One Week Down...One Week to Go

Thanks for your patience with us this week.  For the first time in my 16 years we got a break during the growing season to do some much needed turf repair work.  We know it was a great week to play golf, so we appreciate your willingness to let us have nine holes each day to do our work.  The entire course is open today, tomorrow, and Sunday before we go back at it next week on greens.

This week we:

• applied herbicides to the rough to suppress bermudagrass, and remove unwanted weeds.   
• verticut and aerated tees, then seeded where needed, topdressed, and rolled
• aerated, overseeded, and fertilized all tee slopes around tee boxes

RIP #13 tee.  In addition to the chores listed above we decided it was time to surrender in the battle against the 13th tees.  Bull Paspalum is the wonderful weed that has plagued the 13th tee for 16 plus years.  It is a perennial that cannot be selectively removed from bentgrass.  We sprayed the front two tees on 13 with Round Up and re-seeded them to a new variety of bentgrass.  Bermuda or zoysia may be our next step in the summer of 2017, but this is not the time to sod those varieties.  We'll probably see bull paspalum again next year on this tee, but it should be a much smaller population.  We'll give the new bentgrass a chance and then make another move if needed.  

Next week we will:

• aerate and topdress all greens
• brush and roll all greens 
• follow up topdressing if needed 
• brush and roll all greens again until satisfied that all holes are completely full and the greens are smooth
• keep tee complexes well hydrated for the sake of all the new seed we just put in place (they will be soft and messy in places until the grass starts to come up and then we'll back off the water
• begin aerating roughs
• fertilize roughs

The course will be closed from Monday morning until 11:00 AM next Friday.  We think the fall golf season will be fantastic in large part due to your patience and cooperation over this two week period.  Enjoy golf this weekend, and get back on the course next Friday.