Irrigation Blow Out

The time finally came when we could blow out our irrigation system.  Usually we are able to do this around Thanksgiving, but the warm and dry weather has forced us to hold off until now.  We completed the blow out on Wednesday, December 19.  

The process involves hooking a large air compressor into our irrigation lines through the use of a quick coupler.  We then turn each irrigation head on through the satellite controllers to blow any water in the lines out to prevent them from freezing.  It takes us all day to completely blow the water out of the system.  Now we don't have to worry about any irrigation leaks until we charge the system back up in early March.

 

I also snapped this picture this morning of our putting green and first hole.  The first snow fall of the year came on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.  It looks like there won't be any golf at least for today!

 



 



 

Tree Trimming

Although the date says December 7, it still feels like early October.  The warm weather this week has allowed us to continue trimming as many trees as we can get to.  We started going down both sides of #15 early this week and wrapped up going down #12 on Friday.  Hopefully we can continue trimming a little each week to make a dent in the thousands of trees on the golf course.

Trees to the right of #13 red tee.

The cleaned-up trees after a little trimming.

Soil Samples

This fall, we will be sending in a few soil samples from our greens to be analyzed.  The samples will provide us with valuable information that we can use to help formulate our fertility program for the coming year.  We will be able to see if we are deficient or high in different nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium as well as determine our pH and organic matter content.  We generally have samples tested once per year, and then compare our results from year to year.

Leaf Cleanup

The leaves have been falling for a couple weeks, and we are well underway with cleanup.  This is a large undertaking here at Swope because of how many trees we have.  Our main mode of removal is through the use of blowers.  We have two pull behind buffalo blowers that we can maneuver around trees with ease.  We also have a larger tractor mounted blower that we save for the larger areas.  For the most part, we corral the leaves across the rough and fairway until we get them to the trees where we blow them as far into as possible.  In areas where a tree line is not practical, we use our large rough unit to mulch the leaves as much as possible and then blow them again to disperse through the rough.  We will continue to blow and mulch leaves for another few weeks until most all of them have dropped.

Verticutting

We recently completed verticutting the greens for the second time in two weeks.  This is a great cultural practice to remove thatch from the top layer of the greens.  It promotes a more upright growth of the turf which will provide a cleaner cut with the mowers.  This will help in ball roll speed as well.  There is little negative impact to immediate playability of the greens.  We will also add a light sand topdressing after we are finished.  I hope to get one more verticutting in before temperatures really start to dive down. 

Blowing off any excess clippings not collected by the mower.

Close-up of green after verticutting.


 

Fall Overseeding

The warm and dry summer left us with many bare areas on the golf course.  Areas that received no irrigation were hit the hardest.  Thankfully, we are able to utilize a tractor mounted slit seeder that does a really good job.  In total, we planted about 2000 pounds of seed in the rough.  We are fairly happy with the results even though the fall has been rather dry. 

We also used a couple seed mats in a few places on #14.  These mats help hold moisture so the germinating seed does not dry out.  This is the way to go when seeding bare areas.  These are pictures from right of the fairway and right of the new grass bunker by the green.

 

One Hot Summer!

What a summer this has been!  As many of you have probably figured out, this summer has been one of the hottest summers on record.  Temperatures have routinely hovered around the century mark since early July.  On top of that, we have had very little precipitation to speak of.  It has certainly stressed out the turf as well as our maintenance staff.  We have spent hours nearly everyday cooling greens, watering green's surrounds, and even hand watering zoysia.  Mowing requirements have been cut by over half due to the slow growth of turf. 

Even after a record setting summer, I believe our greens have held up as well as any summer before.  This is attributed to many different factors, but starts with our dedicated staff.  We have a crew of guys that is passionate about the golf course, and have exceeded my high expectations.  Syringing greens in 100 degree weather day after day can begin to wear on you, believe me.  Our guys have never complained and continue to keep our greens looking as good as they possibly can.

I would also like to say thank you to the many golfers who have braved the warm weather over the past month, and put up with our maintenance staff being on the greens during play.  Often times, we have no choice but to water greens while groups are putting.  We appreciate the patience and understanding most of you have had while we complete this necessary maintenance practice.

It is still early August, but it appears that we have made it through the brutal part of the summer.  I am hoping for a cool and wet fall to help the thousands of pounds of seed germinate that we will be putting out later this month.