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! 

Late Fall, Winter Play

As the weather is changing, time for discussion regarding late fall and winter play rules.

This season we will allow carts off the paths as long as conditions are dry enough to do so. It does not take a lot of rain and or snow to place carts back on paths so when dry conditions and temperatures are comfortable, you should take advantage of this situation. A little golf, a couple cocktails and a lunch or dinner makes for a great day and helps the bottom line of the club. As freezing and freezing/thawing cycles begin to occur more frequently later in the season, cart path restrictions might become more frequent.

Also a part of our winter rules is for the practice ranges to be on mats only. I understand the desire to hit off of the ground but if we allowed play all winter on the zoysia, that area would be destroyed because of its inability to heal. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.

I would expect frost to be on the increase as we move later into November. As a reminder, we will not allow play onto the course until the frost has lifted. One of the things we will face later into winter is frozen ground/frozen turf blade conditions from harder freezes. I don't worry as much about the ground being frozen as long as the grass blades are soft and pliable. One of the things I'm most concerned about later in the season is when the ground is frozen beneath but the surface begins to thaw. It might be a warm day above ground but this type of condition can create serious root shearing issues for us and damage our greens with every step. This type of condition will force us to remain closed until the freeze has lifted our of the green and allowed the surface moisture to drain away. I will discuss this problem in greater detail when our winter thaw occurs.

In the meantime, the staff has been busy blowing leaves everyday. From green's surfaces, tees, fairways, rough and bunkers. We also use our mowers to help grind them up once they are placed in winrows on the course. We will be breaking out our vacuum as well during the heaviest period over the next few weeks. We haul this material to the dump in the back of the driving range.

We are down to 5 hourly(Nick, Russ, Tom, Jason and Randy) Hort Becky, mechanic Dave and Skip/myself. We lose Randy after this week and Becky and Nick at the end of November. Still a lot of leaves to come off the trees. We appear to be 10-12 days behind in leaf drop so we will be deep into fall before most are down.

Come out and take advantage of this great weather over the next couple of days. It should be fun!!

Tracking in Fairways

Green committee meeting last night and a question was posed regarding tracking lines or vehicle lines in fairways. Normal for this time of year with us blowing leaves off fairways on a daily basis. The fairways have not been mowed in over 10 days. Mowing will clear up traffic lines as well as the darker green color of the grass but no growth equals no mowing. Went out this morning to see if we would get any grass mowed but not tall enough to cut anything off. Depending if you are on the tee or the green and looking out toward fairway, the off colored grass is laying over and more pronounced in its look because of its lack of dark green color and its length.

No more traffic than normal. That is one of the issues we face with tree lined fairways and 3-4 rows deep in trees. Now if you remove more ..........., less leaves to blow, less traffic on fairways. Have a great day! 

Leaf Patrol, Bridge work and foot prints in bunkers

After mowing greens this morning, part of the staff spent the rest of the day clearing a large amount of leaves that accumulate over the winter along our fence lines.  They hand rake and use backpacks to blow the leaves in rows so that another staff member with a tractor and vacuum can then come by and pick them up and haul them to our dump area.  They were able to get a large portion of #4 completed and started on part of #3 because the winds changed direction.  This normally takes 3-4 days to complete the entire perimeter of the fence line of the property.  If the leaves are not picked up, they will kill grass along the fence rows, make it difficult to locate a stray golf ball and can also be blown back into play areas when  the wind blows in the right direction.

Jason picking up the rows of leaves along 3 that Jeff, Randy, and Sam blew away from the fence.

Skip, Russ and Tom worked on the 15 bridge/spillway project today.  A couple of portable mixer loads of concrete were placed underneath the 15 bridge spillway to shore it up and stop the scouring of gravel from underneath the structure.  The guys mortared some cracks in the upper part of the spillway to reduce leakage underneath the structure.  We plan to place a new concrete roadway on the bridge, preferably a Monday in the next couple of weeks. Still have to talk with Skip about the concrete flume work that I originally had discussed.

Skip, Russ and Tom pouring the concrete through the hole cut in the lower spillway. You can see the boards in the foreground and background that were used to prevent the concrete from coming out from underneath the structure.

I sprayed greens today with our seed head suppression product that I discussed a couple of weeks ago.  The requirements of the application are that you spray it no later than 21 days after the first application.  I was 1 day on the back 9 and 2 days early on the front 9 but early is better than late. I was concerned with a potential report of rain overnight and with Men's Opening Day on Saturday, did not want to be late with the application.  It appears our application is working but we still have not reached the peak flush for seed heads which should occur in the next few weeks and last for at least a couple of weeks depending upon the weather.

