Verticutting Greens



Emmanuel verticutting greens



We verticut greens this past Monday, which helps with thatch control and water infiltration . We then top dressed and worked the sand into the small slits left by the verticutter blades. This also helps smooth out the ball roll as well.



applying light topdressing



Fan Project Update

Marty and Jr finish digging holes for fan bases

This last week the crew, installed the 4 ground posts for the new fans on #1,#2,#12,and #14. The electrical contractor installed the three new power meter mounts and are waiting on code inspections. Once the inspections are approved, they will start trenching and installing conduit for the wire. Trenching should start Wednesday this next week, along with the power companies being able to run power to the new meters. So be aware of workers on the course not use to golfers and golf balls. We are planning on starting play on the back, on days they are working on the front two holes. As part of this project, the course crew will be repairing the stone walk bridge on #2. We are installing a concrete walking surface and adding some additional stones to the top.



After pouring concrete around base poles



GREENS FAN PROJECT

It's been ten years in coming,and starting this Monday morning the fan installation project will start. Fan locations will be at the rear of #1, #2, #12, and #14.  The first phase will be the installation of mounting  posts in the ground, along with an electrical contractor installing power panels and lines. Duke Energy and Energy United will be running power to the panels. This phase will take about two to three weeks depending on the weather. The last phase will be mounting the fans, and connecting the power. The plan is to have the fans up and running by June 1st. The fans actually arrived this past Friday, two weeks ahead of the original scheduled delivery date.

50" Turf Breeze greens fans

GREENS AERATION RECOVERY

Greens are healing very nicely and really benefited from the 1.07" rain we had Tuesday night. We will be topdressing some more this coming Monday to fill some open holes.

Greens last Saturday 4-30

Greens this Saturday 5-7

LAST WEEKS GREENS AERATION





Emmanuel and Humberto starting on #1

 

The greens are starting to recover from last weeks aeration. Which went fairly well with only a few minor equipment issues and getting my new assistant Martin Pugh up to speed on the course and crew. Here is the series of events on Tuesday and Wednesday last week. 



Marty and crew picking up plugs on #14













Jr topdressing





Chris blowing sand in holes









Watering in sand after rolling on Friday 4-29





MONDAY NIGHT STORM / GREENS

The Monday night storm bought some wind and heavy rain to the course. But we missed the hail and straight line 60-70 mile winds just to our south. The inch of rain did help the over all 3inch rain deficit that the area has been running. Of course it's extremely wet out there,so carts are restricted to the path and will be for the next several days. The cold weather at night is keeping the soil temperature at 46 degrees average on the greens. We have started to filled the irrigation system this week, so you may see a head or two come on to take out air in the system. The irrigation will be needed to water in applied chemicals on the greens next monday. We expect to find some leaks, that will need to be fixed before the turf season starts as well. Tuesday we had a small hydraulic oil leak with the greens mower on the putting green. A hose burst just as the operator was starting a pass across the green. The mower has a alarm on it that sounds if there a loss in system pressure. So he immediateily stopped and backed off the green. we flushed the oil off the green with water. The damage with hydraulic oil leak is not the oil, but the heat of the oil, it burns the turf. So there will be a strip about 6 inches by 4 feet on the edge of the green. Damage is always hard to determine this time of year since the turf is not growing that much.We have already topdressed it so, it will either fill in,or we will plug it with bent in april during some other scheduled green repair work.

SOIL TEMPERATURES AND TURF CONDITIONS

For Golf enthusiasts and anyone experiencing the winter blues. The last recent warm up is only temporary, in fact, winter is still some four weeks or so from being over. Historically North Carolina has the largest snow falls in March most years,and last frost date is mid April. Soil temperatures play a big part of turf and plant maintenance.  Just because the air temp is over 60, the soil temperatures is right at 40 degrees on greens and Bermuda turf areas right now. Things don't start happening until soil temperatures stay at least 55 degrees over 4 -5 days. That usually happens around here mid march. So mid March is a big starting time for turf related work. There is still some healing that's needs to be accomplished over the next months on greens . Some topdressing / seeding and plugging will be done to encourage the areas to knit back into a complete surface. We will start spring applications of pre-emergent herbicides to control warm season weeds and diseases about that time. We are monitoring the,weather forecast,soil,air tempertures daily,so that we start at the optium time. So in the mean times we are working on area cleanup projects and tree work.

Green Damage # 12

This is the time of year when we seem to have more damage to greens that appears overnight. Saturday night someone decided to burn candles on #12 green and drip wax over it. Clean up is difficult because, we can not apply heat to loosen the wax that has stuck to the grass leaf blade. So the choice was to hand remove it very carefully with a knife, and try not to cause to much damage. All this before tournament play reached the green, and with limited weekend staff.