Changes and Improvements

 I am sorry for my absence here on the bloggisphere, but I believe I have a lot of good information to cover in this edition.  Plus, equipment issues have raised my blood pressure to new heights over the last couple weeks so some time at the computer will do me well.  First off, after a very long two months, I have hired my new assistant.  His name is Ashton Box, and comes here from Brookridge Country Club.  He has jumped right in and is really taking a lot of weight off of my shoulders.  

So in my humble opinion, our golf course is outstanding right now and I have a lot of confidence moving forward that we will remain in good shape.  Now I could still write a novel about things I don't like or areas that need improvements, but that will always be my curse that comes with the job.  The following are some areas that I have made adjustments in and the results that we are seeing because of them.

Green's Fertility

Fertilizer and nutrients make the plant grow.  I know, mind blowing right?  That is great and all, but turf that is growing a lot is slow (talking green speed) and it is more prone to disease.  Nitrogen is the main nutrient that causes growth and green color.  It is also how turf managers quantify how much they are feeding their turf.  A typical rule of thumb is a tenth of a pound of Nitrogen per thousand square feet per week to keep a bentgrass plant in good health, without overdoing it.  My first year here I sprayed a tenth a pound every other week on greens in order to try and keep things lean.  It did alright.  Last year I played with some different and higher quality fertilizer on the every other week schedule, but only sprayed half a tenth of a pound of Nitrogen.  I saw better results due to the new fert having a combination of amino acids in the mix.  I won't go down that rabbit hole, but amino acids are good.  I still was not satisfied with the off week between applications.  This year I have been spraying the same half a tenth every week and I really like the results.  We are keeping the dark green color and I havn't seen any flushes of growth.  Now as far as the lower putting green goes, it is getting a lot more food than any other green.  This is so it can take all of the traffic that it receives.  It still gets the same sprays as the others, but I have applied monthly applications of a slow release granular fertilizer at the rate of 3 tenths of a pound of Nitrogen.  I havn't putted on it myself, but I imagine it is a bit slower than the others and for that I am sorry.  It is not a true representation of the greens on the course, but I really just want to keep it alive.  Everybody uses the lower green instead of the upper green and I completely understand.  I wouldn't use the top one either.  I feel like it is a sorry excuse for a practice green since it is nothing but a skinny hill of bentgrass.  

Tee Fertility

This is what I am most excited about.  We had a lot of grass to grow on our tees and I believe we are accomplishing that!  Like the greens, I have increased the quality of fertilizer for the tees and I am applying it more often.  1 big thing that is contributing to the goal is that I have stopped using a growth regulator on tees.  I mean, if I want to grow a lot of turf in an area, why in the world would I spray something that slows down growth.

I have thrown a lot more granular fertilizer on tees this year than in the past couple years and I will keep up that trend as long as I am here.  I have added a couple photos of a bare spots that are filling in and if you look close you can tell that the blades of grass are super fat and long as they are stretching over the bare spot.  This is due to the amount of fertility that I have in the turf and it is just proof that its working.  

 

I have also been topdressing tees regularly this year in order to start building a better rootzone for the plant and a better footing for the golfer.  By the looks of things I would say that it is working, but in reality I know that topdressing needs to be a routine in order to see the true benefits.  I believe I see proof of these improvements, but I see a much firmer tee surface coming in the future.  I will continue feeding the tees throughout the year, but through the heat of the summer I plan on using an organic fertilizer mixed into my topdressing sand.  Walk spreading tees is no fun at all so if I can take care of 2 things at once and be able to drive as well.....sign me up!  The organic fert will have no chance of burn in the heat so I feel pretty confident.  One other chemical that I plan on introducing to the tees is a silicon product that will act as "the little blue pill" for turf.  I tested it last year 1 time and it was pretty dern amazing.  I plan on spraying it every 2 weeks and it should really help with traffic tolerance throughout the heat of the summer.  Due to the fact that I am not using growth regulator on tees, I am needing to keep them mowed quite often.  I am trying to get them mowed 3 times a week and so far I am succeeding since I have found a handful of good employees this year.  I know in an earlier blog I had said that I wanted to mow fairways 3 times a week and tees twice.  Well I have flipped that around due to another change I made with growth regulators in fairways.  I'll go over that as well soon.  So far so good and the more I mow the tees, the more the turf will grow sideways and continue to fill in bare spots.  

Fairway Applications

I made another adjustment when it comes to chem/fert in fairways as well.  Less fertilizer and a combo of 2 different growth regulators.  In the past we have used a high rate of just 1 growth regulator and it had worked ok until last September when it failed miserably.  The regulator that we had been using needed to be watered in before the plant would take it in and start to use it.  This could take up to 3 extra days before the plant would slow its roll.  Not good enough for me, especially when the stars don't always align for me on what I want to do on certain days.  So I have cut the rate of that same chemical in half and I have added another regulator to the mix.  The new addition gets absorbed by the leaf tissue immediately so I know it starts working the day I spray it.  So far it has worked very well and we are not having many clippings left in the fairways.  Only time will tell me if it is going to last once the summer rolls through and the plant starts processing the chemicals quicker.  I have also cut down on the amount of Nitrogen I am spraying on fairways in order to lessen the chance of disease.  So far color has been good, but I am planning on adding a few new nutrients to the mix that will aid in keeping it green with no additional Nitrogen.  

