this morning we seemed to have dodged a bullet.  We received 1.2" of rain overnight on top of the 0.5" we got yesterday morning, but that is nothing compared to what some areas farther north received.  Channel 7 was reporting this morning that O'Hare got 5.5" of rain in 2 hours!  There is more rain out to the west that looks like it could hit us, but it's still hard to tell.  Most of the rain appears to be headed north, lets hope it stays that way.

All that being said, the course was very dry going into yesterday's rain, so it has soaked up the water fairly well.  Carts will be going this morning as long as we don't get any more rain.  I haven't been able to survey the entire course though, so there is a chance that they may need to be in the rough only depending on how the water soaks in over the next few hours.  Why in the rough when it's normally fairways only?  That is because the rough doesn't really get much irrigation so when we have long dry periods where the fairways are getting watered, the rough is much more able to soak up the rain.

So far so good

Even with the air temperature at a sweltering 98.4 degrees, the course is holding up quite well.  To keep the chances of promoting disease to a minimum, we have been very conservative with our irrigation.  Yesterday afternoon the fairways and greens got a little crispy, but after some much needed irrigation late last night and early this morning they are holding up to this heat very well.  With the humidity being so high this water should last us a few days.  We will continue to be diligent with our watering and monitoring of the turf and hopefully apart from some burned up rough areas, come out of this heat wave unscathed.

Here Comes the Heat!

After all the whining and complaining about the rain and dismal weather this spring from superintendents and golfers, mother nature appears to have decided that it's time for payback.  Although, this time most of the complaining will be coming from superintendents and not the golfers.  We are in the midst of a very dry strech, but this weeks cooler temperatures provided some great golfing conditions.  Without much heat we were really able to dry out the golf course without too much risk of having grass wilt and die.  The coming week will be a different story with the forecast calling for a significant amount of heat and humidity.

Over the past few days we have made some preparations for the heat.  The first is that we have "loaded up" on irrigation Thursday night and Friday night.  Once the heat and humidity arrives, we want to be watering as little as possible.  Irrigating at night prolongs the amount of time that the grass is wet and encourages fungal disease, so we watered everything the past two nights so that we can wait until the heat has passed to water.  During the heat, we will try to get everything by with hand watering and running sprinklers selectively during the day.

We will also be easing off some of our mowing and rolling of the greens, and the front rollers on the mowers have been changed to solid rollers to limit the stress on the turf.  Our normal rollers (on the mower) are grooved to allow the mower to settle into the turf and provide a truer height of cut, but these grooves can be stressfull on the turf, especially on the cleanup passes when the mowers are turning.  So for this heat wave, we have switched our front rollers to solid rollers without grooves.

If the heat wave really comes to fruition, I will make sure to keep the blog updated on how the course is holding up, and some more of the strategies that we use to make sure the turf comes out of it healthy.

Emerald Ash Borer Update

In 2008, the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) was found to be infesting trees very near Calumet.  In fact, the main infestation was less than a mile to the west of us in Hazel Crest.  Within a few days of the discovery the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Village of Homewood paid us a visit to check our ash trees to determine the extent of the infestation.  It was quickly determined that some of our ash trees had the EAB, they had been here for a few years, and that many of our ash trees were showing the tell tale signs of the borer being present. 

One of the signs that can be seen from the ground is woodpecker damage.  EAB larvae are just under the bark of the tree and the woodpeckers work to get them out of the tree.  Woodpecker holes alone do not necessarily mean that EAB is in the tree.

Trees that have been infested for a few years will begin to thin out near the top of the tree, and will also have water sprouts or "suckers" coming out of the trunk and lower branches.  "Suckering" is common on many trees, but is not the normal growth habit for ash trees.   The thin top and the suckering is a result of the EAB larvae burrowing just underneath the bark of the tree and cutting off the supply of water and nutrients to the top of the tree.  The suckering is essentially a last ditch effort for the tree to survive.

You can see in this picture the burrows or 'galleries' that will eventually cut off the trees water supply and kill the tree.

The signature sign of the EAB in the tree is this D-shaped hole in the bark.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but this is actually a very small hole.  It is only 1/8 of an inch across.  Ash trees may have other D-shaped holes that are larger, but those are made by native ash borers that do not kill the tree.

