Seed and rough grass beginning to pop

A majority of our turf regeneration efforts are done in the fall with drill seeding close rough and late fall fertilization.  Once the turf awakens in the spring, we evaluate our progress and make plans for further renovation as necessary.  We drilled 4000 pounds of a fescue/bluegrass mixture last fall into thinned rough areas.

We began to use our renovaire aerator at the end of March to pull cores on all of the rough.  That effort is still going with Skip closing in on the last two holes.  Around he first of April, we over seeded a very large area on the left of #3 with Fescue.  It has been drill seeded in the fall as well.  This area is over burdened with shade and the trees out compete the weakened turf grass for available moisture.  We will add a part circle head in this area which should increase the amount of moisture this area receives.  Some root pruning of the trees should be helpful but there are 3 layers of trees in this area which reduces our ability to prune the total area.

Seeding is very limited in the spring due to pre-emergent applications being made at the same time but the area on 3 is in deep shade so we made sure it was not sprayed.  The area covered about 20 yds from the fairway to 12 cart path and  about 50 yards long.  The grass seed has germinated and is about an inch tall as seen in the picture below. A little patchy but our nemesis poa annua usually fills in the voids pretty quickly.

The staff used almost 200 yards of sod behind 15 green and used another 200 yards of sod on stump holes and worn, rutted areas around trees.  The delay in turf green up and subsequent rough growth has put our turf a couple of weeks behind. My first rough mowing of the year was a week later than last year. This week we are making  sure the close rough is getting mowed twice before the rains set in. The turf is beginning to expand and grow and in most cases will fill in the voids in the rough.  There are still some areas that will get some attention but in most cases there will be more than enough grass to swallow your errant shots from the short grass fairways and tees.

Area on #3 that was seeded the first of April. New grass growing but existing turf that was there has filled in the area quite nicely with increases in temperatures and timely rain.