Rain. Again.

The puddles/ponds on the course were starting to shrink, so it had to rain again.  We haven't gotten a whole lot of rain today, but it was enough to keep everything wet and we are supposed to be getting a significant amount of rain tonight.  Let's hope that it misses us. 

I like to get my forecasts from weather.com because they tend to be more conservative.  The local news stations could be reporting that it's going to 95 degrees one day in the summer and weather.com will forecast 87 degrees, and the 87 is usually closer to reality.  This goes for rainfall too.  It's very rare that weather.com puts a large measurement of rain in their forecasts, and for tonight it says, "rainfall possibly over one inch."  I hate it when it says that.

When we get large quantities of rain in a short amount of time, the creek/ponds that runs from the twelfth hole to the eleventh hole comes out of it's banks and creates a huge mess.  The amount of garbage that flows through that waterway during a large rain event is just incredible, or disgusting, depending on how you want to look at it.  I vote for the latter.


The mess left from Fridays rainfall.  And yes, that's a piece of a telephone pole.

 Hopefully, my next post will be talking about how all the rain missed us, and that everything is drying nicely.  In the meantime, Nittany says GO HAWKS!

Easter Sunday Course Conditions

Carts will be allowed on the entire course today, but there are still going to be some restrictions.  The golf course is still very wet, and there is still a fair amount of standing water in places, mostly in the rough though.  So for today the cart restrictions are:

Carts in Fairways only - Driving from the tee to the fairway, keep your cart within the width of the fairway, and when you get to the fairway, do not drive in the rough.

Keep Carts on Paths when one is available

Keep Carts on the White Line for Hole #3 and #6 - these holes are very flat and are the last holes on the course to dry out when we have the kind of rains that we have been getting.  There are areas on these holes that carts will cause severe damage to the turf.

I can't stress enough that it is very important that cart users abide by these restrictions in order to protect the golf course from cart damage.

As of right now, 6:54am on Saturday, there are no carts allowed on the golf course.  Over the course of the day yesterday we received another 1.25" of rain, bringing our seven day total to 3".  We are going to try to let the course dry, for a few more hours and reevaluate our options for cart usage at 10:00.  Hopefully, we will see the sun soon.  We need it.

UPDATE:  Carts will be allowed on the back nine beginning at 11:00 a.m. "Cart Path" only.  Carts will be required to stay on a white line ("cart path") that will be painted in the grass, and on the cart paths the white line leads to.  It is very important that carts stay on the line.  The golf course is still extremely wet and carts not following the line will damage the course.

What a great day for a walk...

Well, after a one day reprieve from the rain and a little glimpse of the sun, we are back to being soaking wet.  After receiving another 0.9" last night and into this morning with more on the way later today, we have no carts on the golf course.  Again.  Maybe the forecasts for this afternoon are all wrong.  Since last Friday we have now received over 2.5" of rain.

Nittany and I just got back from a walk to check on the golf course and to clear some debris off surface drains that were plugged up.  The puddle in the picture was on top of a drain that was plugged up with grass clippings.  That puddle is probably almost gone now.  I took a few other pictures while I was out there.  It's certainly not the most standing water that has ever been out here, but it's definitely close to the most saturated I've ever seen it.

Our drainage system hard at work.

Looking Down 5 Fairway from 5 Green

No Carts Today, April 20th

Due to the amount of rain we received last night, there will be no carts on the golf course today.  As usual, you are welcome to come out and walk the course if you would like to play.

Last night we received an inch of rain in under an hour, and practically flooded the golf course.  I checked out the golf course last night soon after the rain subsided, and there was water just about everywhere.  This morning, much of the water has gone down, but the course remains saturated.  Our rain total since Friday afternoon is now up to 1.86".  Without warm temperatures and sun, it is difficult for that much rain to evaporate from the course.  Lets keep hoping that there is a change in the weather soon. 

Aerfication Postponed

With the weather being significantly less than ideal, we will not be able to aerify the greens this week as was originally planned.  Hopefully, the weather will cooperate with us next Monday, April 25th.  Currently the forecast doesn't look good for next week either, but it's a long way off and we all know that forecasts have a tendency to change.

What's the reason that we need a nice day for aerifying?  The biggest thing that we need is dry weather, and some sun helps too.  We are going to be pulling cores from the greens, and if they get wet or stay wet after they are pulled, the dirt turns into mud and gets smeared on the greens as we are picking them up.  Also, we can not spread sand to fill the holes in wet conditions.  The sand that we spread is wet, and needs the sun to dry it out so that it can be moved around easily on the greens to fill in the holes. 

I will post up any updates on the aerification schedule.  In the meantime, think about sunny and warm weather, and be glad that it didn't snow in Homewood.

Season is rolling now

After a weekend with summertime temperatures, the grass is really starting to grow and our tasks and pace of work is starting to feel more and more like the heart of the golf season.  We've had a lot of small projects to complete, and we still have many more to get to.  Now that we are having to keep up with mowing grass our efforts and staff are really ramping up.

One project that was front and center to the membership was the giant hole we cut in the parking lot near the bagroom.  The waterline that runs from the clubhouse to the cartbarn/caddyhouse was leaking again, and instead of trying to find the leak that could have been anywhere in a 50 foot area, we decided to tie the golf course irrigation system into the newer pipe that runs to the cartbarn from the hole we dug.  Here is what our completed work looked like before we filled the hole in with gravel. 

The irrigation pipe is the white pipe at the top of the "T" and the pipe running to the cartbarn is the copper pipe at the bottom of the tee.  The wires that you see are the control wires for the sprinkers in the front clubhouse lawn.  A paving company will be coming out to patch the asphalt.

Something that golfers notice every spring, is that the pond on number 14 is very low.  It's actually only low for a few days and then it gets refilled.  We pump the water out of the pond into the creeks using the irrigation system.  This is done because of road salt.  The pond next door fills up with drainage from the office park roads, and that pond feeds into our pond.  Since the water in our pond is what we water the golf course with, and salt water and grass don't get along very well we need to get rid of this water.  By pumping the water out of the pond and filling it back up with our well water, we can greatly reduce the salt levels in the water that is being used to irrigate the golf course. 

Driving Range Opening

The driving range will be open for the season tomorrow, Wednesday, April 6th. 

Mad Science?

Compared to many other golf courses, we've been pretty lucky to not have too many problems with moss growth on our greens, but some spots are starting to develop.  The worst spot is on the front right of the 14th green on the slope, which is where moss tends to develop. 

In the grand scheme of things, moss is a relatively new problem to golf courses for two main reasons.  The first is the EPA removal of mercury fungicides many years ago.  Mercury is toxic to the moss and now that all the residues of those fungicides are gone from the soil, the moss is able to grow.  The other reason is the low heights of cut that we use on greens can cause turf to thin out, especially in high traffic areas and on severe slopes, allowing the moss to encroach on the turf. 

Unfortunately, removal of the moss can be a tricky process, especially when it becomes a widespread problem.  There are newly available herbicides that are somewhat effective on the moss, but are not a 100% cure.  Since our moss problem is isolated right now, we are trying a different "herbicide" that has been known to be quite effective in reducing the moss population, but can also be effective in reducing the turf population.  We are using a mixture of baking soda and water applied directly to the moss with a handheld squirt bottle, so that we limit how much gets on the turf surrounding the moss.  We will make two applications this spring, I will keep you updated on the results.