Course Update 5.16.14

I will start today's post off by congratulating Colby Harwell on winning the Otis Beck Memorial Club Championship. Mr. Harwell's two day total of 136 was just enough to hold off defending champion John Derrick who shot 137. It was a great weekend for golf and hope that everyone enjoyed the course. This weekend we will be preparing for the Senior Club Championship. The weather looks great and good luck to everyone who is playing.

Harwell (putting) with playing partners John Derrick and BU Coach Jay Goble on the 16th green.

COURSE UPDATE

Rain
We received 2.5" of rain on May 9th and just under 4" on May 12th. Up until now we have experienced an exceptionally dry spring, so we are thrilled to have finally seen some nice rain. We did not experience any major damage to the course with either rain event. However, the rain on the 9th came with significant winds - resulting in close to 100 down tree limbs, 1 large tree (on #1 by the Marina), and damage to our fence at the shop. Both rain events caused the bunkers to wash, and brought a large amount of mud and debris to many areas of the course. The crew did an excellent job both this week and last to get the mess cleaned up. The rain will certainly give our water budget a boost. The elevation of Lake Waco also got some help and came up over 6" to 459.87.

Sergio Zapata working to clean up the tree on #1

A quick note on the bunkers: We experienced substantial washing on several bunkers in the last week. This is to be expected given the amount and rate of rainfall. None of the bunkers held water and there was very little contamination of the sand. We were able to repair all of the bunkers in one day using only half of the crew! This can be credited to the new bunkers and the construction method. The old bunkers would have required pumping, and many, many more man hours to repair. The sand will be soft, similar to new sand, for a couple of weeks due to the washing.

Left bunker on #10 on May 9th

Greens
We completed our second "planet air" procedure on the greens this past Monday. The crew did an excellent job to complete the entire process before the rain hit Monday afternoon. The rain combined with the unusually cool temperatures will help the greens heal in no time. As I have said many times before, this cultural practice is critical to helping the greens survive the summer months. As the temperatures warm up you will also see our crew doing more and more hand watering. This past week we re-calibrated all of our soil moisture meters. These meters are a absolutely one of the best tools we have to properly manage moisture on the greens, and it is imperative that they are all working properly. As always, please remember to keep an eye out for the water guys when playing approach shots to the greens.

Ensuring that all of our moisture meters are reading properly

Tees, Fairways, and Roughs
We are finally starting to see some active bermuda grass growth on all areas of the course. Over the last couple of weeks we have started to aerate tees, fairways, collars, approaches, and some roughs. This aeration will help alleviate compaction, aid in water retention, and encourage new growth. The back nine fairways are completed and we will moving to the front nine next week. We also applied preventative grub control to all of the fairways and some roughs. Grubs and the pest that eat  them (skunks) caused major problems last year. We are optimistic that we have better control practices in place this year. In addition, we will be fertilizing the entire golf course on May 19th and 20th. Finally, we will be working to adjust our mowing patterns for several areas of the course. This includes aligning tees, selecting "no mow" areas, and modifying collar and approach lines.

Using our new DK55 Tractor to aerate 16 tee

Joe Nava using the Aer-Way slicer to aerate #10 Fairway

Projects/Other Work

• Nursery Green - Green growing in nicely, slowing lowering mowing height, topdressing and vertical mowing frequently 
• Spring Change Out - Last week we completed most of our spring flower change out
• Maintenance Facility - We are expecting to receive completed pre-liminary plans for possible renovations today. Eagle Design will have the costing completed by the end of the month
• Colligan Plans - We are starting to select certain areas on the course to be "no-mow" areas. For example, the area between #9 tees and fairway
• Irrigation - We are working hard to re-program our irrigation system in such a way that it will provide us more flexibility under severe drought conditions. These changes will allow us to make much better use of our water allotment by focusing on "in play" areas
• Sod work - Over the next month we are planning to sod several small weak areas on the course. We will start by working on areas close to greens and landing areas.