March 2011 Greens Aeration Video

Above is a video documenting March 2011 greens aeration week.

La Niña

La Niña continues: and what it means for you

Sunday, March 18, 2012 | Permalink | Weather

Ocean temperatures in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean continue to create a La Niña condition, according to the National Weather Service's March, 2012 update. This means that for the next two months, we can expect the following:

• above average air temperatures across the mid section (south central) of the U.S.
• below average temperatures over the northwestern U.S.
• above average rain across western Washington, the Ohio Valley and the lower Great Lakes
• drier than average conditions across Florida, the Gulf Coast and the southwestern U.S. (this forecast is unfortunately still accurate, despite this week's Western storm; the storm will help, but will not make up for the very dry winter season)

La Niña usually dissipates during the spring, so the trends above will probably hold no longer than through the end of April.

Mowing Fairways Down

As we move forward with the greens health our goal is to concentrate more resources on other areas of the golf course towards steady improvement. This year we have applied a pre-emergent herbicide on the fairways to stop crabgrass and other weeds from germinating this Spring, as well as a post-emergent herbicide to kill the weeds and unwanted grasses that were present; the next step is mow the fairways down to 3/8" this will give us a good starting point for the 2012 golf season. Scheduled at the end of March is a 25 week slow release fertilizer application; the fairways are also going to be verti-cut and aerated over the next 4 weeks. The verticutting will remove unwanted thatch to relieve disease threats and encourage rapid lateral growth; while the aeration will relieve compaction and incorporate O2 into the soil profile.   

Electrical Out-let Added to Teaching Area on Driving Range Tee

The crew has been busy getting the course ready for the 2012 golf season one addition to our normal maintenance was adding an electrical out-let the driving range tee; the out-let will aid the teaching pros in their lessons with a convenient source of power for their equipment and cameras.

Cart-path Repairs

With over 80 broken cart-paths on the course we are steadily working through them between other projects and on Mondays when we are closed. The last slab that was repaired was on hole #6 and it was the 19th slab repaired over the last 14 months.

Bunker Maintenance

Shawn giving a demonstration on proper bunker maintenance and day-to-day set-up.

Over the last week the crew has spent over 200 combined hours moving sand into proper locations, as well adding, taking-out and replacing sand in questionable bunkers. We will continue moving sand in hopes they will be more playable and less maintenance will be necessary.

Aeration: A breath of fresh air for greens