Now that we are starting to get into some normal summertime heat, we are hand watering greens each morning and will continue to do so until November probably.  Nothing is changing with the way we perform this task, but I want to let you all know what it is exactly we are doing.  We use moisture meters each morning to pin point each dry area on each green.  Since they are all different from one another we can't just turn the sprinklers on and expect to have consistency.  These meters give us a percentage of moisture at a depth of 3 inches.  Since this will be my third year watering these greens, I now know exactly where to go on each green when scouting for dry spots.  Ashton is still picking this up, but it will only take a handful of hot days in order for him to gain the same knowledge.  On average, we will take a reading at 35 - 50 spots for each green.  Slopes dry out fast so naturally, Staley greens take a few more stabs with the meter than most.  Below is a picture of the screen on my meter.

If I really wanted to dive into the weeds with this technology, my meter can read salinity levels and you can bluetooth it to your phone to build maps of each green and a lot of other really cool stuff as well.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  So we read 1 number and that is the 18.5 you see there.  So that is telling me that the spot I am in is 18.5 percent water and that is actually the number I shoot for in the mornings.  If it is below 18 then I take more readings around that spot and build a map in my head of how big of an area I am going to need to water and how much water I want to try to put there.  If we can get the green to an 18 percent in the morning then it will last all day even if it gets into the high 90s.  

As I type this it is June 10th and I am happy to announce that the range tee grass will open up tomorrow morning.  Its a little later in the year than I had hoped for, but the wet and cloudy spring we had kinda held me back a little.  I'm very pleased with how much the new grass has taken off in the last couple weeks and it has me very optimistic about our ability to have it open for an entire golf season in the future.  I do ask 1 thing from you all while hitting balls up there.  Please try to create lines of divots instead of excavating a big hole.  This will help with the regrowth of each area and our ability to come back to that spot down the road.  If I am left with giant pot holes then the grass will not regrow and we will have to rely on a fully seeded recovery which will add a lot of time before we can use that spot again.  Below are examples of divot rows versus divot craters or a divot shotgun blast.  

 

Our plan is to use the grass tee every week from Tuesday through Sunday and to use the mats every Monday.  All outside tournaments and events will use the mats.  One new rule we are going to put in place is that anytime it reaches 95 degrees or hotter then we will move to mats only.  This will help keep stress from foot twisting off of the grass in the extreme heat.  Hopefully we won't ever have to use that....ha.  

OK, I think that is it for now.  The heat is here and hoses are out.  Please remember, humidity rules all.  It determines how much water we need to put out and it determines green speed for the most part.  The more humid, the slower and tackier the greens will be.  Hit em straight and continue to stop me on the course with questions.  

On the lighter side of things, proud Dad moment.  For those of you that don't know, my Dad is a PGA Pro down at Fayetteville Country Club and my wife is taking my 4 yr old next week to his Jr. Golf program.  I don't know if he will get into the sport, but it sure seems my 1 yr old is getting interested.

 

 Well once again Mother Nature has proven that she is in control, and also that she can't make up her mind on what season we should be in.  The redbud and cherry trees sure did look good in the snow though.  I thought the golf course woke up better this year than my 2 previous springs.  I think that the warm temps we had are probably the biggest cause of that, but I also like to think that the slow release fertilizer I put out last fall did it's job.  I believe I will continue that practice and hopefully we can green up like that every year. 

 Aerification time came around as the greens were looking their best, naturally, and I was very happy with how it turned out.  I changed up my rotation a little and I think it paid off.  The order of steps in the past had been; sand, aerify, drag, and then roll.  I just thought that all the tire tracks from dragging caused major waves in the green and were miserable to try and smooth.  This year we rolled right after the aerifier did it's thing, and then drug the sand into the holes.  I think this made the green much firmer which in turn lessened the waves from pulling the drag mat around.  This is another practice that I plan on continuing.  Our weather luck ran out shortly after and has really slowed down the healing process. We started having consistent frosts and the past couple nights have been below freezing.  We are almost completely covered back over, but it feels like its taken forever.  I have a few pictures below to show some proof of our progress and why it is so important to aerify regularly.  Not that I have gotten any complaints because I aerify, but sometimes its just nice to see something working, especially when that thing is as annoying as greens aerification.  

The first picture is from last fall and the last three are from the past 2 weeks.  We have a lot of good looking roots throughout the entire rootzone, however the new, clean sand channels are where you find the best.  