So what is the fate of the ash trees at Calumet?  Unfortunately, most of them are going to end up like this tree on the right side of the fourth fairway.  We have about 90 ash trees on the course right now.  When the EAB was first found here, we selected 13 trees that we deemed valuable to the golf course and we are treating those on a yearly basis.  Most of those trees are still very healthy.  The difficulty is that these treatment will have to continue indefinitely to keep the EAB out of those trees.  Last summer we were thinking that the ash trees were going to live for awhile because most of them appeared to be healthy still and only showing minor signs of decline.  Coming out of winter this year was a different story.  Many of the ash trees on the course are in severe decline and quite a few, especially around the perimeter of the property, are completely dead.  We haven't gotten a total count of trees that are suffering, but we are estimating that we will be removing at least 30 or 40 ash trees this coming winter.  This is just an unfortunate reality of what can happen when an invasive pest comes from another country and our plants aren't able to defend themselves.  Hopefully, the ash trees in key areas that were selected for treatment will continue to thrive. 

Its a beautiful morning

We watered!

After a dry and beautiful Independence Day weekend, the golf course finally needed some water that was not provided by mother nature.  Even though we were watering in chemicals (grub control), the golf course was definitely in need of a drink, so we are going to count that as the first regular irrigation cycle of the season, and a big cycle it was.  The course was very dry and our goal was to water heavily to provide the turf with enough water to last a few days.  A superintendent's, golden rule for irrigation is "water deeply and infrequently."  Wetting the entire soil profile and then letting it dry as much as possible encourages deep rooting of the turf.  On the other hand, watering light and frequently keeps the top of the soil profile moist and causes shallow roots because the turf never has to work to reach for the water.  Watering deep and infrequently is a practice that homeowners need to follow also.  Too many times I hear about and see yards or businesses that have the sprinklers turn on everyday for a few minutes.  Not only is this practice wasting a great deal of water, it's encouraging shallower rooting of the turf, contributing to disease problems, and not allowing the grass to be prepared for stress.  If you are one of these "offenders," consider changing you irrigation habits.  Make sure to stop Adam or Me on the course and we can explain to you how to slowly change over to proper irrigation habits.  (It could get ugly if you go cold turkey on the watering.) Your grass and the environment will thank you.

Keeping with the topic of yard advice, time is running out to apply preventative grub control products, that is the chemical that had to be watered in with the irrigation yesterday.  We apply grub control every year to a good portion of the golf course.  Greens, green banks, tees, tee banks, fairways and about 15 feet of the rough around the fairways are treated for grubs.  Other areas of the rough we are willing to take a chance on damage because they aren't as important to golf, and they are not irrigated.  Grubs prefer irrigated turf over non-irrigated turf.

The forecast for this week looks absolutely beautiful, and dry so I'm sure that it won't be the last time we water this week.  Summer is actually here!

Unexpected Storms Last Night

Last night we came very close to running our first full, overnight watering cycle of the year.  No, I'm not exaggerating or joking, we have not had to run a normal irrigation cycle yet this year.  The only watering that we have done is either to water in chemicals and fertilizer, or some minor hand watering of the greens.  After the last few days with no rain, the course was finally becoming dry and we were set to run a full cycle last night.  Then last night some unexpected storms rolled through with an incredible lightning display, a little bit of small hail, and an inch of rain in less than an hour.  Fortunately, the course was quite dry and was able to soak up most of the rain.  Also, considering how fast the rain fell, I'm sure that a lot of it ran off into drains and the creeks before having a chance to soak into the soil.  I would not be surprised if we actually do need to run an irrigation cycle before the end of the weekend.  Not really having to water until July has to be some kind of record.

Team Calumet Brings Home the Dom Grotti Cup

This past Tuesday, Adam, my assistant, and I participated in the Midwest Association of Golf Course Superintendents Dom Grotti championship.  The event was held at Prairie Bluff Golf Course in Lockport, and  it's a yearly event for Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent teams.  It's a net score event, and at the end of the day we came away with the championship.  I shot a personal best 80, beating my old best by four strokes, for a net 62, and Adam also played very well, shooting 81 for a net 73.  

