Topdressing Greens

With temperatures staying moderately cool and grass still growing, the greens speeds have been slightly declining. It is a perfect time to topdress the greens. Our topdressing schedule stays fairly consistent and the weather has been perfect for the addition of sand. We judge the amount of sand we apply by look and feel of rate applied. There isn't a designated calculated rate set previous to topdressing. We know that we want to topdress moderately light so we play with the settings on the topdresser a bit before applying sand to the greens. For this particular day, we used the Turfco SP1530 pull-behind topdresser with kiln dried sand. The door setting was on A.5, spinners were set to full, belt was on the turtle adjustment, and drove in 1st gear high or 3rd gear low. This gave us the right rate at which to apply sand. After the topdressing process was complete, another crew member would use a small Club Car Turf2 Carry-All cart and drag the sand in with a cocoa mat. The cocoa mat that is seen in the photo is very light weight so a bag of seed is used to weigh it down to drag in the sand more efficiently. The greens are then watered for 4-6 minutes depending on the angle of the irrigation head. After a few days of rolling and mowing, these greens will be at the ideal firmness and quickness we are looking for.

Soil Sampling

A standard procedure on all golf courses should be the bi-annual sampling of soil areas. By taking a basic soil probe, the soil content is extracted from the ground and placed into a ziploc bag to be sent to the testing department. It is important to extract the soil in random and distant areas from each soil probe. It is also important to remove the grass plant and thatch area from the sample. In this particular soil sample, we were testing for base cations, Ph levels, and available nutrition on our driving range tee. The entire process only takes an hour or two, and gives very valuable information on the needs of the grass plant. It can be a bit costly, but is very well worth it if it can be afforded.

#12 Bridge Handrail Renovation

One of the most beautiful settings on the golf course, this bridge on #12 turned out amazing and really improved the quality of the experience to play a round of golf at The Preserve.

Fairway Aerification

It is now one of my favorite maintenance times of the year. We are mid way through our fairway aerification process. The pictures I have taken are from holes #1, #3, and #18. Aerifying fairways is a very similar process to aerifying our tees. The height of cut is very similar so the requirements are also similar. In this process, we first have three of our employees take the Toro Pro Core aerifiers and begin punching holes in the ground avoiding irrigation heads that have been flagged off. Our aerifiers are set at .750. This has been great at slowly helping us with our thatch issues among other things. Once the entire fairway has been aerified, another employee will take the metal drag mat and run it over the plugs numerous times to break apart the thatch and sand. Most of the sand will work its way into the existing holes leaving the thatch and core remains to be picked up by the John Deere sweeper. The sweeper does a great job in picking up a majority of the plugs. For the plugs that do not get collected in the sweeper, we have a fifth employee on the large turbine blower moving the remaining plugs into the center of the fairway for pickup. This clean process leaves the holes open for sand, amendments, and overseeding. When the aerification holes are open, we take a Toro Workman and pull our large Lely hopper behind it spreading Perennial Ryegrass seed and Gypsum onto the fairway at a rate of 150 lbs/acre for the seed and 13 lbs/M for the Gypsum. This helps establish the health and Ph of the fairways with new germination and plant growth to close the existing holes as soon as possible. Once the seed and Gypsum are applied, another employee takes the large New Holland Tractor with the Dakota Turf Tender and spreads fairway sand. This fills the holes and covers the seed and Gypsum. A drag mat is then pulled over the sand to work it into the holes and water is applied shortly after. Since I have been at The Preserve I have noticed a difference in the quality of the fairways due to aerification and have become a huge fan of the process.

Stocker Cup

This annual golf tournament is held at The Preserve and hosts some of the greatest amateur golfers from around the country. This is the biggest and most important event that is held at The Preserve. Every year, numerous employees are asked to work this event to spot golf balls for the players. I was summoned to hole #9. This hole is moderately difficult for spotting tee shots. There are hazard areas on the left and right side of the fairway, leaving it a challenge to find balls that make it into the long native grasses. After the tournament was complete, there were only a few golf balls that were left un-found. The event as a whole was a lot of fun and will look forward to the 2011 Stocker Cup.

#18 Bunker Liner Project

The Fairway bunker on #18 is one of the biggest bunkers on the golf course. It is also unique because it receives the largest amounts of concentrated water flow on the golf course. The entire hill side above #18 fairway funnels down and releases most of its water into this bunker. Some of the worst washouts on the golf course happen in this bunker. We have contemplated re-grading parts of the fairway so that this issue is avoided, but for now we are taking a cautious approach to perfecting #18's renovation. A large issue that exists in this bunker is the ground squirrel damage on its bunker lips. Unfortunately I was involved with separate projects around the rest of the golf course so I did not see the methods used in repairing the bunker lips. As you can see from the pictures, the edges were almost completely re-constructed and sodded. Many of the holes around the edge also had to be repaired. With the potential amount of water damage in mind, these edges were diligently repaired and prepared for the upcoming rain seasons.

Frys.com Tournament Volunteer

For the past two days, Cory, Aaron and myself have been volunteering at Corde Valle for the Frys.com golf tournament in San Martin, CA. Unfortunately I did not have my camera for this event. Each morning we would prepare the golf course starting at 5:00. Aaron was in charge of cutting cups, Cory was scheduled to remove the dew on the tee pads and walkways, and I led a small crew to rake bunkers. It was a lot of fun meeting other Superintendents from the area and gaining more tournament experience. The four day PGA event was nationally televised and won wire-to-wire by Rocco Mediate. I greatly enjoyed this event and hope to volunteer again next year.