At the moment I would say that the drain lines installed this past winter have been a success.  I would still like to see how they perform after some summer downpours.  There is still a lot of work to be done to get these areas back to a solid stand of bentgrass, but I have a plan.  In the past couple weeks I have seeded these areas in hopes that I can get some bent to compete against the poa that is taking over these places.  When fall arrives I will begin using a brand new chemical which kills poa annua out of bentgrass.  This is the first chemical ever that could make that claim.  This guy is going to make a billion dollars! 

There are quite a few courses in our area that are starting to use this product, but mostly on their greens.  Our greens at Staley are actually pretty clean, but I plan to start testing this in our fairways.  I have spoke with the developer of this product about my plans and he has built me a small program to follow.  He will be making a trip to KC in the near future and plans to visit me to look over the areas I am thinking about.  It is a slow death to the poa, which allows me to continue to pump bent seed into these areas before there are large voids of turf.  I will probably start my trials by spraying 1 boom width down the middle of these drain line areas before I start attacking other areas.  If this works then I could really clean up some of the fairway edges and troughs so I am pretty jacked about this.   

I feel pretty good about the range tee grow in, but I would feel a lot better about it if we could get some sunshine and warmth.  I continue to fertilize and topdress weekly and I believe that we can probably start using it by June 1.  I have mowed it once and plan on mowing it again tomorrow morning as long as we don't receive too much rain tonight.  Throughout the season on Mondays I hope to heavy sand and seed each divot row from the week before. With golf not starting until noon I believe I should be able to accomplish this before we move to work on the course.  

One last thing I need to address is that Grant, my assistant, is no longer my assistant.  He accepted the Superintendent position at Prairie Highlands at the end of March.  He served his 2 weeks notice and has now moved into his new role.  This is awesome for him and will be a very good start to his career.  I was very lucky to have him for as long as I did, but now I must find a replacement.  At this point, I have not had any luck with my postings.  Our industry took a big hit with the recession in 2008 and we have been seeing the affects in the last couple years.  From 2008 to 2010 a lot of courses closed their doors across the country which placed a lot of qualified superintendents in the unemployment line. At that point assistants were going up against former supers for job openings.  This kept most assistants an assistant for a lot longer period than previously.  Before this it was very common for an assistant to make the big jump after only 3-5 years.  Now it is pretty common for somebody to hold that title for over 10 years, like yours truly.  This ultimately made people lose interest in this career and student numbers in turf programs have been on a steady decline for quite some time now.  So I need a little luck!  

Well I think that about wraps up what I wanted to touch on.  I will do my best to continue to update this blog each month, but I can't promise anything until I find my next assistant.  Good thing is that I seem to have been very successful in finding general laborers as long as they all follow through.  I have already trained 1 new guy on bunkers and tees and hope to have another starting next week sometime.  Then I have 2 college students and at least 2 high school students that will be starting with me once they get out of school.  If I could get bunkers raked at least 5 times a week, tees and approaches mowed 2 times a week, and fairways mowed 3 times a week you would be looking at a very happy guy.  

Lets all hope for more of these days

And not so many of these days

Please continue to stop me on the course with any questions and I will hopefully be updating the blog in May.

Winter Wrap Up

 Well here we go!  Seems that the golfing season is now upon us as we have the Shamrock Scramble this weekend and the MGA kickoff next.  It seems like only a couple weeks ago we were covered in snow and experiencing some of the coldest temps in a long while.  Yeah, it doesn't ever seem to transition slowly around here.  In this blog I plan to discuss our finishing touches to winter projects as well as some steps we will be taking to get the golf course into shape.  I am also going to touch on everybody's favorite subject, golf course etiquette, Wahoo!

Tree Work Review: 

  Now that we have gotten into March and are starting to send the greens mower out I suppose its time to put the chainsaws away.  We only have a couple more trees that need to come down and I am hoping to get them taken care of this coming Monday and Tuesday.  I apologize for the war zone appearance with all the limbs down everywhere, but the boys are gaining on getting them all hauled away.  We made a great stride this winter in opening up the sky around some tees and greens to allow air and sunlight to hit these areas.  The areas on 1,4, and 5 were pretty much just to beautify the course surroundings.  The pruning we did on 3 will not only allow for better turf on the right side of the green, but has made that hole a lot prettier from the tee.  The rough looking willow volunteers on the right still catch my eye from the tee so they will need to be removed.  By the end of Tuesday we will have removed 3 dead trees around 8 tee boxes.  The clearing we did between 8 green and 9 tees will hopefully give the white tee more air and sun plus makes the view back towards 8 a lot cleaner.  

