Edge, Vertical, Install, Removal, and Notch

We have not had the greatest weather over the last few weeks. A few dry days, then some cold and wet weather. Staff have been changing the pace more than Adam Wainwright to get things completed for the season at Glen Echo.

EDGING OF BUNKERS

The staff began the arduous task of edging bunkers and moving sand around in them this past week. They completed Holes 1, 3, 4, 7, and 5 with a little more work to be completed. I have a video below which will give you an update of the work and what it takes to get to the finished product which I will bullet point below;

• Edge the lower side of the bunkers. Use a sharpened sod shovel to reform the edge removing the sod that has grown over the old edges. Shake the excess sand from the sod.
• Locate the depth of the various areas inside the bunker to determine which areas need sand and which locations need some sand moved to the more shallow areas.
• Shovel the sand or if there is room use the blade on the bunker rake and push into place.
• Rake the bunker and move to the next. Took 4 staff members all day to work on about 11 bunkers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLbqJOOWHfY

Completed

VERTICAL MOWING OF GREENS

This past Monday we took advantage of the golf course being closed and vertically mowed our greens. We have a set of reels that goes on our normal greens mower that mows up and down instead of a lateral mowing that we do on a regular basis. There are 37 blades on each mower that cut straight down into the canopy of the turf. These blades are about 3/4" apart and cut through the top of the surface of the green cutting longer turf blades and pulling up small amount of thatch in the process. We only set our cutters to about a depth of 3/8" so the healing process is pretty quick. The purpose of this practice is to help stand up the blades of grass and cut off the longer leaves of bent grass. Bent grass from its name lays over and can become longer relatively speaking. The longer the blade, the more friction placed on the golf ball which slows the balls roll out.

Once we've vertically mowed, we then use a drag brush to stand the turf up and spread the sand and thatch around on the green. The regular mower than mows the green picking up a majority of the excess leaves and thatch material. First video is of the vertical mowing and 2nd is the regular mowing to clean up the material off of the green. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGZBxOAWgPM

Vertical mower, as you can see the blades are in the vertical position.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJZCu9mnPn0

FENCE INSTALL

The fencing along St. Mary's Lane was made up of a lightweight aluminum fencing which is difficult to stand up against a large area mower. Of course its important that our mowers stay away from the fence as well but at times it would bump up against it and stretch it out of shape. We will be installing an 8 gauge galvanized fence from the Wallingford gate down to the entrance to the club. A majority of this work is complete. We need to bring in another roll of fence to complete the project.

Staff stretching the fence along St. Mary's.

Look from the installed side.

TREE MANAGEMENT PLAN

Over the last few weeks, we've removed another 5-6 standing dead Pin Oaks that succumbed to the Wasp Gall that have invaded our property. We still have 2 to remove on the right of 2 and a dead Sycamore along Lucas & Hunt as weather permits. We had hoped to have all ground out stumps filled with soil and covered with sod but have not been able to get this accomplished because of the lack of lengthy periods of dry weather.

NOTCH ON THE BELT

As most of you know, I've been on a journey over the last few months to improve my physical health and along with these efforts my mental health is improved with the release of hormones and other positive effects of the weight loss, proper eating and exercise helped to create.. My participation in the GO! St. Louis Marathon was an accumulation of efforts since December 10th that have led to weight loss of about 33 pounds and exercise in which majority of it included walking of over 300 miles. During the 12 week challenge with over 130 fellow superintendents, vendors and family members, we lost over 2,200 pounds and I lost 33 total but only 23 during the start of the event on January 1. As I continued to push myself to beat personal bests in waling distance and pace, I decided to do the 1/2 Marathon at the end of February. A couple weeks later after walking along with some jogging I went over 16 miles and the die was cast to try for 26.2 miles. 

My desire is for this to be a permanent change in eating and general exercise which. I still have a goal to get down to 170 pounds(11 more to go) and be at my college graduation weight. I appreciate the memberships support of me during the period. Its been a great experience to date.

I hope to see you out on the course soon.

Spring Greens Aeartion Complete

The staff completed our spring greens aeration Monday evening.  Check out the video below for the all the details.

For devices that do not go directly to the embeded video, use the link below.

https://youtu.be/dS-nl12ItYQ

Piles of cores removed.  Took about 3 full cart loads per green to haul away material.

Blowing sand into the holes and then would brush and roll.

Grooming/vertical mowing and smoothing greens

On Monday, we took the opportunity to give the greens a light verticutting/grooming a few weeks before the member guest.  We topdressed the greens, brushed them with our cocoa mat and mowed them.  This should help improve ball roll and smoothness.  We will probably topdress again next week about 10 days out from the Invitational to insure the greens are at their best for our upcoming event.

Jeff using a standard riding greens mower but with vertical mowers on the unit.

Why its called vertical mowing, blades are 3/4" apart and are up and down.

Skip topdressing 2 green.

Grooming/verticutting greens

We did a light verticutting/grooming of our greens today.  This practice forces the grass to stand up and will cut some of the longer blades leading to a better cut.  With our higher height of cut over the stress of the summer, the grass has a tendency to lay over and become lazy.  The more grass surface area, the more friction created which slows ball roll.  Verticutting/grooming, topdressing, and brushing help improve the smoothness and ball roll as we move from summer conditions into some beautiful fall weather.

Verticutting of the greens

Verticutting of our greens took place on Monday.  The illustration in the link was much deeper than we accomplished.  Our main goal was more of a heavy grooming, making the turf stand up, and cutting the longer blades of bentgrass that had accumulated from late last season.  In allowing our greens to heal from greens coring/aeration in March, they were a little longer than normal as well.  Check out the following blog post from last season which gives you a close up view of the verticutting unit.  http://geccgcm.blogspot.com/2010/03/light-verticuttinggrooming-of-greens.html

The wet and cool weather of the last couple of weeks of April has kept us from topdressing and doing some of the early season grooming/verticutting we attempt to do each spring.  As long as the weather cooperates over the next few weeks, this process will be repeated a couple of more times as will our regular weekly topdressing program and brushing.  The more turf that we are able to make stand up, the less friction on
the ball which improves the ball to roll true to the hole and role out when necessary.

Russ using the verticutters on the greens.  You can see some of the extra grass clippings created from the unit cutting some of the longer leaf blades.





The greens were then topdressed with sand by Skip.





Jason dragging greens with a brush.







Finishing touch of mowing by Tom L.



Light verticutting/grooming of Greens

Since we were not able to aerify our greens yesterday, we are doing a very light grooming/verticutting of our greens today.  This process forces the grass blades to stand up and the greens mower then is used to mow off the blades.  We will do this type of cultural practice throughout the season to help keep our turf in a more upright position which reduces the amount of turf that comes in contact with the ball.  The less contact, friction or drag on the ball increases ball roll and reduces the affects of grain on a golf ball.  

Toro verticutting unit used on our greens.

The final effect of the verticutting unit after going over the green surface.