Quite a shift in weather

 

It seems like a lot more than a week ago now that we waded through 4.6 inches of rain but this was the scene last Friday morning. We were happy to see the rain and the normal flood areas cleared out relatively quickly but still left plenty of debris and work behind. The courses sucked up the wet weather nicely and the warm season turf had an enjoyable few days of soaking humidity.

The sun came out Sunday and we were back at it Monday. The North approaches were lightly topdressed and brushed in Monday as we continue to work on getting a good cut and firm surface here.

The zoysia on the South is filling in nicely from the verticut and topdress last week. The humidity and fog that was here on Tuesday has been a very rare occurrence this summer.

We had a few "quick" sod projects this week as the fescue bed behind 10 green North was replaced with bermuda. With the expansion of the mulch around the turn house and this being a low traffic area the bermuda should be much more sustainable here.

We had a few other small areas for sod around both courses like here by the river birches on 15 South. The humidity cleared itself out by Wednesday so we even dusted off the greens roller for the bentgrass greens. Dare we say the worst of this seasons summer has past us? One thing for sure is that it is getting darker and darker every morning as we enter August.

The bunker banks on the South continue to get their bi-weekly fertilizer and iron applications. On the North it is the opposite where we are spraying growth regulator and still working to get a solid cut on those faces.

The North greens are just about filled in from their aeration a few weeks ago. We have changed mower setups in order to lower the height and get some more consistent speed for tournament season. This coming Monday we plan to again verticut, lightly topdress and brush these greens to help smooth them out and take some more grass off them.


Rough height has been moved up from 1.5" to 1.75" as we move in to August. This will help reduce late summer scalping and give us a little more cover and competition as we merge into Poa annua pre-emerge season.

The largest win of the week may be here at the entrance islands where Connor made one more educated guess at a suspected leak that had plagued this area for a year. A glue joint was in fact leaking in a conduit sleeve between the islands. The leak had kept the islands and plants soaked all year as well as the asphalt. The irrigation pipe was pulled out and repaired to the delight of James and his water soaked begonias.

Hopefully you have been out enjoying the beautiful weather the past few days! More rain is on the way Sunday it looks like. We have made it to August!

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