  #11 green complex is a lot more open now.  Not that it will make that green any easier to putt, but hopefully we can keep some more grass on the bank.  We took 2 trees down in front of the blue tee on 12 since they were forming a chute to hit through and now we can utilize more of that tee box and spread the divots out a bit more.  I believe I have gotten more compliments on the removals we did in 13 fairway over anything else.  Hopefully it makes that tee shot a little less stressful.  The 2 dead ash trees came down to the right of 14 tees and 1 more on the left edge of 15.  And then there was "ground zero".  The area between 15 fairway and 16 tees.  This is only the beginning.  This clearing project will hopefully impact a handful of turf areas in a good way.  My initial thought last year was to try and get more sunlight on the cart exit area of 15 hence the boom lift pruning.  I also knew that this wooded area affected both tee boxes on 16.  The forward tee is the most humid place on the course, (even more so than 13 tees).  The big tee has also struggled with being to wet both of my years here.  These issues and my extreme hatred of brown patch led me to dive into this project.  There was a lot of fallen dead wood so I had been afraid to take the brush hog in there for fear of high centering.  So my weapon of choice was a weedeater with a steel blade.  We have removed a lot of underbrush and dead wood from the area, but there is still quite a bit more to do.  My ultimate plan is to have that entire wooded corner cleared up all the way back to the houses.  I will be leaving large healthy trees the whole way back, but I want to be able see up to 16 green from 15 fairway through the trees.  Another bonus to this area being cleaned up is that as I am screaming down 15 in my gator i'll be able to see people teeing off on 16 before its too late, haha.  

  And my crown jewel....the large tree up on the hill in #16 rough.  Talk about a huge improvement.  Hopefully if you end up on the left side you will have some sort of shot under the canopy now.  I also did a little pruning on the right side of 16, but that area is not finished.  There will be some removals next year, I just ran out of time this year.  The drains we installed on the right side of 16 fairway will help dry that area out, but we need to get a little morning sun on it as well.  There are a handful of nice walnut and oak trees on that berm that will stay, but then there are some other scraggly looking trees that will need to leave. The tree at 17 green had just a couple low limbs removed in an effort to add some sunshine to the green.  And to finish things out, we removed 2 dead trees in the native on #18.  Well, actually the wind removed one and we took down the other. 

Goodness that was a full winter!  I can't wait until things start to leaf out and green up to see and feel the difference.

Fairway Drainage Review:

   Aside from placing the sod back over the trenches on 14 and 16, we have completed the holes that I was most concerned about this year.  I touched on holes 5 and 1 in a previous blog, but we were also able to finish up 14 and 16 fairways this winter as well.  With hole 14 being so small and with such limited fairway space, I felt it was an absolute must to attack the drainage issue that was smack dab in the middle of the landing zone.  I am pretty confident that we have made a drastic improvement here.  Below are a couple pictures of the "soil" that 14 sits on.  Its no wonder that drainage was so poor.

#16 fairway was the largest of the holes we did this year and I am pretty happy how it turned out.  We did a good job of covering the entire right side of the fairway which has been destroyed by soggy conditions the past 2 years.  The tree pruning I started over in this area will help keep this area dry as well.  

In the last blog I showed some pictures of the water cooler houses, or at this point in time, the large trash can houses.  I also mentioned and showed the refinished traffic stakes as well as a larger quantity for this year, but we had not gotten to the tee markers at that point yet.  During the deep freeze Grant and I sanded and repainted each marker.  We went through a lot of podcasts and coffee and come to find out, I am no picasso.  

I think that about sums up our winter, which I feel was very productive.  With daylight savings time behind us now we can expect to see a lot more play out there so I would like to go over some simple golf course etiquette.  

Please repair your ball marks on greens each and every time.  Failure to do so is detrimental to the putting surface as each of us has seen.  It wrecks the smoothness of the green and then when my mowers go over them they get scalped off and will take a long time to heal.  I know there is always a lot of discussion on how to do it properly.  Below is a demonstration on the proper technique.  If you push towards the center from the outside edge it will "knit" the grass back together.  If you pry up from the low point of the mark then it will rip and tear the plant from its roots.  

I mentioned last year that when it comes to fairway shots that take divots to please replace the divot and top off with sand.  If there is no pelt, but still a divot just fill with sand and smooth with your foot.  

And here comes the big one.....Golf Carts.  I know that I will probably never get 100% buy in with this, but I have to talk about it.  Please be smart with where you drive your cart.  Please do not drive through the native grass.  Please stay at least 30 yards away from the green.  Please stay on the cart path for the entirety of each par 3.  And probably the one that irks me the most is when I see carts that have pulled 2 tires off the path when they park at a tee or green.  If somebody needs to get around you while you are parked then they can drive around you even if you still have all 4 tires on the path.  I see this the most when carts are parking at the blue or white tee on #7.  All of these items cause damage each year with a normal number of golf rounds.  Now last year, all of these issues were worsened with the fact that most everybody drove their own cart each and every round.  I understand that the Covid pandemic isn't over and there are still new cases, but those numbers are lessening.  I am not here to tell you how to manage your health, I am just pleading for the health of our turf.  The more people that pair up in carts, the less traffic stress for the course. Our rough got absolutely pummeled last year and to top it off, it then went into its dormancy period during a drought.  If you would do just one thing for me, then please pay attention to where you enter and exit the cart path.  Try to spread the traffic out and don't just keep following the beat down path each time.  We will try to do our best by moving stakes around to adjust patterns.  