During the spraying today, 17 green was one of my last greens to spray. I took a picture below of a bunker that was not raked.  What was most surprising to me was that all three bunkers appeared to be not raked and all had foot prints in them.  Please be aware that bunkers are not raked every day and if you leave your foot prints in a bunker, players behind you are potentially left with a difficult shot if their ball would fall into a foot print.  Please be considerate and rake the bunkers after you use them.  Interesting, a majority of the other bunkers were raked properly.

The right bunker on #17 that was not raked after balls were hit from it by what it appears to be at least two different foot prints.

Continued leaf work and a little preaching about shade on greens!

With the winds, cold temperatures and  natures timing, leaves are falling at great numbers than we can remove.  The staff are out trying to clean off greens and our bunkers today.  I know they will not get finished since we had to delay our start because of frozen turf grass.  Tomorrow, we will begin to clean off fairways and move material into the rough areas.  We will be utilizing 2 blowers, the vacuum, at least one rough mower for mulching and probably at least one or two guys doing greens and finishing bunkers. We attempt to grind up as many leaves as possible which do provide some nutrition and soil tilth.  Too many leaves ground up in one area can smother grass, change pH of the soil and create additional layering for our grass which can restrict growth. This is why we use our vacuum to pick up and remove large quantities of leaves.

Once the leaf work does slow down, we will begin to pull plugs in the rough to improve water penetration and turf health.  This will help to increase freezing and thawing cycles within the turf which leads to the soil becoming more fractured.  The heaving of the soil improves exchanges of gases and root development in the soil profile.  We plan to pull cores in the rough until the ground freezes and in late winter/early spring when turf thaws.  This will strengthen our plants for the summer heat by improving moisture movement through the soil profile and at the same time allow for moisture retention due to millions of small water holding holes in the soil.  The more water that can move into the soil, the deeper it can move which will strengthen the plant through improved root systems.  As in trees, the more branching of a root system, the greater the water/mineral uptake and the more production of energy which then leads to more growth.  Excess energy is then stored within the plant.  This storage becomes most important in the heat of the summer when plants naturally protect themselves from the heat by slowing their growth.  When you slow production, less is available for the plant to survive.  The larger reserves, the better chance and plant has to survive stresses such as heat, disease, insects, mowing, walking, golf carts or having a divot removed..

Leaf removal from 7 green.  Also notice heavy shade from trees behind green.  The trees behind 7 green are not the worst because the green does get good morning sun but are becoming an issue because of their southwest location to the sun''s track across this green.  Air circulation is good to this green because of it being in the open and elevated which does improve its overall health.  FYI, these trees are not on a list for removal but they are beginning to create the potential for health issues.

Allow me to shift gears for a couple of paragraphs since we are talking trees.  Most superintendents are not judged on how they can grow a tree. Warning, editor opinion.  (Pretty easy, plant to grow, keep mowers off of it and watch it dominate its landscape unless a disease and or pest takes it out.  In most cases, they are pretty bullet proof)  Superintendents are judged primarily on how we can grow turf grass, specifically golf greens.  In a nutshell, that is why I'm so concerned about the competition created between trees and grass.  During ideal summers when there is reasonable amounts of moisture and milder temperatures, heavily shaded poa annua infested greens are not much of an issue.  Poa annua is a nice rolling surface except for the seed head disruption in the spring.  Its when we have a horrible summer like 2011 with high temperatures, high humidity from heavy rains and saturated soils when our turf suffers the most.  The plants have not been able to store as much energy as they should because of shading and or competition from tree roots.  Green root systems are less branched and become lazy because of excessive moisture from poorly draining and slow to dry shaded turf which means less food production is occurring during the build up to the summer.

Its then on like Donkey Kong.  High heat increases soil temperatures.  Water is a great conductor of heat and with heavier rainfall, the green profile does not release the heat like it should.  As soil temperatures increase into the upper 80's and then 90's, the plants begin to lose root structure.  Cells begin to die one at a time as do the root that is made up of these cells.  We talk about roots shortening which does naturally occur during an average summer but can be exacerbated due to compromised and unhealthy environments leading up to the severe weather conditions.  The higher the temperature, the more severe the impact on the plants. Poa annua root systems already shorter by biology then bent grass, suffer more severely because of this shorter root system.  More water is necessary to keep it cool but then their is too much water for the bent grass plants.  Bent grass, normally the stronger plant is weakened, has fewer numbers because of competition from the poa annua and poor growing conditions.