Course Conditions, June 21

After receiving another inch of rain yesterday, the golf course is in relatively good shape.  It is still quite soft, but the wet areas are very minimal so carts will be going today with no restrictions.  There are few areas in the rough that still have standing water on them so I ask that you be careful to avoid those areas.  The worst area to watch out for is the rough between 15 and 18 near the 15th green.

Once again, the forecast is calling for more rain today so lets hope that it misses us.  Considering how saturated the course is right now, any significant rainfall will be sure to put a damper on the cart situation.

12 Drainage

Yesterday we started a new drainage project on the right side of #12 near the fence and in the fairway.  It's a little different than the normal drainage projects we do because the water isn't actually going to drain anywhere.  This is an area that is essentially a bathtub and fills up with over a foot of water when we get heavy rainfall.  Unfortunately the nearest place that we can move the water to is the creek which is a few hundred yards away, so that water has to be pumped off the course.  

To make this pumping process easier, we dug a big pit that we can insert the suction hose of the pump into instead of digging a hole in the rough.  In the pit we installed a sump pump liner and surrounded it with gravel so that small amounts of rain can filter out of the pit and into the ground.

The hole with the sump pump liner.  The water in the pit is all ground water that filled the hole after it was dug.

Leading away from the pit we also trenched a drainline to the fairway so that the area in the fairway that holds water would also be pumped down when the pit is pumped out.  We used to have to squee-gee all the water to the low area.  There will also be a drainline that goes to another area in the rough that holds water.

After the pipe was laid in the ground, the soil and sod was put back over the top of the new line.  The fairway drain is visible in the picture.

The new sump pit.

Course conditions, June 11

We finally caught a break and barely got any rain over night.  The difference from yesterday to this morning is amazing.  Carts will be going on the course today with some restrictions.  Carts need to stay in the fairways and on cart paths, there are still many wet areas in the rough.  Also, holes three and six still have a lot of water on them so carts will be restricted to a white line for those two holes only.  The sun seems to be trying to burn off some morning fog, so it should be a nice day for golf.

Course Conditions, June 10

It should come to no surprise to readers of the blog that there will be no carts today.  Early this morning we received another 0.3" of rain.  Although, that's not a substantial amount, more rain is not something that we needed.  There is more heavy rain forecasted for tonight, which puts the whole weekend in jeopardy as far as carts go.

We are going to begin our cleanup work as if it's not going to rain so that we are prepared for play if the rain tonight does not develop.  There's a lot of water that needs to be pumped before the course looks like itself again.  Check here tomorrow morning to find rainfall totals, and the status of carts.

Today's Course Conditions.....WET!

There will be no carts today, but rowboat shuttles are running from 4 Tee to 4 Green!

That picture just about says it all.  Starting at about 2:00 in the the morning last night the golf course got hammered with rain until about 9:30 this morning.  All in all we received 3.25" of rain, and obviously the course is pretty much flooded.  If you haven't already heard, the Member-Guest event that was scheduled to be played tomorrow is cancelled and will be played on July 22nd instead.  Hopefully everyone that was signed up to play can make it to the new date.

I took a walk onto the course  as the rain subsided and took some pictures. I will let them do the talking.

#18 Fairway from the Green

#10 Fairway from the right fairway bunkers looking towards the green

#3 Fairway

#4 Ladies Tee is there somewhere

I know that I have short legs, but water up to my knees is still pretty deep!

Looking from 3 Rough towards 4 green.  The margins of the creek are barely visible.

The only silver lining to this situation is that the hot weather is not supposed to be coming back for awhile.  If we had this much standing water with high temperatures our turf would be in great danger.  You all saw last year what can happen to grass when standing water and heat combine, and I know that none of us want to see that again anytime soon.

It will be interesting to see how quickly all this water goes down.  The weather forecast calls for more rain tonight and tomorrow morning, hopefully we don't get much out of that because the weekend is supposed to be nice.  I will keep the blog updated with information about how the course is drying out, so be sure to check here for the latest information about the course conditions.