I will also add that my crew and I are not innocent in the etiquette category.  It will probably do us good to revisit stopping and waiting on groups to hit shots or putt out before we drive by.  

So here is to a great 2021 golfing season and hopefully it never gets above 90 degrees outside, lol!  Please continue to stop me on the course or in the clubhouse with any questions you might have.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day

 

What do y'all do in the winter?

 Hello to everyone and welcome to the beginning of the 2021 golf season at Staley Farms.  I hope the holidays were kind to everybody as they were to my family and I.  This was the year that my just turned 4 year old was 100% all in on Christmas and Santa so no boredom was found at my house.  As far as our team here at work, we have all been able get back to the grindstone in January after some vacationing and some covid protocols through December.  I'm pretty sure that every Superintendent in history has to answer this question every fall.  "So what do you all do in the winter?"  My answer, "A lot!"  This blog entry will touch on our team's efforts this winter and what I hope to accomplish by mid March.

Fairway Drainage:

    We have completed the planned drainage for #5 fairway and are halfway done with #1.  It is going fairly well and I believe this will improve these areas greatly.  As long as we can get to 14 and 16 fairways this go-around I will be satisfied until next year.  16 is going to be quite a project!  Also, just so I am 100 % transparent, these areas will more than likely struggle through the hottest part of the season for another year or so due to the fact that poa annua has filled in these areas after the bent lost the fight.  If you look at these trough areas you will notice the grass there is much more of a neon green versus the bent in the rest of the fairway.  Thats the poa.  It is a very shallow rooted grass which is why it struggles through hot and dry weather.  It will be just fine through the spring and early summer, but if it turns hot and humid then it will start to decline.  I have bent seed in the shop now for these areas and the poor areas on tee tops and we will be going out with it in March sometime.  This will give us some good time for it to germinate and grow a little before we go out with our pre-emergent application in May.  

Tree Work:

    Back in November we were able to attack the thicket to the left of #11 green in hopes of gaining some sunlight for the bank area.  I believe that we were successful without clearing too much.  We knocked the scrub back about 15 feet, took out a handful of trees, and limbed up the remaining trees.  Once the trees leaf out I think the power lines will still be hidden, but the eastern sky will be much more open.  We will re-seed that bank again in the spring along with some pretty strong fertilizer inputs.  After #11 we moved to the heavily wooded area to the right of 15 fairway which also backs up to 16 tees.  Before the holidays, I cleared out most of the underbrush and fallen dead wood for the first step.  I have only just begun removing standing dead trees as well as small trees that will never prosper sitting under the canopy of the larger trees.  Once finished here, both tees on #16 will receive A Lot more sun and air movement which will help them fight against soggy conditions and the brown patch that comes along with that.  

    The next step of tree work that we have accomplished was the rental of a large 46 foot boom lift so that I could get up into some trees around the course and do some good pruning.  I absolutely hate heights, but for some reason get a real kick out of boom pruning.  Now I apologize if I didn't get to a certain limb that you have been cussing for 5 years, but I tried to concentrate on trees that affected sunlight and air to greens and tees.  Also the machine is incredibly slow and difficult to maneuver so my traveling path had to be taken into consideration as well.  I also couldn't drive over any bridges because I have no idea of their weight tolerance.  If you haven't played in the last couple weeks then you haven't seen my path of destruction.  I was able to get to the following areas: 1 tees, 1 green, 3 green, a couple trees along the left native on #4, #8 tees, #9 tees, #15 bridge, #16 tee, right side of #16 rough, the one tree in the left rough of #16 (won the prize for most improved), and the tree directly to the right of 17 green.  We are in the process of picking up all the limbs, but this will take a while.  I had a few comments about taking the lift out to 13 to trim up some limbs in the bunch in the middle of the fairway.  It would have taken me about an hour just to drive it out there, plus I will be able to do all of the needed trimming from the ground in that area.  It is my plan to rent this machine at least once a year to continue the pruning process through the entire course.  After the limbs get picked up and hauled away we will move our sights to cutting down and trimming trees in some select native areas.  To the right of 1 has a lot of simple little trees to remove, all of the ugly willows to the right of 5, the locust trees to the right of 10, and a couple dead ones in the native on 18 to name a few.  I will also be taking down 2 trees that are creating the tunnel shot from the blue tees on 12.  So it seems that February will be pretty busy for us.  Thank goodness we are getting real close to finishing cleaning and prepping our course amenities in the shop.  

Anybody missing their 10 year old Top Flite?

