Course Update

Wow!  We have had some absolutely beautiful weather lately!  I hope you have been able to come and enjoy it with us!

The little rain shower we had last week really proved how all the hard work that the crew has put in this winter has paid off.  After the rain, I drove the golf course and noticed very little standing water, but instead there was water in the small swales and ditches running into our ponds.  We were able to accomodate carts on 90 degree restrictions on more holes than we would have normally after that type of rainfall.

The greens are starting to grow and I am happy with the progress.  Over the last two weeks we have really picked up our intensity on the greens conditioning.  First, we started with a 0.25" hollow tine aeration.  Our goal with this was to remove a little bit of organic material and open the greens for ventilation and water infiltration.  We had started to notice that the water was puddling and sheeting off the surface during rain events.  After the aeration, we fertilized with a high Calcium fertilizer as well as a Potassium, Manganese, Iron fertilizer.  The Calcium is critical with the paspalum as it promotes cell wall strength much like the bones in our bodies.  The Potassium and Iron help the plant to initiate growth and reduce stress in this transitional weather time.  The Manganese is a great soil fertilizer to antagonize one of the more serious diseases at this time of the year, Take All Patch.

The next week, we sprayed greens with more fertilizers and some plant protectants as well as applied a granular fertilizer.  The two critical fertilizers that we applied were Phosphorus and a combo product called Pro-Max.  We needed to apply the Phosphorus because paspalum does not initiate leaf growth until the roots are at a satisfactory level of depth and quantity.  Phosphorus and the Pro-max help to initiate root growth in the plant.  The difficult part of this application is that Phosphorus is not very usable in the soil, by the plant, until soil temperatures are above 55 degrees.  We are just now getting to those temperatures which puts us about 3 to 4 weeks behind last year.

This week was followed with more Pro-Max and liquid Iron.  If we use the analogy of a cup slowly filling and only when the level hits a certain mark growth will occur, then we are simply helping the cup fill a little quicker and hit that certain mark a little sooner as well as building reserves to continue growth.

On top of the fertility program, we are also doing a few different mowing techniques.  We have groomers on the greens mower that help to remove a little extra material and get the surface evened out while stimulating new growth.  This will help to alleviate some of the bumpiness that happens in the spring as the paspalum does not want to grow evenly like it would in the summer.

Unfortunately, we had a setback on two greens this past weekend.  We had a hydraulic line break on a greensmower on the back of #4.  After the repair, the new line broke on #14.  You will see a stripe going across those two greens.  However, the fast actions of the crew will help to alleviate major damage on those two greens as they worked very hard to wash the oil off the plant and stop permanent damage.

#6 green and those greens that were in winter shade this year are coming out slower than others, but there is growth occurring.  We are making extra applications of product and giving some extra TLC to those areas to get recovery this spring.  A plan is in the works to prevent the severity of damage again.