Where does the time go? I had hopped to be able to keep this up to date at least once a month, maybe next year. So I thought I would post up some pictures from the time of my last blog until now.
This is one of my assistants spraying fertilizer on the greens. 80% of the fertilizer the greens receive comes in the form of weekly sprayings. We do this to spoon feed the greens small amounts of the nutrients that they need according to soil testing. This year we have expanded this program to the fairways and the results were amazing to say the least. They had controllable growth, held the ball up great, and had great color. Next year we will spray the tees also. The liquid fertilizer a little more expensive but the benefits are worth the price.
More pictures of Jill our landscapers fantastic work. This year was her first year with us and next year she plans even more color and has taken many notes of what works in certain areas and what doesn't.
We had a few good windstorms come through during the summer. This tree went down on 7 fairway half of it is still standing but we will be removing the rest of it this winter.
This fall we had an algae flair up on the pond buy 13 green it got really smelly. This picture is of my assistants treating the pond with some chemical and breaking up the big clumps of algae in hopes of them sinking to the bottom.
This root actually grew between the wires and the pipe. We had to cut the root out because the pipe had developed a leak. We are very lucky it had not pulled the wires enough to cause them to break.
This deer was inspecting the bunker to make sure it was raked properly.
One of the great benefits of my job is I get to witness many beautiful sunrises.
All the golfer ready to roll for our Labor day Open.
Fairway aeration and one of our operators.
This is how we aerate the greens when we want to pull a core. The size and spacing can all be adjusted. This fall we pulled a 1/2 inch core some years we pull a 5/8 but with the late aeration I felt it was more important to make sure the holes healed then the amount of material removed.
This is the machine we use to apply the sand to the greens, our goal is to put down an amount to completely fill the holes.
There are many ways we work the sand into the greens we use blowers, metal mats, and brushes.
This is the two assistants getting ready to sand topdress the fairways. Usually we put down about 450 tons of sand but budget reasons and weather conditions this fall we only put down 300 tons. The purpose of the sand is the same as for the greens it helps with thatch control and an added bonus it makes the worm casting a little more sandy which don't smear on the fairways quite as bad.
New Rough mower with over 6000 hours the old mower had become to costly to maintain for everyday duty.