Course Amenities:

    In between drainage and tree work, we have been pretty busy inside the shop as well.  Busier than I anticipated.  We brought in the water cooler stands to make repairs to the roofs, but turns out a lot of the side boards were pretty rotten when we started removing the trim.  Then my perfectionism kicked in and I thought then needed to be squared up a bit.  In the end I was just staring at the studs. 

I guess we just rebuild them.

So we have rebuilt them from the ground up.  We stained and sealed both sides of every board so they will defend against the weather better.  We added some lumber to the corners for stability, re-configured the trim, and went with shingles instead of tongue-in-groove.  We have also changed the color scheme to match the traffic stakes we built last year.  Unfortunately my eyes have a very irritated reaction to the new color scheme.  They seem very Mizzouish.

Grant sure gets a kick out of them though.  Maybe I can round up some of the cornhuskers around here to help me get some red placed somewhere?  The pieces at the bottom are just for transporting them and will be removed when placed on the course.  Now we just need to hope that we can put water jugs in them at some point this year or they will just be some fancy trash can holders.  We will also be putting together a smaller version to house the towel wetting jug that sits by the cart staging area.  The guys have begun sanding down all the traffic stakes for a fresh coat of stain and we will be making more in the month of February.  

    

Well there is our mid-winter update and I should have another around the beginning of March.  At that point i'll get back to my monthly schedule.  Lets hope for some mild weather in February and a good start to the golfing season.  Go Chiefs and I'll see you all out on the course.

Water Management and Fall Work

 I apologize for my blog absence in October, but between some vacation time and extremely dry conditions I have not had much time to give to the computer.  This month I would like to address how I choose to water the course throughout the year as I know that is a major talking point among players.  I will also start to get into my fall and winter plans for our crew. 

This kinda got long on me so get your energy drinks handy.

The hardest part of my job is and will always be, judging the weather patterns and applying the correct amount of water each day of the growing season to each different variety of turf throughout the course.  This job would be a lot easier if our landscape was flat, but as we all know Staley has a little slope to it. My goal will always be firm and fast, but I won't sit here and tell you that your drive is going to bounce and run in the end of July just like it is now in November.  I do not however, want to see balls plug in fairways.  I know that there were a couple weeks in August that this place was way too wet and that is my fault.  Humidity spiked and the temps were around 95 for a long stretch and I wasn't brave enough to shut the water off until it was too late.  Ultimately I need to walk about 6 fairways a day next season in order to keep a closer eye on moisture.  

So there is my philosophy, but matching it up with the mapping of our irrigation system is another challenge.  Each satellite box can hold 50 wires to run 50 sprinklers.  The way that things are set up, each box controls more than 50 heads so sprinklers have to be paired up in order to water what we need.  Greens and green surround heads are never paired up in order to give us as much control as possible around the most important areas.  Fairway and rough heads are almost all paired with another.  Our sprinklers have a watering radius of 85 feet and are supposed to be triangulated throughout the course in order to water right up to the next sprinkler in line.  So with 2 sprinklers paired up I am running the same amount of water for a 255ft area regardless of the different slopes and valleys in that area.  Some areas on the course actually have 3 or 4 heads paired together so consistent watering is even tougher there. In the middle of the summer when temps are in the 90's I have to apply the amount of water in each area to keep the mounds alive and unfortunately that means that the valleys receive more water than necessary.  At this time, Grant is re-wiring all of our satellite controllers to where we will get better sprinkler match-ups in order to be more efficient with our water and to have more consistent moisture levels throughout the fairways.  

We have made it through about half of the tee aerification process and it has been as much of a nightmare as I had envisioned.  Maybe not so much of a nightmare, but I knew that it would take us quite a while to get it done.  We have had to replace a hand-full of parts on the machine as it started to rip up some turf on a few tees.  We have also had to put off the process all together due to some unseasonably warm weather. Now the weather has finally cooled off like it should be so we will pick back up and finish this week.  For the most part, the white and blue tees are the ones left to punch and sand so I will be moving tee markers around to accommodate our work.  The white tees will probably end up on the gold boxes more often than not so enjoy shorter irons into greens.  After that we will apply a slow release fertilizer to all the tees in order to store some nutrients in the plant over winter and hopefully have a quicker green-up in the spring.  We will apply the same type of fertilizer to the greens in the next 2 weeks as well.  Some of the tees will need another sanding to fill up the holes, but we can address that once we get holes punched in all of them.  I just keep reminding myself that this has to be done in order to have good tees throughout the entire year.

We have begun some underbrush clearing in parts of the course that have been annoying me since I started here and there will be more to come.  We have worked on behind #1 green and to the right of #5 cartpath.  These areas are not finished yet.  I will be going back through with the saws again to clear out dead and dying trees as well as raising the canopy.  It is part of my grand plan of getting everything limbed up throughout the native areas.  It is more work than can be completed in 1 or even 2 off-seasons, but we hope to make big dents each year.  A couple areas on my radar this year are left of #11 green, between #15 cartpath and #16 tees, and to the right of #3 green. All these areas need more sunlight and air movement to give us better turf plus they will look a lot better without the clutter.  There are also some more dead and problematic trees throughout the course that will need to come down this year. 

