STRESS!

I have finally returned to write our next blog after over a month of hot and humid, bentgrass hating weather.  The month of June fit perfectly with the rest of 2020, meaning it was a complete mess.  Now before I get into the junk that circles inside my head all day, I want to say that I am pleased with the way the golf course is looking and performing.  Unfortunately, its not every day that I am able get the golfer's overview of the course with a calm head to see the beauty.  Mechanical breakdowns, heat stress, disease, and our new dirt moving neighbors on the back nine have been keeping me occupied lately. 
So..... I literally just went back out to the course for our evening shift after Stampede round 1 and I found the calm beauty I mentioned in the previous sentence.  It was a very welcome sight and brought my sanity level back up a bit. 

So as I am typing this, the day is July 10th.  As far as the weather goes, I feel like we have been through 3 Julys already.  With the heat and humidity starting clear back at the beginning of June, we started seeing fairway stress spots a full month before we did last year.  Also we had a week long stretch of 90 degree temps and low humidity which really dried the course down.  I felt like the course played perfect that week and was just on the good side of the edge of no return.  Its at that point where I hope for some rain or I get the spray tank out and apply a wetting agent.  I had to get the sprayer out.  And then it rained the next night lol.  We got about 2.25" in 4 days which reset the moisture level throughout the course.  Fairways and tees got consistently green again and we put some more water into the pond.  Then the humidity set in and made life outdoors miserable for both human and turf.  With the humidity comes disease pressure and we all know that bentgrass is highly susceptible, and it did not prove that theory wrong. 

Pythium Blight

Pythium is the scariest word known to a bentgrass manager.  It is a fungal disease that has the ability to wipe out an entire stand of bentgrass in 24 hours unless treated.  I saw our first case this year at the start of June when we received our humidity spike.  At the beginning of #5 fairway on the left edge as well as all along the left edge of #13 fairway.  These are both habitually wet areas and pythium loves hot and wet conditions.  It is insanely mobile and can spread by foot, mower, or water which is why it can wipe out its host so quickly.  I didn't catch the spot on 5 soon enough and we lost a good portion of turf.  I sprayed the disease and stopped its spread, but there is a lot of healing that needs to take place. 

So we got that tamed down for the meantime and then we got into the drier weather that I mentioned earlier.  Then when we finally got that much awaited for rain, it also brought along with it some more bad news.  The silt collection pond built for the new home development failed to contain the 2" rain and flooded the back 2 tees on #14.  Along with the water came all the mud and silt to boot.  This was a topdressing of the worst kind.  Aside from the tees being a swamp for the next week, once they do dry, they will continue to become mud slicks everytime it rains on them unless that silt and mud are removed.  Plus the sediment will suffocate the plant and prevent any drainage or air movement into the rootzone.  So.........I pressure washed the tees with a hose over the holiday weekend.  It didn't remove it all, but i did get a lot out.  Good thing I had a lot of flood cleanup practice at Deer Creek lol.  Once stampede is over I will be core aerifying those 2 tees in order to remove more mud and allow for drainage.  This will probably have to happen a couple times before I can rest assured that they will survive.  Until then I do apologize, but you may find your tee markers on the far forward tee if the white and the blue tee boxes are too sloppy.  I called the construction superintendent and he told me their plan was to beef up the erosion protection which I have seen they did.  I just hope its enough or I will have him on the other end of the pressure washing hose.

So here we are, we made it to Stampede week and things are coming together.  Practice round Wednesday comes along and my fairway mower comes to me and lets me know he has seen more Pythium.

                                                 
So here I go, driving up and down each fairway for the rest of the day and evening searching and spraying.  I ended up spraying 9 acres worth of Pythium Blight.  I'm so ready for November! 

One last thing to bring up.  If you are having a practice session on the putting greens please keep your feet moving.  If you keep standing in the same spot to hit putt after putt after putt, you will leave bruise marks on the green.  This time of year the bent does not heal so quickly and sometimes not at all.  If you want to continue to hit a certain distance of putt then please circle around the cup after each round of balls.

Ok, enough doom and gloom.  Like I said, once I had a calm couple of hours,  I got to see the course for what it is right now.  Stunning!