Resurfacing 19th tee

Well it's about time we got some reasonable weather, April was pretty much a write off from the golf point of view as well as from a maintenance point of view. Too cold and wet to golf and far too wet to get much done on the course. Now that we are getting some nicer weather we are trying to get caught up with our mowing and getting at some much overdue repairs to the course. Yesterday we started the process of resurfacing the 19th tee, the old turf has been torn out while the tee has been made a touch larger. New aggregate has been brought to the right grade and tomorrow the hitting surface will be installed. It should be ready for play by Monday. The bunker on #11 is drying up nicely with hopes of getting back at hauling fill early next week. We still have a fair bit of work to do before that job will be completed. After we have enough fill it will have to be graded, then what was the end of the waste bunker closest to the green will be shaped into a new white sand bunker. A drainage line will be trenched from just in front of the ladies tee through the fill and new bunker finishing through the approach and into the trees. Lay the sod, fill the bunker with sand and we are done.

First cut of 2011

                                    

Without a doubt my favorite day of the golf season is the day we put the first cut on the greens. The temperature is usually perfect for walking and like yesterday it is often sunny. Put a side the great working conditions experiencing the visual change of the green as you cut off the dry wind burnt tips exposing the almost neon green turf below is something we only get to see once a season. I mowed this green myself while wearing a GPS watch. To give you an idea of the physical aspect of our job I walked 2.2 kilometers mowing the 5th green. Most mornings we will send out three people to walk mow 19 greens (chipping green gets cut with a different unit). That's over 10 kilometers of walking before they have their first break.

The greens look great, won't be long now!



                                                                                   

How did we winter?

A year ago today was our opening day for 2010, obviously 2011 we aren't going to be that fortunate. The picture was taken on Wednesday, the snow is melting but nothing too fast. We will see how much is left come Monday. I walked the course prior to the last snowfall on March 23rd and the course looked great. The greens were clear of any snow mold and there was very little on the tees and fairways. Going into the winter I was very comfortable with our fungicide application and quite pleased how the turf had wintered due to the lengthy snow cover. But then bring on another week of snow and I think we surpassed the threshold, the greens still look great but some other areas of bentgrass have a bit more snow mold. That said the marks aren't that severe at all and with some light verti cutting along with some warm weather they will recover quickly. Most of the course was treated with Terraclor like every other year but this year we experimented with another chemical on some tees and fairways at different rates to prepare for this fall when Terraclor will not be available to us. But I feel that has no bearing at all on the snow mold we have this year. The snow mold is in the usual areas just a little worse that other years. And I attribute that to the extended days under snow cover.

Bring on the sun and some warm weather.

Winterization complete!

We have been experiencing one of the warmest, driest November's on record. Which is refreshing as the past couple of years have had us scrambling around to get the golf course put to bed properly. This years winterization process went very well. The lack of precipitation (rain or snow) has allowed us to finish the fertilizer and protectant applications in order give the turf a strong start next spring. Greens, tees and fairways have been fertilized and sprayed for snow mould protection. Rough areas are fertilized, divots are filled and course accessories have been brought in. Prior to this, the irrigation lines were blown out (it takes 2 full days) and leaves and debris were cleaned up to minimize disease potentials.

Winter can throw some interesting challenges at us, but aside from that I feel we have prepared the course very well.

Let it drain...

There have been a few nagging drainage issues on the golf course through the later part of this season. Rebel Creek is a unique property in that there are small springs that make there way to the surface in the strangest places. The key to maintaining a good playing surface is drainage, drainage, drainage. We have addresed three areas this fall in order to catch the water before it gets to the surface and redirect it into the existing drainage system.

Check out my slide show on divot and ball mark repair >>>>>

Bunkers... hazards???

It is interesting how a hazard that was once a wind eroded depression created and used by sheep grazing on the old courses became this! The cost of maintaining our bunkers, far exceed the cost of maintaining our greens. Bunkers have evolved into highly manicured hazard with sharp edges and fluffy (but not too fluffy) sand. I wish I had a sand pit suitable for bunker sand, because it is "gold" delivered in a dump truck.
Highly manicured turf... yes, but hazards... I am not sure...

light topdressing

Driving Range

Scattering your divot pattern as you practice on the driving range will speed up the recovery time of the divots. We include seed when we fill the divots with mix, but a bentgrass divot also fills in from the sides using lateral growth from stolons. Remember: try to ensure each divot is not touching the another and this will help speed up divot recovery!

Did you know... (mowing greens)

Did you know...
- the greens at Rebel Creek are mowed everyday
- we use Toro 21" wide walk behind greens mowers (as the photos show)
- Toro Flex21's have a floating cutting head that moves independently of the chassis. This allows for a great cut over undulating greens
- it takes 4 teams members, 3.5 hours to mow all 20 greens
- each team member taks great pride in mowing razor straight lines
- numerous ballmarks are repaired and filled on each green before it is mowed
- each mower is precisely set to <0.125" height of cut and checked everyday
- greens mowers are sharpened numerous times during the season
- all greens are mowed in a different direction everyday
- grass clippings are always collected and we monitor the yields to help us determine the fertilizer requirements

nature and golf co-existing

thatch removal program

Monday May 4: we will be continuing our thatch removal greens program. Our methods of controlling thatch levels has evolved over the past few years to the method we currently use. Our program includes a method of deep verti-cutting which cuts through the greens surface and pulls the thatch to the surface. We have calculated and tested our method and we have found that we remove a higher percentage of thatch and the greens recover more quickly from this practice compared to core aeration.
Why is this important? Excessive thatch will create greens that have inconsistent ball roll, drain improperly, as well as being prone to fungal diseases and heat stress. Bentgrass is naturally a thatch producer and in order to achieve high quality putting surfaces we need to control these levels regularly.

Hole #5 and #6 upgrades

Progress being made! We are planting trees, shaping bunkers and seeding.

Hole #5 and #6 Upgrades

A bulldozer cutting and filling the waste bunker.

snow!!!

Old man winter is showing us his stuff one last time!

first mowing

We took advantage of a warm afternoon and mowed all the greens for the first time this year. The course is very brown in colour which has come from the lack of snow cover in March and cold dry winds. This is a normal occurrence and some warm days and rains will perk things up quickly.
The course has wintered very well and we expect good spring playing conditions.
Shari hasn't missed a beat, mowing some real straight lines on #17 green for the first time this year!

Snow mould protection

An example of course winterization. Even though the turf on #6 tee deck is still dormant, it has been protected from snow mould due to an application last November. The line is very clear where the application started and stopped. The bluegrass rough is affected with pink snow mould, but will bounce back with some warmer temperatures. Snow moulds dramatically affect the spring recovery of bentgrass which we have on our tees, fairways and greens.

#4 fairway rehab

#4 fairway erosion

During our mid-March melt we experienced an incredible amount of melt water in a short period of time. The 4th fairway received a high volume of surface runoff from the adjacent field in which unfortunately created some subsurface erosion across the fairway. We will be addressing this repair project as soon as the fairway is firm enough to begin.
The project will entail:
- edging out and pulling up the sod
- filling in the eroded trenches
- packing the area and resodding with fairway bentgrass
We will continue to post our progress.