Back in September the topic of the left side of #11 green bank came up and the thinning turf in that area that will not stop a ball.  I can attest to this first hand as I played a round a couple weeks ago and a very well placed gap wedge checked a couple feet from the green's right edge, but ended up in the native.  Now some of that is due to the way #11 green is, but the turf on the left side of the green bank is extremely poor and thin and sure doesn't hold a ball.  I am hoping that I can get some decent sunlight on that turf after we do some clearing of trees and brush, but I just don't want to clear cut that side for a few reasons.  

• Against popular belief, I really do like trees.  They play a big part of our aesthetics as they frame holes.
• If you look through the trees there, you will see some large power lines just on the other side.  So a) I don't want to fall any trees into them, and b) I don't want that to be our visual from the green.
• It would take away our natural fence protecting patrons from falling off the cliff, and I would rather not put a non-natural fence up .

So other than some selective tree thinning I am thinking about maybe only mowing that green bank once a week instead of twice next year as well as some extra fertilizer.  I can also apply some extra wetting agent on that hillside because I believe that lack of moisture on that severe slope is adding to the decline of turf.  Speaking of the slope, it has been asked if adding soil to the slope could lessen the incline to help.  That would help, however in the front of the green where the bank slope is the steepest, the cliff edge is too close in order to raise the level without adding something to cliff wall.  From the middle of the green to the back I think there is enough room to do something like this.  This would all be a large undertaking, but definitely something to put on the discussion board when ownership wants to start talking capital projects.  One more thing that I will probably implement in order to help this situation is altering the mowing patterns on #11 green.  We switch directions everyday that we mow to keep the "grain" of the green from getting too strong.  On #11 if we are not mowing from front to back then our mower has to make a turn on the hillside in question.  This is just added stress on the weak area of turf 5-6 times a week.  If we just stick to mowing front to back on that hole alone, we may be able to help that slope out.  I will just need to monitor the tracking from the mower tires on that green. 

We are now in the time of year where frost delays will be very common.  Grant and I always try to make the best decision on start times to accommodate getting you all on the course as soon as possible, while keeping the golf course safe.  Below is a picture of the traffic from 1 foursome putting out.  If there were to be frost on the green all of these footprints would be dead by the afternoon.  This is why we take frost delays very seriously.  Here is the recipe for a frost.  40 degrees or less for overnight low, clear skies, and low winds.  If any of those cases are not there, then there will be a good chance of no frost.  

I think that about exhausts my pertinent information at the time.  I would like to thank all of those who have voiced or typed their appreciation of what my staff and I do on a daily basis here at Staley.  There are a ton of extremely stressful times throughout our year and getting those compliments really helps our psyche.  I won't speak for all of us, but I at least love what I do and really enjoy my time here. 

P.S.  

    I think the range tee is coming along so much better than I expected due to the unseasonably warm weather we have had this fall.  I still see some good cool season grass growing weather in the next couple weeks so I have at least 3 more fertilizer apps planned to continue to push it.  I hope everyone can squeeze some more rounds of golf in before winter sets in and please continue to stop me with any questions or comments.
 

Range Tee Renovation

 

I am pleased to announce that we are moving forward with a driving range tee renovation.  Our goal is to ensure a good stand of turf allowing members to use the grass tee more than in the past.  I would like to see the mats used only on Mondays, for outside events, and after rain events.  I believe that with our renovation plan, we will be able to accomplish this.

On Monday the 28^th, a contractor will be on site to till and laser level the entire range tee so that there will be a 1 percent slope from north to south and from east to west.  This will ensure a good surface drainage of moisture and a quicker drying of the teeing surface.  Once this is complete, we will then seed a well proven variety of bluegrass for the hitting area.  Turf Blue HGT is the name of this variety and it has performed very well throughout the transition zone in range tee and fairway type situations.  Some colleagues have also touted its ability to withstand abuse during the heat of the summer.  Choosing a bluegrass over zoysia should allow us to use the grass tee deeper into the year since it doesn’t transition into dormancy as early.  This variety also grows with rhizomes, meaning it grows laterally similar to bentgrass and bermudagrass.   Below are a couple pictures of this turf in Kirksville, MO on August 20^th. 

 

 

I am confident that this turf will stand up to the abuse of a full golf season and will be able to fill in divots through the heat of the summer where the bentgrass failed to do so.  Once the seed has been planted it will be 14-20 days before we see germination.  I plan on applying some pre-plant fertilizer to help jump start the new seedlings and from there on we will push it has hard as we can until the cold weather shuts the grass down for the year.  Once the weather starts to break in March, we will start pushing the new turf hard again.  We will do everything possible in order to get members on the grass as early as possible in 2021.  Again, I am very excited about this project and believe that there will be more time spent hitting off the grass in the future.  As always, stop me with questions or have the proshop relay any to me.

