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! 

Short range grass tee open!

The short range grass tee is open for play today.  It has greened up enough and has dried from the recent rain.  This tee has a sand capped layer which does allow it to drain more quickly and be ready for play sooner than the long range.  It also gets full sun which helps it dry quicker as well.  It as not growing very much but with the rain reducing our playing schedule every few days it should be good enough for the amount of wear that will take place during this opening phase.  The long range tee is a little behind this season because the Patriot bermuda has slowed considerably from the cool, wet weather.  I sprayed RoundUp and premergent on the tee in February to reduce the amount of poa annua competition we got on the tee.  I will overseed 1/2 the tee this fall so that we will have green turf to hit from on the long range tee during the early part of the next season when it is dry.  

This season, we have decided to leave both grass tees open Tuesday-Sunday with no restrictions to the mats except when it is wet.  

Remember, the tee closes early on Thursdays so the staff can pick the balls for the next mornings rough mowing.  The range rough are mowed on Tuesday and Friday mornings before play arrives. They will be picked clean on Mondays during tournament time and will be closed slightly early on Sundays when there is no Monday outing.  Please keep in mind that shots hit more than 140 yards will more than likely end up off property.  I would limit shots to 125 yards just in case you might hit it further to insure that our range balls remain our range balls.  Thanks for your cooperation.

First grass tee action ready on the short range.

Day to Day Duties

Some normal happenings going on this week at Glen Echo. We brought one additional crew member back this week and will begin to increase our staffing over the next couple of weeks.

I'm still fooling with the format of this blog. I appreciate your patience in case something is not quite in alignment. Photographic memory is not a part of my repertoire. I have to practice a few times before perfection can take its proper place.

Some areas of our greens did not get the holes filled all the way to the top as we normally do when we aerated our greens last week. All of our staff members worked this week at adding some additional sand to a number of greens to insure that a majority of the holes were filled to the top. We will be doing some additional lighter topdressings in the next week in an effort to improve ball roll and smoothness.

The picture below is a part of the sanding process that took place. We used our standard topdresser to place the material on the green. In this case, 14 green was in need of more sand-than I would have liked to have seen. The guys are using back pack blowers to help with blowing the sand in the holes as well as brooms. Greens were rolled and were then cut the next day.

The never ending work of tree litter pickup underneath our trees at Glen Echo. We continue to work on picking up the Sweet Gum balls as well. We need to hurry with this work because the grass is beginning to grow and we will have to be cutting on a regular basis in the not too distant future.














Assistant Mike spraying greens on Thursday with a micro-nutrient application and a soil
building product called Humega. http://biofloraag.com/Organic/humega.htm
Interesting bit of trivia, Eddie Albert of Green Acres fame was a front man for this company when I first got in the business in 1990.

Assistant Skip is putting a nice clean up mow on the zoysia tees. They are slowing beginning

to green up but are not growing as of yet. Our efforts were to help in cleaning up the surface and to cut off some of the dormant material. We are going to cut our tees at .5 inches this season instead of .55. Not a great deal of difference but I think the cut will be improved. We might raise the height slightly during the worst part of the summer to help the cool season tees survive the heat.

Assistant Mike using the vibratory roller on the 1st blue tee which we aerified at the same time as the greens. The aeration created some undulations and heaving of the turf's surface. The roller assisted in smoothing the surface of the tee.

Our babies continue to grow in the green house. Our impatiens started with about 3-4 leaves and now have more than 10 leaves per plant. A couple fatalities from time to time but all are doing pretty well. The tropicals are not liking these cooler nights. The hole in the wall on the left side of the picture is going to be where our heat duct from the building heating system is installed. My younger brother is a sheet metal worker and is going to fabricate the work for me. Space heaters are taking care of the heat for now.