Plans for the Fall, The Invitational 2020

 

Hundreds of courses in our business host a tour or major event each year but for thousands of others, there is a local event that is the major focus for its staff.

This past week, our club and staff were given the opportunity to host our major event at the club, The Invitational 2020. The work that was completed over the many months prior to the tournament plus the weather we were given over the last couple of weeks provided for great surfaces for our members and guests to play. Congratulation to Mr. Len Toenjes and his guest Mr. Russ Hanson who won the shootout and the overall title for the event. 

We still have some great golf weather ahead over the next month or more. Most of our efforts emphasize putting our turf to rest for winter in the best condition possible so it awakens ready to grow next spring. Below are some the areas of focus we will have over the next month or two. 

Raising Height of Cut 

As our zoysia begins to go dormant, we raise our height of cut slightly to assist with wear and tear and energy storage. We have reset our fairway unit and tee mower to 3/4" which is just .150" taller than their normal height. Once the growth slows over the next couple of weeks, we will stop mowing completely for the season to allow them to get a little fuzzy for winter. I anticipate our amount of play and cart traffic will be up so the turf will get beat down a little. Drier conditions, cooler and temperatures and less sunlight help in reducing overall growth so we should still have excellent playing conditions.

We have also applied Potassium to our zoysia surfaces over the last couple of weeks to improve its ability to survive the winter onslaught of cold and frozen precipitation.

Our green turf height usually gets raised slightly during the month of November and we usually quit mowing greens after Thanksgiving depending upon the temperatures and if there is a need to continue mowing.

Aeration, When Are You Going to Aerate Greens

We will be performing the same process we did in the spring with our greens, Verti-drain deep tine aeration. Since all of our Mondays are full through the month of October, we will begin our aeration after the tournament being held on October 26th. We will do some greens each day to get the process completed. I've always been of the opinion, to do our greens past closing day to give our membership and guests the best possible putting surfaces during the best time of the year to play in regards to ball roll out and turf health.

We also will be pulling cores on our rough the next couple of weeks and will also be involved in some seeding in weaker areas of the rough. We did some initial seeding and aerating in our green surround areas a couple of weeks before the Invitational.

We will also be fertilizing our cool season rough over the next couple  of weeks. We begin last week but had an equipment malfunction and are waiting on parts so if the rough smells a bit earthy, you will understand the reason. A part of our fertilizer in organic in its origin.

Drainage Project from # 6 through #8

We anticipate to begin the storm water drain project after the first week of November. The project will begin on hole 6 from the beginning of the drain along 6 property line to the first large surface drain in the left forward area of 6 approach. We expect the first section will take us about 7 working days or so. During the work on this section, the 6th hole will be closed to all play. 

We would like to get the section that crosses 8 fairway completed next depending upon weather. This is the longest section of the project. We have some soil/dirt work to that fairway to help move water to the surface drain we exposed in the left side of the fairway. Our hope is to have some dry weather so we can move soil and get the section compacted properly and sodded. 

Below are pictures of 2 trees that will be removed during October as we prepare the area for construction of the storm water drain replacement. The ash on the left is directly over the drain pipe and the Willow oak on the right is 2' off the center of the pipe. The trench at the top will be 12' or so wide. There is a 3rd tree that is the Ash to the left front of 6 green that will not be removed but it will be severely compromised by our trench. I expect this tree to not survive the construction due to the severe damage to its root system and surface construction traffic.

                                           

Leaves, Many Leaves

It's that time of year where first leaf drop is beginning with Cottonwoods, Ash, Walnuts and other trees which are under stress and or weakened. Our main leaf drop will occur sometime in November depending upon freezing temperatures. A great deal of backpacking, vacuuming, and large blowers plus grinding up leaves back into the soil with our mowers are all a part of the process.

Enjoy your fall on the course! 

Fairway Aerating

Mother Nature has been in charge all season with wet conditions. With only a couple of dry days every so often combined with a heavy play schedule, we were finally able to get dry enough conditions to aerate our fairways today. A few pictures with a couple drone videos.
Our process included the following steps:

• Mowed Fairways to help reduce dew and the total amount of turf that would need to be mowed off after the process is completed
• Aerated the fairways pulling a solid core with a 1/2" tine about 3" deep
• Used our flail mower to help break up the cores after they dried for a few minutes. This mower has tags slightly larger than a dog tag that is attached to a rapidly spinning roller and literally flails apart the soil, thatch and grass plugs
• Used 2 metal drag mats to break up the remaining pieces of soil that built up
• Used our tractor blower and pull behind blower to remove grass turfts and excess soil
• Mowed the fairways again to clip off the turf pulled up and help break the soil that was still left on the fairway
• Sprayed the fairways with a soil penetrant and urea fertilizer to assist with the healing process and improve overall turf vigor

Aeration improve turf root structure, water penetration and drying of wetter areas, thatch reduction, gas exchange, and microbial activity which will improve over turf quality.

Jason pulling cores on 18, our last hole. Dodged a big bullet with the thunderstorm that hit around the I-64 area. Brought us in for about 45 minutes because of lightning.

 

Little drone view of Jason's work.