Successes and Failures

Public Service Announcement

We are aerifying greens on Sept. 22nd and 23rd

I don't know that I have ever been happier to reach the month of September.  This has been a miserable last 6 weeks trying to keep tees and fairways in good playing condition.  The good news is that these areas are healing nicely, but they will still need a bunch of work done in order to keep these problems from coming back each year.  I will address my plans there further in this posting.  In a couple of my explanations, I will mention traffic.  Staley is on pace to have 30,000 rounds played this year.  Average for a private club would be around 24,000.  I would have to acquire some past info in order to know Staley's average, but 30 is a bunch.  Especially when most of those rounds are played with 1 person per cart.  The good thing is that the greens have held up well all year long and should start playing even better as they firm up when the humidity leaves us.  

Tee Boxes

So its apparent to all that the tees on the course have been beat down this year.  They took a hard hit during the last 2 weeks of July when we received 8 inches of rain in those 2 weeks.  The tees don't drain well at all and when they get saturated every divot is larger than normal and will not recover when the temps are in the 90's.  What is worse than the divot is the foot twist that comes with every swing.  A person's feet will literally rip the top half of the grass plant from its roots when the ground is soft and wet.  Again, when temps stay in the 90's during this, there is no recovery happening so then that spot will die.  Some tees are worse than others, and some tees seem to not be affected at all.  My first theory would be soil composition and that some tees are built with more clay than others.  Like 3,6,and 7 tees seem to take traffic a lot better than 1,2,4, and 5.  The 1 thing that I know I can do to create a more consistent rootzone is aerification.  Our tees need to be on a more strict aerification schedule meaning pulling cores once in the spring and once in the fall plus a heavy topdressing with each.  This will help with drainage and the overall soil composition.  I also started ramping up the fertility on the tees when I started seeing the damage.  The fertilizer I was spraying is high in potassium which aids in the plant's stress management and I will from now on be starting earlier in the year with it.  There is another product that I tested this year on tees that I will also be implementing earlier before the stressful part of the year.  It contains Silicon which creates a rigidity in the plant to help against traffic and stress.  I literally saw a difference in the leaf blades within 24 hours.  Below is a soil profile of #5 tee.  There is actually a decent layer of sand below the thatch layer.  However, that amount of thatch can definitely cause water to stay at the top surface and not penetrate.  Pulling a plug during aerification is a must for this situation.  I am sure I will find similar profiles as I check more trouble tees.   

So I just got back from profiling a couple more tees and it hurts my heart to see what I found.  Its the same mess with large thatch layers and a lot of clay.  These 3 photos were all taken from the same tee on #1.  It just shows the inconsistency across the board.  Core aerification will help this tremendously, its just going to take some time.  If I punch holes this fall and next spring, we should see a good improvement, but it will take a couple years strung together of good cultural practices in order to have excellent, playable tees across the entire course.  We can get there.

 

Fairways

So I addressed the fairway troughs in my last posting, but I wanted to talk briefly about them again.  I painted out the drain lines that I would like to install and it is a literal mile of pipe.  I will probably not be able to get all that done this off-season, but we are going to give our best shot.  Just about every hole needs some help, but I will prioritize the best I can in order to address landing zone areas first.  #1 has quite a bit in the prime landing zone from the tee so we will probably wait for that one until mid winter when play has died down.  Other than that hole, numbers 5, 13, 14, & 16 will probably be my top priorities.  I will more than likely keep 13 for last just because there is so much to do there. 

Noticed Improvements

We have seen improved turf quality from last year to this in some areas that we worked on in the off season.  The drainage in #8 tees has worked extremely well and has kept those tees playable throughout the year.  We will get the drain lines seeded this fall where they settled.  11 green has healed in nicely and seems to be firmer with the removal of the trees and clearing of the drain lines.  13 green has also healed in well since it receives more sunlight.  The bowl area on 17 green has survived this year.  Grant was able to sod cut a few strips of rough and shave down the soil below to drop the grade a little.  This allows any surface water to runoff instead of getting stuck on the bentgrass.  Below are pictures comparing the soil profile in that green area from last year to this year.  Black layer had formed last year due to excessive water sitting in the profile.  This creates an anaerobic environment for the rootzone which in turn kills the plant.  Now that we have removed the water, the rootzone is healthy. 

More areas of improvement are approaches.  Last year we had a lot of turf loss due to heavy clay soils being too saturated and creating more anaerobic rootzones.  This year we were able to aerify approaches twice creating more air space in the soil and an overall healthier rootzone.  We will core aerify approaches one more time this fall.   

I hope you have enjoyed another turf talk and as always, feel free to stop me on the course with any questions.