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