The heat was on.

The last 12 plus days have been a little trying, for Golf Course Superintendents.  I can only speak for myself but I know I checked the weather probably 25 times a day for those 12 days.   The only problem, it’s the weather it is very unpredictable. “It is what it is” this was uttered quite often by me, and that about sums it up.

I am happy to report that the turf at the Parkway preformed very good.   It is Saturday night and I just finished an hour tour of the property and I am quite pleased with what I see.  There is no doubt that the course was under stress.  But, that is to be expected the last seven days alone the temperature never dropped below 23 C and it was 100% humidity every night.  Several times in the last week we had late afternoon or early even rain showers.  This is one the worst things that can happen.  The turf is wet for too long and the fungus takes over. If you were out on Tuesday you saw this first hand.  I call that “lit up”.

Pythium in the newly seede bluegrass on 15 tee complex

Pythium in the morning

Pythium in the afternoon

The routine is simple when we get into those hot stretches.  Water only when needed, by hand and never at night.  Watch everything, the more eyes the better.  If you played this week you probably noticed a lot of irrigation flags on the fairways.  These were marked by Ruth the Assistant Golf Course Superintendent.  She would scout for the disease and then mark it for me to check out and spray.  The answer is yes there were a lot of flags and they were on every hole.  

The next week the temperatures look better and the night time temperatures look even better.

 

Oh I almost forgot about #12.  When it seemed like we were pushed to the limit with disease, and the staff had had just about enough.  The greens mower blew a hydraulic line.  As most of you seen as you play Wednesday and Thursday.  My staff and I really appreciate the sympathy from the marjority of the membership.  We appreciate all the comments.  It is discouraging when something like this happens, but with a little hard work and sweat the team plugged out the injuried turf.  Hopefully with in a week it will be barely noticable.  To the one group of members that were more concerned about how the flag was the wrong colour for 5 minutes well "It is what it is."

Oil leak on #12

 

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me.  If you have sent me something, dont't worry I will be responding as soons as possible.

kendalllindsay@hotmail.com 

Cheers Kendall

Long overdue

It seems like yesterday I finished my last post and here we are over a month later already.  As always lots has happened here at the parkway.  For the most part it has just maintaining the property and the equipment. 

I have received a lot of comments over the last month.  The majority of them have been about the condition of the golf course.  I have received the same comment several times “the golf course has never been in better shape.”  Now of course I would love to tell you that it is all me and that the practices I have incorporated over the last few years are starting to pay off.  But, I think we will chalk this one up to mother-nature.  Golf courses to the north and south of us have been getting hammered with rain.  The parkway continues to get timely rains that always seem to be the perfect amount.  Along with this we have just entered our second heat wave of the season.  The slow spring made me nervous because I believed the turf was not going to have enough time to get ready for summer.  But, June never came with any heat, which allowed for the turf to achieve the health that it has now.

That being said I did come into this season with a plan.  After the summer of 2012 which was one of the hottest on record.  It was in early June of that year when I started to worry whether the grass had enough to make it through the summer.  Late July all efforts were focused just on keeping the greens alive.  The fairways showed a lot of stress but bounced back for the most part.  The tees however did not.  In the end we lost what I would consider as 20% of the tees.  Through the winter I got a chance to go over my records and try to figure out where I could improve.  As well look back at the decisions I made in 2012 and see what I could learn from the good ones and of course the bad ones.  In the end it was simple I would make more of an effort to make the turf as healthy as possible.  To achieve this health I needed to be more consistent with our cultural practices. 

Here is a time line of the cultural practices for 2013

April 8^th & 9^th Sliced fairways

April 9^th Fertilizer on all greens and tees

April 29^th Vertical Cut in 2 directions Greens

April 30^th Top dressed Greens, Vertical cut Collars in 2 directions and top dressed them individually

May 7^th Vertical Cut Front nine fairways

May 8^th Vertical Cut 10-18 Fairways

May 13^th Vertical cut greens in 2 directions and Top dressed, Vertical cut tees in 2 directions and top dressed

May 14^th Fertilize Tees

May 21^st Fertilize Greens

June 3^rd Vertical cut in 2 directions on Greens, Sliced fairways

June 4^th Top Dressed Greens, finished slicing fairways

June 5^th Fertilize Greens, Sliced Approaches and tees

June 18^th Vented Greens

June 19^th Finished venting Greens, Verti cut Tees

July 2^nd   Vertical Cut and Top dressed

July 3^rd   Fertilize greens

July 10^th & 11^th Sliced Fairways, Tees and Approaches

This is a quick timeline of the cultural practices that are being performed at the parkway.  These are all very time consuming tasks, which makes it easy to put them off.  But, they are extremely benificial to the turf’s health.   

Vertical Cutters

Venting of 16 Green

Fairway Slicer On # 1

Tee and Approch slicer on #6

A shot of the spikes

Here is a soil probe of # 17 Green the roots go down to the subsoil

We just went through the second heat wave of the summer and the turf responded wonderfully.  The plan for this season is to get the turf into the best shape it can be in.  We are going to slice things once a month. This opens things up and gives the chance for some air exchange for the roots.  It also helps with water penetration.  So far we have opened up the fairways, tees and approaches once in May, June, July, and we would like to do at least one more in August.  The turf has responded nicely and the timely rains have helped as well. 

As always contact me for any issues or concerns

kendalllindsay@hotmail.com

Cheers Kendall