Well, it has begun, probably my least favorite time of the golf season. The silver maple trees have started to drop their samaras, helicopters, or whirlybirds. Whatever term you prefer to use, they are still a pain for us. They will be here for a few weeks, screwing up putts, making a mess of the golf course, and pulling staff away from mowing and other important jobs to blow the mess off the playing surfaces. We will do our best to minimize their impact on play, but given the fact that over 30 percent of our tree population is silver maple trees, it will be an uphill battle.
Besides the silver maple helicopters, our course work continues. Today we are core aerifying and heavily
topdressing the tees with sand. We are also topdressing the greens for the second week in a row. In the past we usually topdressed the greens every three weeks because of the old and inefficient machine that we had. The old machine could not lay down an even layer of sand so after we topdressed, there was too much sand on the putting surface. This sand on the top of the grass resulted in the greens mowers needing to be sharpened everytime we topdressed, sometimes twice, before the grass had grown through the sand. Now with the new machine we are experimenting with laying down a very light and even layer of sand every week that won't destroy the mowers with every application.
We have also resumed work on the new blue tee for the sixth hole. The base is set and leveled and we will be adding the construction mix and working on finished grades next. We hope to have the tee sodded by the end of the week, but that may be a little ambitious. After the tee is sodded it will take a few weeks for the sod to take root, and then it will be open for play! It will be quite a challenge from back there, even for you big hitters.
Last week, the ash trees that were selected to be treated for the emerald ash borer, were treated with insecticide and fertilizer. We are currently treating 12 trees, but there are two trees that are in decline despite the treatments. They will be evaluated next year to see if it is worth it to continue treatments, or if the trees will need to be removed. Overall, the treatments are working well, in the picture there are two ash trees next to each other on the 16th hole. Can you tell which one is being treated and which isn't?
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