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. 

Real Spring

Well it seems that Spring is truly here now and the 2 week forecast shows no freezes and quite possibly no more frost delays.  I have also found a few morels so that is tipping me off as well.  The weather has been favorable so far and has allowed for some good root development throughout the course.  I have noticed a good increase in root depth and mass in the greens which is always welcomed.  I have just a few things to talk about today and then I need to get back to the course.

By now we all know about the virus outbreak and the steps taken throughout the course in order to help flatten the curve so I don't need to go into details.  It has forced us to run a skeleton crew for the moment, but I feel like we are still performing the necessary tasks each week to provide a quality golf course.  Plus we even sneaked in the drain project in 9 fairway which I was afraid we wouldn't have time for.  Finally we don't have to look at that ugly birdbath right in the middle of the fairway anymore.  It was a long run of drain pipe for such a small area, but way worth it.  I feel like it turned out real well and we avoided hitting any irrigation pipe which is always sigh of relief.

We have opened the range tee turf for the season and as of now we are on the mats Monday and Tuesday and on turf from Wednesday through Sunday.  Ultimately I would like to be on mats Mondays only, but I need to monitor usage and recovery so that we can have turf through the entire season.  Not having our range open to all classic level courses Monday through Wednesday will be a big help, but I have one more plea in order to have better turf.  Please, please, please hit your range balls in linear patterns like the following:

This is essential to the speedy recovery of the turf and the more frequent usage of the range tee grass.  Please do not make the following pattern with you practice shots:

The only way this will recover is if we sod it or seed and sand it.  And if I seed and sand this area, the sand will constantly be pushed out of the hole by my mowers.  If we have the linear patterns to work with, the strips of grass will prevent the mower from gouging the sand out which will allow the voids to be filled laterally.

Aside from just trying to keep the course mowed out, a few small projects we will be working on will be:

• Completing the irrigation controller move near #11 tee
• Pouring new concrete and installing the ball washer and trashcan pole at #18 tee
• Spraying the native with pre-emergent and broadleaf herbicide

Please, as always, feel free to stop me on the course with any questions or comments.  Enjoy the spring weather as much as you can.

Typical Spring/ 2nd Winter

Well as I sit in my office typing this it is 32° outside and I drove through snow this morning to get to work.  Three weeks ago, we began a two week stretch of high 60's and everybody thought ole Punxsutawney Phil knew what he was talking about.  Then the rains came and brought in cooler temps and I even see a couple nights in the 20's towards the end of this week.  This is fine by me because our team is trying to tie up all loose ends to our winter work before we need to start mowing every day. 

We have been extremely busy this off-season putting together some small details that I hope will create a clean and noticeable impact.  We built brand new red and white hazard stakes to mark the course with.  These will totally replace the ones on the course now, which are all different lengths and pretty worn out, if they are there at all.  We also built a new style of traffic stakes with color combo to match our tee markers and logo.  These will be placed along path edges to protect worn out turf areas from cart traffic.  They are quite a bit larger than the little black and white ones we currently use so I would strongly suggest not to drive over these haha.  We also built new brackets for the trash cans at each tee area.  These should be much stronger than the last ones so that the can will actually stand up straight. 

We have also repainted the tee markers and are applying a clear coat to them now.  I plan on having them back on the course this upcoming week of the 16th. 


The drain work on #8 tee boxes is just about finished.  We lack placing the sod back on the black tee trenches and rolling everything smooth.  This should also be finished the week of the 16th.  I will inform the pro shop when I will be allowing golf back on them.  It won't be long, I would really just like to clean up the mud and loose pea gravel before they got used.  We went big with this project and did 10 foot centers, which is the smallest distance between trenches recommended.  Its a huge pain in the rear with all the hand work involved shoveling everything out and shoveling the sand and gravel back in, but those tees needed some major help.  Plus my anxiety levels were through the roof seeing all the mud on the tee plus all the foot traffic through the sloppy conditions, but I think its really going to help the playability of those tees through the season.  The drainage trench we did on #7 around the tee complex is working for sure, but we will need to monitor it through the season before I can say those tees won't need the same treatment we are doing to #8.  One last drain I would love to get to in the next month is #9 fairway.  We have got to get rid of that birdbath that has formed in the fairway.  We still have one possible path in order for it to be a non-intrusive project, but if that doesn't pan out then we will need to trench all the way across the fairway towards the fairway bunker and then run the pipe into the creek.  Not really what I want to do, but we have to make that playable turf again!  Below is a photo I took with my drone to show the the full pattern of the drain lines.