In most cases, poa annua will colonize greens in certain areas.  High moisture concentrations and shade are the two biggest factors.  The higher areas of concentration of this weaker plant species, the greater potential for larger areas of damage due to heat, excessive moisture and or disease.   Less root structure means less water/mineral intake.  The plant then overheats because it cannot cool itself.  In a way like humans, the plant basically goes through heat stroke and or exhaustion.  The plants systems begin to shutdown one at a time until it finally dies.  Root diseases can also begin to show their ugly head. This type of stress require chemical applications which are generally very expensive and require the highest labeled rates to apply and usually more than one treatment.  These applications can negatively affect the microbial populations which help to breakdown nutrient products and make them more readily available for the root systems to move into the plant.  At a time when the plant might need to be stimulated, this process slowed because of reductions in the life within the soil.

Golf greens are made up of about 2000 plants per square foot.  Below is a hypothetical example.

4000 sq foot green  5% turf loss = 200 sq feet of total turf loss
200 sq feet of turf loss x 2000 plants = 400,000 plants.

In most cases when areas begin to die or suffer, the leaf or leaves from one plant only die back to the crown where new leaves will regenerate.   If the weather changes for the better, damaged areas can heal fairly quickly.  If weather severity continues, the damage can continue to spread.  Sometimes, damaged areas require changes in maintenance practices to encourage healing which includes reducing mowing schedules and or raise the height of cut which can negatively effect ball roll.  When death does occur, that's when we have to seed into areas and or replace the damage through plugging and or sodding.  Okay, enough proselytizing for one session. Need to go out and help the staff remove leaves!!

Large oak behind 11 green in which its limbs now reach to back edge of 11 green.  This green has reduced morning sun due to tree line along cemetery.    Selectively removing trees could improve its morning light issues.  The green does sit down and is blocked from air movement because of the pine trees behind the green which are necessary due to the 12th tee which in direct alignment with the path as it goes behind 11 green. Also located next to the cemetery, the abundance of trees in the cemetery also reduces wind movement into this corner of the course.  The green is also flat which reduces surface water's potential from moving off of green.

First big leaf drop

Our leaves appear to be a couple of weeks behind in changing colors.  Along with that comes the clean up after they fall.  We've had some clean up over last couple of weeks but have a large under taking over the next few days with the lead drop from the rain.  It's a little wet in areas which prevents us from using our wide area mowers right away.  We are trying to get the green and tee complexes cleaned up first.  The staff will spend their weekend work time doing some wide area mowing and blowing to help clean up the course more thoroughly.  We appreciate your patience during this time.  Also, a majority of our seasonal help are at their lay off weekend so we will be reduced by 3 additional staff members beginning next week.

Leaves next to 3 tee and 2 green.

Leaf clean up along fences

As the leaves drop each fall, we spend  a great deal of time and energy either picking them up with our  sweeper or blowing them in windrows.  Our large area mowers then proceed to mulch them back to the soil.   Sometimes the prevailing winds and or our blowing machines move them up against the fence lines that mark the edge of our course creating places for errant or in my case perfectly lined up golf balls to come to rest.  We attempt to run our mulching mowers up against the fence but in the end, we must use backpack blowers to move the leaves away from the fence for removal.  The staff spent most of the day today cleaning up along a few different fences including #2 and #3 and possibly on to #4. The excess leaves also do kill grass up to 3-4' away from the fence which creates difficult lies if your ball ends up in this area.  Also, the leaves can blow back out into main play areas creating additional difficulty in locating golf balls.

Leaves being blown away from the fence and the sweeper then cleans them up.

The clean fence row along #2.

Leaves 2012

With just enough rain overnight on Monday and before the heavier rain(that nasty four letter word) took place yesterday, the staff went all out blowing, raking, vacuuming and chewing up leaves that had fallen on the golf course.  They are out there again this morning fighting their way through the blizzard like leaf drop that is happening.  Our early drop has been going on for the last couple of weeks(maples, ash)  but it appears the big drop is a little early this year.  The oaks are dropping in mass quantities all over the property.  Of course the timing could not be any better along with the rain events and the bunker project.  We will not have all the staff out chasing leaves on dry days when we are working bunkers but we will be sure to have enough staff working on leaves getting them cleaned up for you and your guests over the next couple of weeks as necessary.

Jeff blowing leaves along #2 fairway.

Final leaf clean up

The staff have spent a couple of days between rain cleaning up the fence lines along #4-#6 from leaves which had raced across the course and colonized.  They used backpacks to move the leaves away from the fence and the sweeper picked them up for disposal.

Jason, Tom and Russ blowing leaves away the wall.

Skip using the sweeper to pick up the leaves.  He has to make a couple of passes over the piles and remove a small amount of leaves at a time so that  the unit does not get clogged.  

