Rain!

It's been a long time since we've seen a cup full of water.  Taken Saturday, June 30.  #6 Green

Mother nature seems to have changed her mind very quickly, and because of that, our mindset is changing very quickly.  Typical for the Chicago area, if you don't like the weather, wait an hour.  Seeing as how we've been so focused on managing the drought conditions this year, you would think that we would be able to relax some with the rains that we have been seeing the past few days.  Unfortunately, this is only partially true.  While we may not have to worry about dragging hoses around, we now have to worry about disease pressures that we have not really had to face much this year.  Superintendents are rarely happy with the weather.

Rains on Friday morning brought us 1.3" of welcome rain, and a storm with heavy rain rolled through just a few minutes before I started writing this, my guess is that we have received about another half inch of rain.  Now with the forecast showing sustained heat and humidity for the at least the next week we will be shifting our scouting of the course from dry spots to pythium disease scouting.  Pythium Blight is potentially the most devastating disease that we see in this area, as it can kill large areas of turf within hours if it is not controlled quickly.  It is carried by water and is usually seen in wet, low areas and can only survive nights with high humidity and low temperatures above 70 degrees, exactly what we will be seeing for the coming week.  All of our bentgrass areas (tees, greens, and fairways) have had preventative treatments applied, but it is still possible to see breakthroughs so we will have to stay on our toes to make sure that any pythium that pops up is treated curatively and not allowed to spread.

So, although our mindset has changed for now, this summer still continues to be a challenge, and it will be a long time before we are in the clear.

Ouch

This morning we had a massive hydraulic oil leak on one of the fairway mowers on the 15th fairway.

This is about as bad as it gets for this type of situation.  It was just about the longest pass the operator made on this fairway and it started at the beginning of his pass.  The leak was behind him, so there was no chance for him to know what was happening until he turned to make is next pass.  When he turned and saw it, he did the right thing and drove through the rough directly to a cart path and stopped the machine.

Unfortunately, the damage was already done as this grass has essentially zero chance of survival.  Tomorrow we will be resodding this area with sod from another fairway, probably the small fairway on 16 short of the creek, and that area will be reseeded.  Another fairway needs to be used so that the turf we bring in will closely match the turf on the rest of the fairway.  The sod lines will be visible, but we would like to make the transition as disguised as possible especially since it's directly across the middle of the fairway.

Fairway Dry Spots

In a "typical" year, we apply chemicals called wetting agents to the fairways, tees, and greens to prevent a condition called localized dry spots (LDS).  With this year not being very typical, and due to some sprayer malfunctions we were unable to apply the wetting agents to the fairways before the condition developed.  Once the LDS sets in, it can be very difficult to get the soil wet again.  Our hope was that the rain we received last week would help alleviate the problems but it didn't.

This picture of the morning dew shows the polka dotted pattern that the dry spots have made on #1 Fairway.  The dots that you see are areas where dew was unable to form because of the dry soil, an evenly moist soil will have consistent dew on the grass.  (It also shows part of our cure for the problem.)

It's a little difficult to see in the picture, but if you look closely at these two plugs taken just inches apart from each other, you can see that the plug on the left is bone dry and just crumbles when it comes out of the ground, and the plug on the right is evenly moist and holds together.  The one on the right is how it should look.

So far these areas have not wilted or died, but if we don't do anything to get the soil to accept water before the summer heats up we could be looking at fairways that are dotted with brown spots.  This week you will notice that we are aerifying selected fairway areas with solid tines, these are the areas that have LDS, and the holes are the first step to fixing the problem.  Next, we will spray a wetting agent that is specifically for curing dry spots over the holes and then the areas will be watered heavily.  This process will get the dry spots to take water and allow our preventative wetting agent applications to to their job.

Picture Recap

Sorry that it's been a few weeks since I have posted anything on the blog.  We have been very busy working out on the course, but I've still been gathering material for the blog, so here is a picture recap of the work we have been doing the past few weeks.

Cleaned out a drain line near 6 fairway that was VERY clogged with roots.

Weeded and Mulched the areas surrounding the 8th and 9th tee.

Flower Delivery.  They are all in the ground now.

Rose bushes are blooming like crazy.  (I know, we didn't actually do that.)

Mice made a cozy home in a satellite box and chewed up all the wires.  This,
combined with a separate issue cause the pond on 14 to overflow and do...

...this.  

It's been a very busy spring for the grounds staff, but I'm starting to feel like we are catching up with the to do list.  Many of the projects on the list have been crossed off, and now we are finally getting in to a normal routine.  I hope to see many of you out on this course this Memorial Day weekend, with the forecast calling for 95 degrees on Sunday, I know that I will be seeing a lot of the course!

Cart Etiquette Reminder

This week we added some directional cart signs to the golf course in order to reduce cart traffic and wear in the approaches and on the greens surrounds.  Please do not drive past these signs as you drive towards the green in the fairway.  Follow the arrow that is on the sign and drive your cart to the nearest cart path that goes around the green.  Also follow these rules when using carts:

• KEEP CARTS AT LEAST 30 FEET FROM ALL GREENS AND TEES
• USE CART PATHS WHENEVER POSSIBLE
• KEEP ALL FOUR WHEELS OF YOUR CART ON THE PATH
• AVOID DRIVING ON BUNKER BANKS AND STEEP SLOPES

Remember that this is your golf course and there are many things you can do to protect it.  Using these guidelines for proper cart usage you can reduce the damage and wear that carts can inflict on the course.

May showers brings May flowers?

After an extremely dry April, mother nature seems determined to make up some lost ground.  In the past week and a half we have received over four inches and rain, and it is still raining here on Monday afternoon.  Until yesterday the rains had been fairly modest, but had been enough to make the golf course green and moist again.  Yesterdays rains were not quite so kind.  A thunderstorm rolled through early in the afternoon dropping .8 inches of rain in just over 30 minutes, and more storms rolled through over night hammering us with another 1.3 inches!  It has been sprinkling for most of the day today with the rain becoming steady at times, not a good way to dry out the course from yesterdays deluges.  The course is completely saturated right now, and the chances of allowing carts on the course tomorrow are pretty slim.  As always, we will be constantly evaluating the cart situation so pray for sun and wind!

Last night's storms were very active with lighting, and this tree on the west side of 18 fairway got the worst of it.  The lightning blew some pretty large chunks off the tree and some of the debris from the tree was thrown 60 feet.  There was also another tree struck by lightning on the fenceline to the south of the 14th hole during the afternoon thunderstorm.  These trees should be a reminder of why it's important to get off the course when there is lightning in the area. 

Bunker Edging

Last week the crew put in some hard work re-establishing the bunker edges that have crept in over the years.  Areas where the grass had grown into the sand were cut out and sand was pushed back up into those areas. 

Some areas where the mechanical bunker rake drives out of the sand were also cut out so that those areas can be sodded.  In order to hold back the sod and the soil that is necessary to recreate the edge, small plywood walls were installed in those spots.  When the course dries out this week, we will add soil and sod to finish up this project.  The plywood walls will have to stay in the ground until the sod has rooted enough to hold onto the soil, which could be a few weeks.