Where did the sun go?

I believe the sun does still exist, however I have no proof at this point.  A little sun would go a long way for the course.  Things are green and growing, but I can see a little yellowing in the rough due to the extended shade we are receiving.  Hopefully we get plenty of sunshine once this week of rain passes us by.

This season has not started out so smoothly, but I think the course is starting to get to a good playable condition.  Obviously the Covid deal has made things super weird, but we have dealt with a couple major watering issues that have slowed our roll.  A major component of our pump house control panel failed which prevented us from having controlled irrigation.  The component was the PLC or Programmable Logic Controller which tells the pumps how to run.  The PLC reads the pressure in the pipes throughout the entire system and relays info to the pumps to tell them how much water to pump in order to keep optimal pressure.  With the PLC broken, our pumps only knew 100% on or 100% off.  In order to water anything, I had to turn on enough heads throughout the course to keep the pressure below dangerous levels.  This meant a lot of driving back and forth from hole to hole to pump house and back again.  No Bueno!  Oh yeah, another thing....the part needed to be shipped from Japan in the midst of Covid.  It got repaired and things are back to normal and I have never been so relieved.  That is until the crew developing the new housing development ripped a 20 foot stick of our pipe and wire out of the ground to the right of 14 tees.  We are back up and running, but I am still very nervous watching them scrape earth right next to 12 and 13.  I talked with the construction superintendent to get an idea of their plan and timetable.  Hopefully he keeps communicating with me because there will be a few things that they do that will impact our operation as well as cart traffic.  The sewer line will be crossing the cart path just behind the black tee box on 13.  You can see where they have clear cut a path for that.  This will take out the cart path and our main irrigation line which runs right below the path.  I will work with their crew in order to ensure continued cart traffic and irrigating.  Cart path will also need to be moved around the 12 green area because supposedly it currently runs through the corner lot's backyard.  He thought they would be moving earth for a couple months before they were ready to start in on the sewer install so looks like July will be a heck of a lot of fun.

There goes the neighborhood.  Sorry, I meant here comes the neighborhood, wahoo.

I have had a few members reach out to me asking for my opinion on fairway divots.  The question is do I want divots replaced or would I rather just have them filled with sand.  This answer has a lot of variables so here is my best effort.  I would love for all the divots to be replaced and stepped down.  That works with an ideal divot.  If the shot is picked pretty clean and there is nothing but a handful of grass blades, then obviously there isn't anything to replace and sand would be the choice.  I think the best answer would be to replace what you can and fill the edges with sand.  Weather is going to play a huge role in the survival of the divot as you can imagine, but even if it scorches and dies, there will be something there for a ball to roll over smoother than a void. 

Here is a divot with some mass and then another with none at all and how I would repair both.

I am almost happy with the way the greens look.  I think some sun will help that tremendously.  We have been able to verticut the past 2 mondays which really helped ball roll by taking out some grain.  It also provided some nice channels to stuff sand into.  The more sand we can get into the green's canopy the better they will play throughout the year.  Sand will filter down into the green profile and help dilute the ever-growing thatch layer.  This will keep the green's surface firmer and scalp resistant through the heat of the summer when bentgrass wants to get puffy and soft.  Ideally I would lightly topdress greens every monday, but sometimes that isn't feasible so it may become more like every other monday.

This is a profile from the right side of #13 green and it is pleasing to my eyes.  I have labeled the thatch layer and pointed out 2 aerification channels.  As turf grows, it sloughs off dead tissue as it regenerates new tissue.  This dead organic matter is known as thatch and it continuously builds just below the crown of the plant.  If left untouched, it will act as a sponge making the putting surface soft and squishy, as well as keeping water and nutrients from getting down to the roots.  All of this is bad.  You can see that the rootzone gets lighter in color as it goes down.  The top is darker due to the organic matter that has built up over the years and the bottom mix is pure sand that has not been disturbed.  As you are about to see, our rootzone here at Staley is in really good shape, which is proof of good, continuous topdressing in order to dilute the thatch and organic layers.  The following are examples of greens that were neglected of good topdressing and aerification.

  

You can see how much darker these organic layers are from the lack of sand dilution.  The turf looks good on top, but I can almost guarantee these greens struggled to drain water and got pretty soft and puffy in the middle of the summer. 

It sounds like we are going to get a little closer to normal at the beginning of June with league play starting again as well as clubhouse events.  This is great news and hopefully we will be able to put bunker rakes and ball washers out soon as well as get rid of those annoying pvc pieces in the cups. 

That is it for this month, thank you again for reading my thoughts here.  Please continue to stop me on the course with questions or comments.