New Bunker Rakes

I would like to write up a small post thanking the Staley Farms MGA for the purchase of a 25ct. box of new bunker rakes.  That shows a good sense of pride that they would take funds out of their organization in order to better the golf course.  That also brought my attention to how poor shape our rake situation truly was.  So I also bought a box of rakes.  I switched to a brand of rake that I prefer that I hope will hold up better than the others.  Now I know that when a rough mower hits a rake handle, it doesn't matter who made it, its going to destroy the handle.  However, on our older rakes I noticed the teeth were breaking off like I had never seen before.  The 50 new rakes were able to get me through #9 fairway and from there on, I culled the best of the old rakes for the rest of the golf course.  I'm big on consistency, so over the winter I will purchase more of these newer rakes so that they will be the same throughout the entire course.  So along with speaking to my rough mowers, I have also placed stickers on each rake handle as I am sure you have seen.  The stickers say," Place Rake in Bunker".  The chance of a rough mower hitting the rakes will drastically be reduced if my bunker crew and each golfer will place the rake on the inside edge of the bunker after use.  I have included a picture of an example of placement.  I have also spoke with my bunker crew about the proper placement. Lets hope this will prolong the life of these new rakes. 

Deep Tining and Dying Weeds

Hello everybody and welcome to August.  Seasonal help is heading back to school and we are inching closer and closer to the start of Razorback football season!  I know, I know we aren't very good and there is this whole thing about we live in the state of Missouri, but it at least brings cooler weather to us all.

Today I want to share a picture and some videos from a couple tasks that were completed in the end of July.  I finally wrapped up Deep Tining tees tops which is just the beginning of creating a smoother, more consistent playing surface.  With this machine I was able to pop solid, 6-8" deep holes in all the tees to improve rooting and drainage.  I definitely found a couple tees that need serious water adjustments as you will see in the first video.  The front roller of the aerifier was acting as a squeege as it worked across a few tees.  Finding this is going to help us all moving forward as I will be aware of these areas in the future.  Also in the future, all tees will be verticut, topdressed, and core aerified which will bring us flatter and smoother surfaces.  Here is a video of me deep tining the blue tee on hole 12 and then a second one of the action of the machine.

The following picture shows some crabgrass and nutsedge feeling the affects of the herbicide that we applied to all tees after the aerifying.  We used a three way combo of products in order to kill crabgrass, yellow nutsedge, and goosegrass.  If you have noticed some weeds turning white on the the driving range tee, that is the goosegrass' reaction to one of the chemicals.  All tees will need a second application this upcoming week to truly knock out the crab and goose.  The nutsedge will be done just after 1 app.  We seem to have had crabgrass breakthrough on tees and there could be many reasons why.  Rainfall can play a big part in the breakdown of the pre-emergent, and we had plenty of that this spring.  Divots taken will also create holes in the chemical barrier which will then allow for weeds to germinate.  I believe I will try to split my application next year into 2 and see if we have better success.  

One other small note. We have begun mowing the native down.  It will take a while to finish this project, but I am hoping that we can spray a broadleaf herbicide behind the mow and control all the weeds now that they will be susceptible.  This should create a clean look as the grass grows for the remainder of the season.  We will mow it again once we are most of the way through fall. 

Well that is about it for this entry.  Please continue to stop us and ask questions whenever you'd like.  Hope you have a good time out on the course and thank you for all the kind words and support we have been receiving.