A couple weeks ago we were able to team up with a couple members and do a small project that produced a huge impact.  I want to send a big thank you to Chris Brown and Jim Asher for their help with placing rip rap along the cart path edge going from #1 to #2 tee.  It looks fantastic and will help keep the cart path from eroding and falling into the pond.  

And one final thing to mention.  This is the month where our team performs everybody's favorite thing........Greens Aerification!

We will be aerifying all the greens on March 30th and 31st with 3/4" solid tines.  We will do 9 holes a day in order to keep 9 holes open for play each day.  The week before this, I plan to aerify collars and approaches with 5/8" hollow tines plus the areas of greens where we struggled at the end of the year.  This would be left edge of 11, front and left edges of 12, left edge of 13, and the small bowl area right of 17 greens.  This process will be done with no course closures.  I have a quick release fertilizer that I plan to apply to all greens the week of the 23rd that should get the greens growing which will help in healing the holes quicker.  

That is about all I have for this month.  I hope you all got a chance to play some while the weather was unseasonably nice.  If not, i'm sure it won't be much longer before the season really gets going.  

Winter Projects Review

Hello again and thank you for continuing to check out my blog.  Our winter projects list is getting knocked out and I believe we will be able to accomplish most of what I had envisioned before we are mowing grass once again.  I tend to try and slam a lot of work into the winter because that is when we have the time to make the biggest improvements.  This month's blog will just be a review and update on those projects.

I told you all in last month's blog that we had cut down 13 trees at that point.  Well now the total is at 40!

31 of those were dead and dangerous to all if left standing.  There are 2 more small pear trees at the main parking lot that still need to come down and then we will be finished for this off-season.  The only other tree work to do would be to prune and limb up trees throughout the round and native.  We will try, but i'm not sure if we will get that finished this season.  

Hopefully, today and tomorrow we will finish up the driving range tee irrigation project.  As I type right now, the guys are back-filling the trenches and setting the new sprinkler heads.  We are tamping the back-fill as much as possible to avoid settling, but with all the moisture in the dirt from the snow melt, I am afraid we will see some sunken trench lines.  This should be minimal and easily topdressed out with sand.  Once finished with that, we will roll the sod back in place, sand and seed any spots that got torn up, and water the heck out of it.  

Once that is finished, we will take the trencher to 7 and 8 tees to begin the drainage install.  If we have good weather we should be able to finish those 2 holes by the end of February.  If all goes to plan, we will have the month of March to make our pre-emergent herbicide application to the native and the rough and to split and replant all ornamental grasses throughout the course.  They have gotten out of control and need to be tamed down a bit.  This will take some time, but I feel that they need to be replanted with some sort of pattern or symmetry in mind.  

That is all I have at this point about the course and our work, however I do have a personal note to add.  On 2/2/2020 my wife and I were blessed with another healthy baby boy.  Can you believe that, on this kid's first day he gets a Super Bowl victory!!!  So you may see me with bags under my eyes quite often this year, but I bet with enough monster and coffee I can get through it.  

  Once again, thank you for reading whats on my mind and I hope to see you all on the course soon.

Winter Projects

Hello and welcome to 2020.  I never got around to writing a December blog and I apologize for that.  Between everyone taking their time off and the holidays, time got away from me.  In this month's post I will go over the work that we accomplished in December and what we plan to do for the next couple months.  I often get asked, "what do you guys do during the winter?"  The answer.......Prepare the golf course and equipment for next year.  There is never a "perfect" year and there is always something to improve upon.

The main points of focus this winter have been and will be:

• Remove dead and dying trees
• Remove trees that are hindering proper growth of putting greens
• Improvement of the driving range tee
• Drainage in certain tee boxes

So far, we have removed 13 dead trees and still have a handful left to get.  We are working around the clubhouse parking lot at the moment since the snowfall has limited our golf course access.  Aside from being ugly, dead trees pose a danger to all that are on the course and must be removed.  We are also working on removing living trees around some of the greens in order to improve putting quality throughout the year.  We have taken 4 down behind 11 green which held the green under nearly full shade until around 10:00 am.  Morning sun is the most important to turfgrass and especially greens.  With #11 getting full sun now and the unclogging of the drain that I noted in November's blog, I believe that putting quality will be much improved on that green.  Also the entire greens complex should be much drier and firmer from now on.  We plan on taking 4-5 trees down behind #12 green for the same reasons.  And yes, I do plan on removing the large sycamore 10 feet to the left of #13 green.  I know that it is a good looking tree, but it is absolutely ruining that green.  It remains in the shade all day which really keeps it from drying out and especially since that side of the green is the low point.  The roots of that tree are also all up in the rootzone of that green competing against the green's roots for water and nutrients. 

