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Fairways & Greens Summer Edition |
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Fairways and Greens
Ball Marks
Ball marks always seems to be the thing I here about the most at this time of year. At this time of year the ball marks do not recover the same as they do in the spring and fall. It is for that reason that you see a lot more of them at this time of year. If a ball mark is not repaired correctly or repaired at all with the first 30 minutes of the ball mark being made then chances are it will take up to 3 to 4 weeks for this mark to heal at this time of year. Please help us out and repair your mark and two others every green you play on. It will help provide everyone with a much better playing experience next time you visit the course.
Tee Aerification
We will be aerifying the tees the first week in August. This process will include aerifying the tees, verticutting the cores, topdressing the tees, and then clean up. Normally this takes us about two days and causes minimal disruption to play.
Green Aerification
If you have noticed we have been aerifying the greens on weekly basis with a solid tine that is about 1/3 of an inch. Our new aerifier is allowing us to do this weekly without causing any disruption to the putting surface. We now have a roller that is attached to the back of the aerifier that rolls the green after the holes have punched. We then come behind this with the greensmower and cut the green. When this process is complete you can see the small holes but they do not have any impact on the putting. This allows us to get a lot of air/oxygen down to the roots of the turf; this really helps the greens during the summer months.
Fans
All of the fans have been turned on and will remain on now for the duration of the summer. Yes I know a lot of you think the fans are there to cool you down while you are playing but they actually helps us in more ways than that. We have fans on certain greens that do not get the air- flow because of trees that are surrounding them. The fans push air across them 24 hours day helping us keep the surface of the green and the soil temperature of the green about 5 degrees cooler than it would be if we did not have them. This makes a big difference when it is 105 degree’s. The fans also keep the formation of dew during the night. The dew contains many sugars and carbohydrates that fungus feeds on. Keeping the dew of the greens really cuts down on the disease pressure during this time of year. We will turn the fans off when we start getting some nighttime temperatures back in the 60’s.
Erosion Work
During the past couple of months you should have noticed many projects going on around the course. We have repaired the erosion from last summer’s floods on #10, #12, #18, and #16. The gabion walls installed by ERWS out of Lewisville have proven to work really well in the past. We will continue to look at other areas that need erosion control in the future.
Bridges
New boards have been added to a lot of the bridges and we hope to have all of them done by the end of the summer. These boards help cut down on the noise when carts are going over them.We also plan on painting all of the bridges by the end of this year.
Amenities
We have added all new ball washers to the teeing areas on the course along with new amenities around the clubhouse and at the driving range. If you have any questions or comments about the course please feel free to e-mail the maintenance department at
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. Thanks have a great summer. Stephen Best, Golf Course Superintendent
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