Summer?

Well it's the middle of June and it feels like May. This has been an unusually cool, wet spring. We have yet to irrigate the entire golf course, as we have only watered greens and tees as needed. The cool temperatures have been ideal for growing cool season turf and the golf course is in great shape. I'll share a few recent photos...

Project update

May has been a busy month with the arrival of some warmer temperatures. We have completed all of our aerification and sanding throughout the entire course. With our major Spring cultural practices behind us we can begin to focus on routine maintenance. Here are a couple of photos of the new ladies tee on # 2 and the wildflower area we planted in early March.

Spring is the time of year when we typically try and complete any reshaping of fairways as needed. First, we paint out the desired shape and then we mow out the new area with push mowers. This allows us the opporunity to view the new fairway shape and make any changes necessary before we scalp the turf down to fairway height.

Let the season begin!

It has been a busy couple of weeks on the golf course. Last week we completed greens aerification and are about half way through fairway aerification and sanding. This week we applied our Spring fertilizer and are now in the process of building a new ladies tee on #2. This photo is of #8 green one week after aerification. The greens are healing very quickly due to the weather.

Here is the beginning of the new ladies tee on #2. The base is shaped and graded using soil and will then be capped with 4" of sand. Next week I will post the finished product.

Greens Aerification

This week we are aerifying the putting greens, as well as beginning the fairways. Here are a couple of photos that demonstrate the aerification process.

March Weather

March was a great month for golf. Here is a weather summary for the month:

High - 71* with the average high of 56*

Low - 36* with the average low of 40*

Average temp - 51*

Total precipitation - 4.84 inches. (2.5 inches fell in the last 3 days of the month)

Time For Aerification?

It's that time of year when golf courses begin to aerify. Many golfers often wonder why it is necessary to aerify every year. This picture demonstrates one of the many reasons aerification is necessary. Over time the putting greens become compacted due to foot traffic and equipment. The surface of the putting green becomes "sealed off" making it difficult for water to penetrate and infiltrate through the soil profile. The result is puddles of water after rain events like you see in the photo.

Course Projects

We have recently completed a few small projects throughout the golf course. As part of our committment to the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program we have converted a former landscape bed into a wildflower area. We hope this area will be home to many pollinators. This photo shows the area at the time of seeding. We will update photos as the wildflowers appear.

In an effort to reduce maintained turf we have converted an area on the west side of the clubhouse to a landscape bed. The turf quality in this particular location was very poor due to shade and drainage. Our intent was to not only improve aesthetics, but to reduce mowing, irrigation and fertilizer use as well.