Before this latest snow event, Grant and I spent 2 weeks working on the driving range tee.  This area needs a lot of help.  The plan for this winter is to improve the irrigation and then next year improve the drainage.  The south half of the tee is watered by large golf heads like the ones you will find on the course.  This is good, however due to issues in the past, all 6 heads have been wired up to run at the same time.  This is not good.  That ruins the pressure and when the streams of water cross each other, it creates a downpour in the middle.  Just like Egon said, "Don't cross the streams!"

The North side is irrigated by little home lawn sprinklers that are controlled by battery powered timers. Less than ideal.  Since we have no maps of the irrigation system Grant and I basically dug holes just to find out what was underground and how the system up there was put together.  Some of  these holes ended up being 5 feet deep! We figured out the wiring part of the problem and will have it to where sprinklers will be grouped by 2 or 3's and will be linked into our central control system.  This is a huge milestone.  Once the snow melts we will trench in new irrigation pipe and wire in order to add new golf heads on the North side to replace the home lawn heads.  This will allow us to water the range tee more consistently.  As we dug all these holes, we noticed the soil makeup of the tee is pretty bad.  Just below the grass layer is about 2-3 inches of a good sand based mix, but then below that is some nasty clay.  No wonder that tee doesn't drain for squat!  We will watch the new irrigation work this year and see what improvements that brings.  Next off-season we will probably need to install some pretty extensive drain lines through the entire tee.  In the meantime, we can get aggressive with the deep tiner and sand.

Speaking of tee box drainage, we are real close to trenching #7 and #8 tee drains.  We will be installing drain lines in the blue and black tees on #8.  There are a lot of tees that are just unusable after a heavy rain, but I feel 8 is the worst.  The lines will run from North to South and end up the the creek to the right of the tees.  #7 will have 1 long trench line running through the native from the back of the black tee to the front of the blue tee.  My theory is that a lot of water comes from that hillside and the neighborhood into those tees and makes them unplayable.  This might end up only being step 1 if those tees remain soaked.  If that is the case then lines will be installed just like on #8.  

Well I hope everybody had a fun and safe new years and I look forward to seeing you all back on the course in 2020.  

Greens Drainage and Tree Work

The calendar says that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, but i'm pretty sure I saw golfers in shorts on Monday. Well one thing I am thankful for is that Friday is the final Razorback football game of the year.....what a train wreck!

As the supposed winter begins we are slowly getting into our off-season practices.  Our team will be cutting new cups every 100 rounds or so as well as raking bunkers and moving tee markers.  We have filled the ball washers with windshield washer fluid so they will not freeze and crack.  When the forecast begins to show cold weather really settling in, we will pull the washers and tee markers from the course for reconditioning this winter. During the days that we have had below freezing weather, Manuel and Mario have been detailing our equipment and making them shine like new. These two guys also are the ones who put up the clubhouse Christmas lights which look spectacular. 

Grant has begun to remove some of the dead trees from around the course.  He cut 4 down just past the bridge on #14.  The next area we will get to will probably be behind #11 green, where 4 more trees will be removed in order to allow morning sunlight to hit the green.  I will have to rent a splitter, but my plan is to split all the tree trunks for firewood which I will sell for $50 a truck load once I get a supply built up.  If you are interested check with me later this winter.  

While he has been busy with that, I have been locating greens drain lines to make sure they are working properly.  I have been surprised so far, and most of the main trunk lines have been clear and working well.  That is, except for #11.  The drain line for this green runs into the woods on the left side and was actually crushed back into the ground not allowing water or air to escape.  Turns out that was a great place for a squirrel to hide it's stash of nuts haha.  

The last 8 feet of this drain line was packed with mud, acorns, and walnuts.  I cut this piece off and now the green will be able to drain and breath which I am very excited about.  

I have also used our skid steer to push all the piled up brush behind #12 green down the hill.  This has left a not so beautiful view as all the vegetation was stripped off in the process, but I assure you that the native grass will re-establish itself in the spring and if it doesn't, I will seed it.  

That is about all I have for this month so please have a safe and pleasant holiday season, and keep taking advantage of the 60 degree days when they pop up. 

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.