Changes to Mowing Height On a Few Green Surrounds

Decided to make an adjustment on a few greens surrounds mowing heights. We were cutting these areas a 1.25" with the intermediate mower but will be changing to near fairway height at about .60 inches with the approach mower. These areas are warm season, mostly zoysia and will become a little more receptive to a rolling ball then getting hung up on the longer intermediate cut.This will be a continuance of what has already been applied to the approaches. It will provide more definition with the tighter cut and will look pretty sharp like the new approach side of #2.  Changes have been made around #1, left and back of #2, the back of #3 2 passes, left and right side of #15, and around the green on #16. #16 was not completed today due to an issue with the mower. This was accomplished through mowing and changing turf species. The area was mowed down today and should improve its look over the next few weeks with additional leaf emergence.

This gives a couple of different options around our greens. Tight fairway around some greens at .60" and 2.25" rough grass around others. A different contrast in shots and techniques required for the proper struck ball.

Left side of #1. Some areas scalped a little more than other but overall they look pretty good. As more leaves emerge, they will fill in and tighten the turf up considerably.

Arrow on the left is the intermediate that will end at the path. The arrow on the right is the new area mowed down a little tighter. It will wrap around the back of the green and will tied in to the new bailout area on the right side.

The back of 3 green surround.  The left arrows are at the crest of the hill which will remain intermediate. The right arrow will be mowed down. to the approach height. The area on the sides will still remain  a green rough height where it ties into the bunkers.

This is the left of #15. Some benefit in rolling ball to the green but ball could also release down into the rough. 

Sod work today

The staff did some early morning jobs today getting course prepared for play but the rest of the day was spent laying about 300 yards of Fescue sod in a number of areas.  The largest area was the repair of the area behind 15 green which had two trees removed.  The grinding of the stump areas plus bare and or weakened turf area covered approximately 165 sq yards which is approximately 1500 square feet.  Surface roots were removed, old sod remnants were stripped up and the soil was graded and moved around where needed.  Big roll fescue sod was laid and it was watered and roped off. All newly sodded areas should be played as ground under repair over the next few weeks until the sod fully heals.

Skip and Jason loading the old sod remnants from behind the 15th green that were stripped up by Randy with a sod cutter.

The area graded smooth and ready for sod. 

The area was fertilized and then sod laid with big rolls of Fescue/bluegrass. The staff pulls the sod lines together by hand which improves healing time.  The big roll is 40" wide and approximately 95 feet long for a total of 315 square feet.  Big roll sod can allow you to open the area for play much quicker than regular pieces of  sod. There are less seams which shortens the healing and growth time. 

The area completed behind #15.

View fro #13 tee.  The sod is still a little off color but should begin to green up pretty quickly in the next week.  As you can see from the mid ground to the foreground, a lot of Bermuda grass contamination all around this area.

The staff also worked on a number of other ground stump areas which required some extra soil and were then sodded.  Also the drain project from late last fall was repaired as well on #12.  We still have a pallet of sod which will be used for additional repairs that were not completed today.

We also installed the remaining 4 trees that were purchased last week for planting.  I will have pictures and profiles of the trees in the next couple of days when I can get their pictures taken.

Aeration of warm season surrounds

Yesterday, we used our rough aerator to pull a 2-3 inch deep core from around our warms season green surrounds.  This includes most of #1, 2, back of 3-6, right of 14, and 16.  We used a drag mat to break up the cores and mowed the area to clean up the disturbed turf.  This will be the same unit that you will see working this coming fall on our roughs helping to aerate them and improve their growing ability.

Follow up to Roundup spray for poa on Fairways, tees and green surrounds

The Roundup that we sprayed on our dormant fairways/intermediate rough, warm season green surrounds and tees is working.  Yellow plants all over the property.   There a few plants of bluegrass, rye and fescue that will probably not die from our application due to the rate being too high for safe application on dormant zoysia.  In those cases, we can carefully spot spray with another product over the next few weeks. 

Poa annua right after application about 3 weeks ago.  Green and healthy.

Poa annua 3 weeks later is yellow, chlorotic and dying.

Repair to rough/green surrounds

At the interface between the rough and zoysia intermediate at the beginning of our fairways, we have some thin and or bare areas that need attention.  Some of the thinning has occured from our bermuda eradication program and some of the loss of turf is from wear and tear.  We used our drill seeder over the past couple of days to get a head start on incorporating more turf type fescue into these areas.  Our cool season surrounds have also taken a hit from disease, water managment, and bermuda encroachment.  We also drilled some of these areas as well. 

We plan to do some Tupersan applications around the greens, collars and approach areas where the bermuda has moved back into these areas.  The Turpersan prunes the roots on the bermuda and does not allow it to tack down to the ground which is one of its key components for survival and spreading.  Bermuda that is unable to tack down is usually susceptible to winter kill.  We will also be doing some bermuda eradication spray on these areas in October after the fescue seed has been germinated and matured.  This will also set back the bermuda and allow the cool season grass to take over and thrive until next summer.  We will follow up with additional sprays in the spring to reduce the competiveness of the bermuda before the summer heat sets in. 