Tom using the flail mower with the before and after going over the area. Does a decent job.

 

Skip and Rollo dragging fairways to break up remaining cores and soil in preparation for the blowers to remove the remaining material into the rough.

 

Russ in a dust storm and he mows over the distrurbed turf on #1.

Sprayed fairways 1-5 and 7 with Urea and watered it in to improve turf vigor and color.
Will complete the other fairways as time allows over the next day or so. We included a soil penetrant in with the spray to assist water penetration over the next month as we begin to move into drier weather and the need for irrigation cycles.

 

Carts on Fairway/Long range grass tee open!

Before the big rain arrives this evening into Thursday, we are allowing carts on Fairways and the Long Range grass tee is open.  The Long range grass tee will be open on Wednesday, Friday-Sunday when conditions are dry enough for use.  Tuesday and Thursday all weather mat tees only.  We must reduce the use of the grass tees during the season because the tee is not large enough to handle six day a week use and have grass during the full season.

The short range zoysia tee still needs another couple of weeks of active growth before we open it

Tom mowing in front of the green of #2.  The beautiful cherry trees blooming in the background.

Fairway mowing and CARTS OFF PATHS

For those of you who have played in the last couple of days, you've probably noticed that the fairways are a little shaggy in some areas and you are probably wondering when will we allow carts off the paths for everyone.  We plan to begin mowing early next week and will allow carts off paths once we have started the mowing process.  During the season, carts will be asked to remain on paths because of rain.  There are occassions that red flags will not be allowed off of the paths as well.  Once it begins to dry, we will check the course and will notify the pro shop when red flags are acceptable again and when all carts can be off the path.

We have not mowed and let carts off paths because the turf/soil is still slightly soft and I felt we needed a couple more days of warm, dry weather before both my equipment and carts could go off paths without causing injury to our zoysia.

We appreciate your cooperation during the dormant period of the season for our zoysia fairways.  There could be some areas that will not handle traffic for the next few weeks where you might be directed by signs or stakes and rope for you to remain out of these areas.  Roped areas are set up to protect the turf and our members.  No carts including red flaged carts should enter a roped area. 

Areas which could potentially be excluded could include:

• Bottom of the hill on 3 to the pull off area.
• Approach of #8 on the north side of the road.
• The bottom of the hill on #10 to the green.
• #12 at the start of the fairway and around the 150 yard mark to bottom of the hill.

Remember, carts are to stay in the fairway only except for your return to the cart path.  Also, some areas of the rough are extremely wet this time of season.  The rule is to stay in fairways only but we know that some might stray a little off center.  Be warned that if you drive into some of the areas listed below,  you will get stuck:

• Right side of the trees on #2.
• Right of the cart path on #3.
• The entrance to the fairway in front of the red tee on #4.
• Left of the cart trail on # 7 along the tees to #5. 
• Right side of #8 approach in the trees.
• #10 in front of white tees to the lake and on both sides of  right cart path until it crosses the lake.
• Right side 10 rough  before 15 tee next to the lake.
• #12 between red tee and fairway and the bottom of the hill at about 125 yds from green on both sides of the fairway.
• Far right side rough #12 along prairie grass area(I've been stuck mowing)
• #13 bottom right of the fairway which we hope to address in the next few weeks.
• Between # 15 & #16 once you cross the dam for about 75 yards on the right.
• #16 to the lower right of the green approach.

First mowings of the season

Last Friday we started to walk mow our greens. We normally use 3 to 4 units each day to complete this operation. This operation will take approximately 8-9 hours of labor a day depending upon the number of operators, the direction of mowing and if we are doing a clean up cut or circle cut.(Circle cut is when the mower will go around the perimeter of the green, tee or fairway that they are mowing and mow some of the grass which they cannot cut near the edge of the area.)

Assistant Mike Walerius is going after the 4th green last week.

We attempt to walk mow as often as we can based on what cultural practices we are doing to the greens on a particular day. Sometimes we will walk mow and use our riding unit and roll greens which help with smoothing the surface and can speed up the greens for a day to two days. During our topdressing operations, we will also use a riding unit. The riding unit reels are larger and stronger than the walking unit and can be ground many more times than a walking unit. We have a grinding unit at our shop which sharpens the reels. Regular sand applications cause the reels to become scarred and cut the turf irregularly. These irregularities create weakness in the plant which can lead to disease and or damaged turf. It can also affect the roll of the ball because the turf is inconsistently cut. With our heavy sand applications, we keep Harry White our mechanic very busy with setting up the cutting units on a daily basis.

Today, we started to mow some of our fairways. While carts are still on paths, I will not usually attempt to mow fairways but there were a number of fairways which were pretty long from their winter rest and were beginning to grow and they were dry enough to not cause damage. There are a number of fairways which we cannot mow right now including 1, 3, 12, and the lower part of 13. Since our zoysia is beginning to green up and grow, we will begin to allow carts off of paths as the fairways are dry enough to allow cart traffic.

Russ is putting the first cut on #2 fairway.

Yours truly is doing the perimeter cut around fairways and walk paths from tees to fairways. Not a lot of grass around the fairways but some cool season grass to mow through in the rough for the walk paths.