Holes 5 and 6 update

The new greens are progressing very well. We should be on track for an opening around May 15th. We have mowed them 6 times and are now going to an every other day mowing schedule. We have also hydrojected them 2 times and which aerates and smooths them out. Yesterday day we sanded and aerated them with 1/4 tines and then rolled them again.  The current height of cut is 0.235.  By the summer they should be around 0.140.

The sod has rooted in about 1.5 inches so far.

We topdressed the green first so we would not make ruts on the green

 An added advantage of sanding first is that a good portion of the sand vibrates into the holes which results in much less dragging.

Repair of Practice Bunker

The time has come to repair our practice bunker.  The reason being is that in 20 years the bunker face has grown to the point that is has become too steep.  Our plan is to lower the face of the bunker and remove the center thumb which will increase the amount of usable practice area.  We should be able to complete this processes in about a week.

Buildup of sand after many years of practice

The thumb we will be removing to increase the amount of usable practice area 

First mowing of new green installed 4 days ago. HOC 0.280

Laying Sod 5 and 6 green

The sod has been installed on 5 and 6 green. The process went very smooth the 5 man crew laid greens, collars and approaches on those holes in about 10 hours.

Sod arriving, it took 2 truckloads

The sod was laid with a tracked machine.  The turf was also planked to reduce tracking

The sod came in large rolls

The seams were pulled tightly together

6 green completed

We added sand in the seams and washed it in

Installing the collar

Rolling the collar and green

Completed green

Re-grassing holes 5,6

The following is a reprint of my April newsletter and following that I will be posting pictures of the regrassing of holes 5 and 6.

Notes from the Fairways

Well spring has sprung.  In this newsletter I am going to explain what is going on holes 5 and 6. 

Our greens are made up of a mixture of creeping bentgrass and Poa annua.  It is estimated that 65% of the golf greens in the United States are a mixture of bent/poa.  So you may ask why is it so bad? Poa’s survival mechanism is reproduction so it dumps all of its energy into making seeds.  Poa is a very weak plant and is susceptible to heat stress, cold stress and many diseases.    Poa is a very aggressive weed.  One plant can produce 360 seeds in a growing season, and can go from germination to seeding in 45 days.  With this said, in the past we would never have tried to produce a pure bentgrass stand of grass, but in the last 5 years some very aggressive new cultivars of bentgrass have come on the market along with many new chemicals aimed at controlling Poa.  Our plan of attack is to strip all the sod off including the collar and approach.  (The reason for removing collar and approach is to keep poa as far away from our new greens as possible). Next we will fumigate the soil to kill off some of the seeds in the seedbank.  The sod grower will come and lay large rolls of pure bentgrass on the green surface and Bluegrass for the approach and collars.  After about 5 days we will get a one ton roller and roll the greens and then probably mow the next day.  With decent weather we will be on the greens in 4 weeks.  Now it will take some time to get them up to our normal speeds as we have to slowly lower the Height of cut as to not shock them or scalp them.  For up to date information and pictures of this project checkout my blog at avondalegolfcourse@blogspot.com

See you on the course.

Picture of 6 green showing the survival of the overseeded bent grasss compared to the sodded  Poa from 2012. The Poa is the very dead looking grass on the left.

Preparing to cut out the old sod.  We went as deep at the sod cutter would go to remove as much organic material as possible

The next step was to cut it into pieces and lift it out and haul it off.  The pieces were very heavy since we had cut them so thick.  We did very well and in 1 1/2 days we had removed all the greens sod.

Next we triple rototilled  the greens surface to blend in any leftover organic material

Wheel packing the surface before smoothing and floating it out.

removing the approach sod, the reason we are doing this is because the same mower that mows the approach mows the collar and we want to keep the Poa as far away from are new bent as possible.  Note the wet spot an the left next to the grass, that is a natural spring.

The above 2 pictures shows us digging to install drainage to firm up 6 approach.  This natural spring filled up the ditch we dug by the next morning.  We installed drain tile and pea to capture this spring which should help firm up this approach.

We used the approach sod to build a new blue tee on hole 9.

Final  grading 

Ready for sod

On April 7th at about 10:30 am we will start laying the sod and will be completed Tuesday the 8th.  With decent weather we should be able to start playing on them around May 15th.  If interested the USGA published an article talking about the trend of re-grassing with pure bent, here is the link: http://gsr.lib.msu.edu/article/skorulski-cool-11-16-12.pdf

Winter MARCHes on

The Saga continues, last year at this time we had already been playing golf for four days.  This year we still have about a foot of snow on the ground.  Yesterday we removed the snow off of five of the greens that we have experienced trouble with in the past.

Snow Blower loaded up ready for action

Feels like a never ending task when your clear  6,000 sq feet of snow and toward the end  you are moving it twice as the snow-blower can only throw it so far.

That is how we did 9 and 18 greens and today they look like this

9 Green one day after snow blowing

Now 12,14, and 15 are a different story as we have about 1-3 inches of ice on them so we used the plow tractor and sand pro

Sand pro with blade

In this picture sand has already been applied

In previous blogs I have discussed why ice is bad.  This year we are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it to try and prevent turf loss but mother nature definitely has different plans.  We have cleared the snow many times, top-dressed with black sand and regular sand, installed black mat materials,squeegeed and pumped the free water off of them.

Applying regular sand

Pumping free water off green surface

Only time will tell how much turf has been lost.  Turf loss is not the end of the world and we may have to re-sod some of the areas.  It is to early to speculate yet but your turf management team has many scenarios lined up to get the greens repaired in a timely professional matter so when the peak seasons hits we will all have forgot about the crazy winter we have experienced this year.

Going Electronic

This is a picture of our new electronic job board.  Myself and assistance will be able to update tasks while we are on the course. All employees will be able to see their tasks by either going to the shop and looking at the TV or if they have a smart phone they can access it there also.  Beyond knowing what their task is they will be able to see the mowing direction, start time, if there is a shotgun start and time, if there is a crew meeting and if they are working the next day.  The employees access to the job board will be read only so they won't be able to change their tasks.  The employee can access from anywhere so the excuse that they didn't know they were supposed to work wont fly anymore unless they don't have a smart phone or a computer.  I have also put our gas log on one of these electronic spread sheets so you can just enter all the data while standing at the pump.  With the new smart TV we can also stream videos right from our phones to the TV which will be great for crew meetings.  Avondale golf course is very spread out, it can take as long as 15-20 minutes to get back to the shop depending on play and what vehicle you are driving so our hope is this will improve our efficiency by reducing travel time.