A little Defense goes a long way!

One of the greatest challenges maintaining a golf property in the transition zone is to have a sustainable product season long.  A strong Defense is an important cog for a sports team, and it's an equally important part of turfgrass management.  This time of year is the peak weakness for cool season grasses.  Root systems have declined, months of mowing and traffic have occured, long and hot days are the norm, and rainfall is an all or nothing proposition.  Within 48 hours turf can be lost to heat/drought stress and/or to disease from high heat and humid conditions.  This time of year calls for the starting varsity defense.

Defense comes in multiple forms.  Most often it involves a combination of what we don't do with added measures to the to-do list.  We remove unnecessary stresses by limiting processes such as grooming the turf, topdressing with a mechanical drag, and letting surfaces get to or past the wilt point.  We add processes such as tighter fungicide application windows, modified liquid nutrients, and additional hose work in attempt to balance moisture before the plant wilts.  Plants that wilt this time of year either succumb immediately to the stress, or are weakened to a point were the next stressor causes its decline.  

Heat and humidity leads to thicker leaf blades and dew moisture will set up after morning mowing/rolling and remain for many hours.  This tends to impact overall green speed as more surface area is in contact will the ball.  We utilize tools such as a stimp meter as part of our management regime.  It is a good tool to gain more information about how mechanical practices, nutrition, and weather are affecting ball roll.  We can make some adjustments when possible to the manipulate factors based on the collective information provided by tools like a stimp.  We target 10-10.5 for daily play, and when possible an additional .5-1 ft for major events.  Pace of play, pinnable green space, and turf health are all preserved, with one or all suffering if pace is too high for daily play.  Once we are through with morning procedures, weather conditions can and will effect this throughout the day.  Dry cool weather with high skies and pace will increase into afternoon, hot and sticky often decreases pace as moisture stays present and the thicker leaf blades create more surface area.  Attached is a really good video from the USGA concerning how many agronomists use this tool as part of their overall management.

The dog days of summer are soon to pass.  We look forward to crisp mornings and cooler sunny days in the near future!

Some accessory updates have occurred recently.  24 additional bunker rakes went out adding a third rake to many of the larger bunkers.  Preferred divot pattern signs are accompanying the stations on the range tee.  Divot material buckets were added to the 4 par 3 forward tees.  Thank you for your assistance with play related course care.  It goes a long way creating a quality experience for the golfers that follow. Below is a video we did in house explaining the proper method for entering, smoothing, and leaving a bunker during play.  

  

A large Tulip tree has been planted left of the 7th fairway.  An unhealthy elm needed removal this past winter, and the maple is not long for this world.  This was to be planted in spring, but supply held it off until summer.  

A nice component to having a more robust summer staff was catching up on some deferred maintenance.  A few examples are shown in pictures below.  Pruning the fence/property line at 15 tee to open up air movement and remove disturbance to irrigation. 

Clearing invasive plants from the hillside of 11 tee was a time consuming and worthy venture.  

Have a great end to summer, we look forward to football Saturdays and cool mornings!!