Fall and leaves

Some great weather for golf the last couple of weeks but as the calender moves forward, so does the process within our 1000 trees on property to begin the yearly dropping of their leaves and needles.  The early round of trees include the Ash, Walnut, Locust, Cottonwood, London Plane Tree and White Pines which are shedding their second year needles.

We have two blowers, two rough units with mulching decks and our green surround unit which has mulching decks as well.  We utilize our leaf vacuum for the later round of leaves near the end of the month when the piles become too big to run our rough unit over the top.  Leaf clean up will probably take place everyday over the next month.

We will utilize our cart with pull behind belly blower to keep greens cleaned during windy days when backpacks just cannot keep up with the leaves raining down.  On the weekends, we clean the leaves off of the greens first thing in the morning ahead of the mower and will come back after lunch and do another round of cleaning for weekend afternoon play.  During the week, we will use our large area blower to remove leaves from the fairways and will create win-rows in the rough so our rough units can grind the leaves into smaller pieces allowing them to break down more quickly.  We will blow off the fairways on the weekends but are limited in the time we can spend on the course so we do not disrupt our morning weekend players.

We appreciate your understanding as we try to chase down the leaves from our trees.    

Leaf season is not over

As many of you know from your home lawns, leaf season is not over here at Glen Echo as well with well over 1,000 trees inside the fence lines of our beautiful 18 holes.  The guys are working the fence lines today in an effort to gather up some of the leaves that have scurried there through the many wind gusts over the winter.  Trying to get some of this busy work done before the grass begins to grow everywhere.

Tom, Arian, Nick and Jeff are blowing leaves away from the fences and are then vacuuming them up with our sweeper.  Multiple loads have already been hauled back to our dump area with many more to come.

Arian and Jeff along #4 blowing the leaves out of the fence line.

Nick knocks  the piles of leaves over with the Sidewinder mower and Tom would pick them up with the leaf vacuum.

First mowing of the rough, not yet

We have had enough rain to keep the soil moist but not completely saturated.  As we finished our leaf clean up late last fall, more leaves continued to drop and blow around the course througout the winter.  As conditions continue to dry, we thought we would go out and do a little leaf clean up.  We used the blower to move the leaves into windrows and the rough mower to chop up the leaves.  Usually, the rough mower will need to be out cutting a few areas of turf about the last week of March.  

Assistant Skip on the blower unit waiting for golfers to move through his area.

Russ mulching the leaves with the rough unit.

The making of leaf compost

With the large amount of leaves we have at the facility, it would only be logical for us to make something of value out of a couple of these piles of leaves. We had an opening in our storage bin area and decided to make some leaf compost for our ornamental beds.

The picture below is a pile of leaves that were dumped by our vacuum sweeper. In total, we placed about 3-4 piles of leaves in the bin.

The picture below shows the soil which is placed on the leaf material to help in breaking down the leaves to the final compost product. We also placed some of our flower bed material to add to the pile as well. Most composting is done without soil but I felt the soil would help to improve the nutrient holding capability of the compost once it is broken down.

Below is bag of fertilizer that we added to the compost to help heat up the material and break it down further. This is a greens grade style fertilizer that we would not normally use in this type of application but it was damaged in a flood that hit the facility during the summer.

Here is another view of the pile with sweet potato vine laying over the top of the leaves.

An interesting link to some frequently asked questions mowing of lawns, composting and mulch from Extension specialist Chris Starbuck from the University of Missouri.

http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G6958

We will pile up some leaves in our dump area which could utilized in the future as well.

More leaf work

Sometimes the large area blowers cannot get into the tight areas where leaves accumulate. The pictures below show the staff blowing the leaves away from wall along Lucas & Hunt road. Once the leaves are blown away from the wall, the tractor vacuum comes along and scoops them up.

Leaves, leaves and more leaves

During the fall, we attempt to do leaf removal work on a regular basis. The last two weeks of October which included well over 8-10" of rain prevented us from doing any leaf removal work because of the soft and wet conditions. We were able to do about 4 hours of work on October 29th before the deluge started again. This past week, we have been working non-stop to blow, grind and pick up the leaves that dropped during the wet spell and continue to chase leaves that continue to fall. We use our two large area rough mowers and our green surround mowers to grind up the leaves. There are two blower units that clear the fairways and rough or place the leaves in windrows for the mowers and sweeper to pick up leaves. We also use our large vacuum sweeper to pickup leaves as well.

Below is a picture of our sweeper as I was dumping our leaves in the back area of the range. The machine will grind up the leaves and blow them in the back of the unit. They dump into a compressed pile of leaves. We picked up multiple loads of leaves over the past two days which you can see in the next picture.


The remaining leaves on property are ground up by our mowing units and will become apart of the soil. The ground leaves will decompose in the top layer of the soil and will improve the overall health of the turf.