No action shots of the drill seeder but here it is in the shop.

The bottom of 13 rough/fairway.  Some of this area was damaged from standing water where the turf was litterally cooked after heavy rain left the turf in standing water. 

The slits from the seeder are still slighly visible after the area is dragged with a mat to give the seed good contact with the soil.

The area will be fertilized with a starter fertilizer to help the seed germinate and begin to grow.  Germinated plants should be coming up over the next couple of weeks.

Intermediate around greens with new fescue/bluegrass sod

The new fescue/bluegrass green surrounds are working well.  The look is great, the playing out of is challenging but there are times where a ball will rest right up against the 2.5" fescue or higher cut and getting a club on the ball is virtually impossible.  We are going place a one rotary push mower width intermediate cut around holes, PG, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, a small part of 17 and 18.  These are the greens which had fescue placed around the greens.  The rest of the holes have warm season around them that is cut by the regular intermediate reel mower at 1.25".  We will take the cut down slowly and will try to get it between 1.5 to 2" within the next few months.  This should normally be done in the cooler times of the year but if we take our time and not get in too much of the a hurry, we will have some relief for you from the shots that get trapped up against the collar and green surround. 

My camera case is on the border between the regular 2.5" green surround cut on the right and the 1 push mower width 2" cut.  I will try to get it down to about 1.75" over the next couple of weeks as some milder weather pushes in.

Discolored turf next to some greens

Those of you that have been out to play the course in the last 7-10 days have probably noticed the off color look of our greens.  I have explained our regulator program in a previous post and how we are trying to encourage our bentgrass and discourage the growth of the poa annua.  As I was checking some greens the other day, I noticed a distinct line between the surround area that received some of the same spray treatment as the greens and the area outside the treatment area.  I took a picture to illustrate how the spray affects the turf both inside and outside the spray zone.       

One of the benefits of having cool season turfgrass around our greens is the ability to spray products which are antagonistic to the poa annua and can injure or kill it.  With millions/billions of seeds being produced on our property, poa is always trying to invade into an area where it does not currently exist, namely the newly sodded fescue areas.  As we spray our greens which are mostly round in shape, we cannot shut off our 3 spray booms exactly as we cross the line between the green and surround.  The spray coming out onto the surrounds provides not only added benefits in reducing poa but also can protect the turf from disease and other pests.  The surround areas do receive control products for disease and insects during the season but not as frequently as the greens because the turf is at least 20 times longer which makes for a healthier, less stressed plant.  We sprayed a fertilizer/micronutrient package to the greens today which should have a positive effect on the color of our greens in the next few days. 

In the picture below, my camera case in on the spray line between the two distinct areas next to the green.  To the left of the case is the area that is coming out of winter naturally and did not receive any spray treatment.  To the right of the case and adjacent to the green is the area that received treatment and shows some discoloration.     

 Left side of 12 green/surround looking from front to back.

New Green Surround Sod, 10 and 13

We spent Monday stripping the warm season sod from the first cut on green surrounds of #10 and #13. In the picture below, you can see Russell using the sod cutter to strip off the material.

In this part of #13, Jose, Teddy, Arturo and Gionni are removing the sod by hand because our equipment is too large to fit in this area.

In our large sections of the surrounds, we moved the material from the edges so that we could push the material into our front loader.

Skip is pushing the material into piles.

Skip backing the tractor and box blade pushing the material into the front loader.

Front loader dumping the material into our dump truck.

Once the area was cleared, we had to dig up 16 of our sprinkler heads around our greens and raise them so that they will be even with the new sod.

Skip is rolling the 30 yard big roll of sod out onto #13. Nick is removing the netting that the material is rolled up to help keep it stable. We remove the netting so that it does not get caught on spikes in case the sod would become weak in spots and die. Once the sod is rolled out, we have to pull it into place to fit the area we are trying to cover. In the case of the green surrounds, we had a curved edge to work with which creates its own set of difficulties.

Arturo is filling in the gaps of sod.

Russell is filling in areas as well.

#10 Complete. We replaced about 10-12' around 10 green.

#13 Complete. We still have a little dirt to fill out some heads on 13 green.

Walk aerating green surrounds

Our green surrounds take a pummeling during the season, especially our zoysia which is next to our greens. In an effort to improve the close surround areas, we are using our old Toro walk aerator to punch some solid tine holes into these areas to loosen the soil and provide for some water penetration in these areas. We are also going to purchase a compost based fertilizer to then broadcast into these areas to give some slow release nutrition and improve the soil structure in these surrounds. Our plans are to remove the warm season turf from the surrounds but we cannot remove any more during the summer season and need to do all we can to improve the health of these areas at this time. It is a slow operation but it should pay dividends as the season progresses.

Russ is walking across the front of # 12 zoysia approach.















The following view is on the left side of #12