Busy Week

We finally got a dry week, and that means that we had a lot of work to get to that had been postponed.  It's been a very busy and productive week.  The only problem is that whenever we cross something off the to-do list, we add two or three more things.  It's a never ending battle to try and accomplish everything we would like to do on the course. 

Over the course of the week, all of our bentgrass areas got their first fertilization of the spring.  Greens were fertilized on Monday, fairways and the range tee on Wednesday, and tees on Thursday.  Fertilizer has to be watered in to prevent burning of the turf, so this is why you may have seen sprinklers running this week.  Those of you who saw them on probably thought we were crazy for watering when it was just a week ago that we were complaining about how wet the course was.  Fertilization of the fairways is also why you may have seen a monster truck cruising the course.  We use an outside company that can fertilize all the fairways in about two hours.  It would take us an entire day with three people working on it.

The "Monster Truck"

We also managed to make a bigger mess out of our drainage repair on number three.  The holes got expanded in an attempt to find the pipe that the water was coming from and we had success!  After digging a wide hole that is nearly five feet deep we found an 8 inch clay tile that has probably been in the ground for 75 years.  We haven't been able to determine everything that ties into it, but it is a lot, so there could be many problem areas solved by getting this one pipe to flow freely into the ditch.  Right now, we are trying to let as much water out as possible so that it is easier to work on, but the water keeps coming.  It has been flowing freely for 48 hours now, and isn't showing any signs of the flow dropping. 

We've got a gusher!

Yesterday, (Thursday) we were able to aerify the collars around the greens and since we are modifying our greens aerification to solid tines, we core aerified the outside four feet of every green.  This is a very high traffic area, and every little bit of aerification we can get in those areas is a big help.  Coming up on Monday we will be aerifying the greens with small solid tines, topdressing with sand, and applying some soil amendments that will help get the greens through the upcoming summer.

I know that many of you have taken note of our resident Red Tail Hawks that soar over the course, but there is plenty of other wildlife that shows up on the course.  Some sightings are rarer than others though.  Once in a while a deer will find it's way on to the course by jumping the fence.  This was taken on Wednesday.  Click on the photo to make it bigger, I wasn't able to get very close to the deer for a camera phone pic.