Finally Fall!

      Hello all and welcome to Fall.  It seems that the weather has finally changed for the better after a very warm September.  We have continued to deal with more rain for the first part of October, but it seems that we are going to stay dry for the next couple weeks.....I hope.  With the dryer air and conditions, I aim to have greens and approaches much firmer so plan on hitting more bump and runs.

      I believe the course is in great shape going into the fall and winter, which will only lead to better conditions for the 2020 golfing season.  However, with all the rain this year, Mother Nature has shown me that there are a lot of drainage improvements needed throughout the course.  Almost all the tees are just big soup bowls after a rain event, and in most cases, are not even playable without tearing up the turf with each swing.  Best case scenario when building a tee box is to have it on a 6" sand base for proper drainage.  Our tees sit on native clay soils which just hold the water at the top.  I plan to get aggressive with the deep tine aerifier and pull plugs as deep as I can get them.  After we clean the plugs we will bury the tees in sand and then drag it in.  This will need to happen often because on average, each aerification only affects about 5-10 percent of the surface.  I also plan to install drain pipe and gravel in some of the really bad ones.  #8 blue and black tees will be first.  After those, #12- #15 all need some love, but I will have to wait and see how much pipe and time we have left before we get started.  On #7 white, blue, and black tees I plan on running a single drain line through the native on the west side of the tees in order to catch all the run-off water from the neighborhood and hillside.  This is in the plans for this winter.

      There are plenty of wet valleys in the fairways and approaches that need drain lines and catch basins installed, but due to time and other winter projects I have planned, my first attack on these areas will be with deep, hollow tine aerification and sand in order to build channels for water and oxygen to travel through.  This, like the tees, will need to be a annual attack.  As time allows, we will add drain line.  Some of these areas will be: #1 approach, #2 approach, between 3 green and #4 black tee, and #4 approach both left and right.  Hmmm, seems like every hole will need something. 

      As far as the greens go, they need some drainage help as well.  I mentioned a little about this in my last blog and I have gathered a little more info since then.  The poor turf on 11, 12, and 13 greens and approaches are from poor water movement. If you look closely at these areas you can see good turf popping up in the aerification holes which shows me that these areas need oxygen.  In the following pictures you can see the holes with good turf and then in the soil profile you can see great roots growing down through the aerification channel, but not from right next to it.

Next year I plan on putting collars and approaches on their own aerification program and pulling cores each time.  This will be the collar all the way around the green and probably 2-3 passes in front of the green.  Also with these 3 greens, I feel that the drain lines have been compromised by tree roots or crushed sections of pipe.  Once I find the drain line clean outs on the top side of these greens, I can rent a camera snake in order to check the integrity of the line.  Seems very coincidental that each of these greens seems to drain towards a thicket of trees.  I'll go ahead and stick my neck out and say that tree roots have stopped up these drain lines.  You can estimate a tree's root mass by laying it on its side.  From the truck to the tip of the tree is how far the roots have stretched out.  Makes you look at that Sycamore tree left of 13 green a little differently huh?

      These drainage issues with the greens will probably take most of our time for the next month.  In my November blog I will have some more findings and I will run down my list of winter projects I hope to get to.  I'll leave you with a couple more pictures to end this post.  1 is the main line break that we repaired under the cart path at #13 tees and the other is my wife, son, and I in Colorado.  We just got back from a week visiting friends and family and enjoying the scenic outdoors.  Please get out and take advantage of this awesome weather we have now.  This is, in my opinion, the best golfing weather of the year.

Also, I had a member tell me that they were not able to leave a comment on my last blog.  If you are having trouble with this please email me at brien.agler@greatlifegolf.com and let me know.  I will need to fix that ASAP because I want all the feedback I can get from our membership. Thank you.