The First Cut Is the Deepest

After almost 2 full weeks of rain, parts of the course are finally dry enough for us to mow.  Saturday, we snuck in some work on the back nine rough before play caught us.  We got one of the mowers stuck in a wet spot on 17 so it wasn't a perfect outing.  Today, we (me included) spent all day on mowers.  Mowing under the current circumstances is a very slow process.  Clean up takes as long as the actual mowing and the mowers must move at a crawl to get through the mess.  We were able to mow all the approaches, half the fairways, and a good portion of front nine rough.  Unfortunately, the recent loss of several staff members (school) kept us from multitasking as much as we would like.  Ideally when we get a full day to work on the course we have every mower occupied and lots of things are happening at once.  

The greens were mowed yesterday for the first time since aeration was completed.  Mike spent a good portion of today grinding the reels as a result.  Mowing after aeration and topdressing will dull the reels in a hurry.  Ideally we do a little more work to the surfaces before making the first post aeration cut.  However, the sloppy conditions last week did not allow us follow our plan.  As a result the mower reels were pretty well shot after one cut.  Mike will be busy with reel grinding for the next week or two thanks to aeration.  This task is highly underrated among golfers.  We have a well equipped shop where mower service takes place and Mike is a surgeon when it comes to keeping things operating smoothly.   

Some self inflicted pain trying to get stuff done around the rain

We could use some farm equipment when the grass gets this long

It's ugly, but it will buff out