Carmel Country Club Agronomy

  We were feeling pretty good about the golf courses leading into the Club Championship last Friday but it has been a whirlwind since then. A crazy microburst storm hit South Charlotte just before 4pm Friday. Over 60 mph straight line winds were recorded which led to over 20 trees coming down, some being snapped off mid trunk. The largest tree to come down also fell across 6 North black tee. Debris was scattered all throughout both courses but the brunt was from 2 and 3 South and then back through the North course. 1.25" of rain also came down inside of half an hour along with all the debris. With some help from the golf shop we ran around the South to blow and clear the greens off and the Club Championship was back out on holes 6-18 at 5:30pm.  It was all hands on deck Saturday for a big time storm cleanup. Our blowers, sweepers and the chipper were humming most of the day in order to have both sides playable for the weekend. The guys put in a great effort considering the amo...

  The calendar rolls on and even though we continue to lose a little bit of daylight each day the temperatures and humidity are sticking around. Another bout of rain is headed our way for Friday which at the very least will knock high temps back to normal (around 90) for a while. Our pre-emergent herbicide app finished up this week on the Zoysia fairways and approaches. This poa annua prevention is the first step in keeping these fairways clean through the winter and spring. Conditions right now are a great reminder to those of us with thinning patience in the spring waiting for green up. Hot and humid is what warm season likes. The last two weeks have been the nastiest stretch for the bentgrass so far. Weekly soil and foliar fungicide apps along with the fans and careful water management are keeping these surfaces alive. This is also the worst stretch for ballmarks as humidity and moisture content can be high at times and the impact of the ball is always going to leave a bruise in...

  The heat and humidity have returned this week. We have been lucky to miss any heavy downpours and have just seen two events drop 2 tenths of rain each early in the week. The humidity has made for some beautiful sunrises. The bermuda greens are hitting their stride now after last months aeration. Another sand topdressing, brush and roll went down Monday. The Champion has responded nicely to the rains and heat. The right weather combined with topdressing and growth regulators has produced some slick green speeds this week for our 1 day Member Guest and the City Amateur final on Sunday. Besides just keeping the grass cut our largest project over the past two weeks has been applying pre-emerge herbicide to prevent Poa annua germination. This application goes across the whole warm season property at a miniscule rate of 3 ounces of product per acre. All 225 acres are covered 8 acres at a time with our two 300 gallon sprayers. The South team (mainly Jackson) continues to push high traff...

  The forecast looked wet this week and it has not disappointed. A wet weekend was followed up by another storm Tuesday night that brought around an inch of rain to the property. Another .3" fell Wednesday night and has left us pretty wet and shaggy this Thursday. Hopefully the storms tonight miss and we can get the fairways mowed down for the weekend. We were thankful for a dry Monday and we took advantage with a variety of topdressing, including the bent greens on the South. The range tees also got a quick dose of sand Monday and they have been soaked ever since. The verticutter made an appearance on the North greens first thing Monday and we have lowered the height even more since a few weeks ago. With the humidity finally here these leafs have fattened up so there was plenty of grass to take off these greens to aid in ball roll. The topdresser was following directly behind the verticutter. More than a dusting was applied since rain was on the way. The Champion greens were brus...