Winter Update

The course is wintering well.  We had a relatively mild lead up to Christmas.  Boxing day we received well over a foot of snow that seemed to stick around for the better part of two weeks.  When it did melt it was a sloppy slushy mess.  All the turf looks good so far except for some snow mobile damage.  There is some disease on the low lying areas of the fairways.  These areas were not treated with chemical.  The greens and tees were treated and they look good so far.  With the cold temps that are on their way it would be nice to have a nice 6 inches of snow as a cover.  But, we have to take what mother nature gives us.  There is no ice on the greens which is a relief.  Plus everything looks good so far.  Here some snap shots of the course with a little snow on it.



 

 

 

Cheers Kendall

Oh Sandy!

Sandy brought two days of high winds and continuous rain to the area.  For the most part there is just scattered debris from the trees.  In a few areas there are some larger branches but for the most part it seems we came through the storm with minimal damage. The golf course is just really saturated. 

Currently two out of the four bridges on the course are not passable.  When the water does subside we will have to go out and inspect the bridges to see if they are still safe to pass.  We have water up over them before, but not for three days straight.  As you all know water has a way of finding its way through things you don’t want it to get threw.

With the amount of water that is on the golf course, it will take a long time to dry, especially with the projected weather forecast.    

For those die hard golfers out there I am afraid you are looking at the end of the golf season 2012. 

It is that time of year!

Well fall is upon us folks.  September has been a blur and here we are on the eve of the Bring your best tournament. 

All efforts have been focused on the golf course and getting it ready for the tournament.  As you all know most of the efforts have been put into the greens.  How do we go about speeding them up? This is the first year that I have lowered the height for bring your best.  This was in an attempt to get the greens faster than they have ever been.  The greens were cut thursday morning at their regular height and then we lowered the height and cut them again in the afternoon.  Friday morning they were double cut in the morning and then cut again in the afternoon.  Saturday morning as long as there is not a frost they will be double cut again.  Normally there would be a roller in the mix but unfortunately it broke down last week and could not be repaired in time. That is seven cuts in three days.   As for the magic number the goal is to get them as close to 12 feet on the stimp metre as possible.  Late in the afternoon on friday we got a light shower, and then another one during the night.  This unfortunately gave the greens a little dampness that slowed them down.  The good or bad news is by the look of the forecast the greens will be quicker for Men’s closing day.

Greens mower reel

 The picture above is a reel and you can see how they need to be absoutely perfect to produce good greens.  The staff has done an extremely fantastic job this past month.  My hat goes off to them for their efforts.  

Next Tuesday and Wednesday the greens will be aerated.    The next blog will certainly cover the topic of aeration.

Cheers Kendall Lindsay

Summers end!

These two grinders are what keep our reels sharp all season  long.  They were purchased by the golf course at the beginning of this year.  Before the reels were done on a much older grinder.  We are now cutting grass below a 1/8^th of an inch, so the reels have to be perfect.  These grinders are a crucial tool in keeping the greens at their best.

Reel Grinder



Bedknife Grinder



With the end of the summer and the start of another school year the student staff will be missed here in the maintenance department, as well in the other departments of the golf course. 

Our student staff was remarkable this year, we hired 7 students to help us through the season and 6 were outstanding.  One was lost to another job.  One student returned for a week to help us out before he started school.     

We wish these fine young men a great and safe school year: Nick, Mark, Luke, Brandon, and Cameron.

Corey and Tyson will be sticking around to help out as they go to school locally.

So if you have done the math correctly this means we have 5 cutters including my self left to take care of the property.  Wish us luck it will be a long September!

 Cheers!

Kendall

Club Championship and More!

 

A lot has happened since my last update.  Several different tournaments have been held at the golf course along with all the Club Championships.    

The turf has been recovering nicely from the heat stress of the summer.  There was times this summer where it seemed like it would never end.   It was just day after day of continuous heat and it wasn’t just the days it was the nights as well. The greens came through the heat really well. I was very happy and proud of their performance under that much stress.  We never raised the height of cut during the stressful times, we just backed off on the double cuts and even let them rest for a day here and there.  Last season we purchased a walk mower to cut the putting green and #14 green as well.   It did wonders for those two greens.  This year whenever a green was starting to show stress it was added to the walk mow route.  This seemed to do the trick, so from mid June until mid August many different greens were cut with the walker. 

By far the tees took the heat the worse.  The weakness of the tees was evident early in the summer and unfortunately some grass was lost on them.  The irrigation system is poorly designed for the tees.  Basically the pipes dead end on the tees instead of being looped, along with this they stopped one sprinkler head short on every tee.  This means that the ends of the tees are not getting the proper coverage and the reds and blue tees were susceptible to the heat.  With the cooler weather approaching we took advantage of the fore casted rains that were coming and we aerated all the tees except the white ones.  We left these because they still needed to be played for men’s club championship.  As the senior men and ladies club championship were finishing, the crew went out right behind and began aerating the tees.  The process was Aerate, verticut the cores, the cut cores were pushed around to fill the holes with loose dirt, blow them off real quick and then they were seeded with bent grass. 

Aerated



Verti Cut



This was very good timing indeed.  After the aeration of the tees the rains came.  From Thursday Aug 9^th till Tuesday Aug 14^th a little over 5” of rain fell on the golf course. That is 23 744 258 litres on the entire property.  The grass has absolutely exploded, with this growth the mowers are working harder and more and more issues are appearing with the ageing fleet.  Some days it seems we are in the shop more than on the course. 

After the heavy rains a tree was up rooted below the clubhouse near the cart exit on #18.  Only half the tree fell down but the other half would have been too dangerous to leave.

It is very disappointing to me when it was such a stressful year for the turf to survive, but we still have members that continue to disobey the cart rules.   

This Tuesday the 21^st we will be verti cutting the greens followed by a top dress of sand and then brushing it in.  The greens will be fertilized and watered the following day.  This process helps to control the thatch on the greens which helps with the firmness of the greens and ball roll.  The greens have not been verti cut since June 4^th.   The last time that the greens were top dressed was July 25^th after we vented them.  The greens will be verti cut one last time for the season in the third week of September to help prepare them for the Bring your Best Tournament.    

Thanks For Reading
Cheers Kendall

Finally some rain!!

The weather has pushed the turf very hard this season.   Like I said in a previous update it is certainly no time to be a hero and push the turf over the edge.  That being said, I am very please with the condition of the golf course and am proud of the way it has held up so far this summer. 

Finally with some much needed rain it gave us an opportunity to open up some of the playing surfaces.  This lets much needed oxygen and water down into the root zone of the turf. 

Greens were pencil tined

Another Top Dressing of Sand was applied

Tees and Approaches were sliced with this unit

Fairways were sliced with a more aggressive unit

The Fairways needed to be rolled afterwards.

So all and all it was another busy week here at the Parkway.  Hopefully with this extra work, rains and the weather predicted to be nice for the remainder of the week the turf will regenerate enough to get through the rest of the summer.

As always if you have any questions or concerns feel free to e-mail me at kendalllindsay@hotmail.com

Cheers Kendall



Surviving the heat!

Last week was one of the hottest in memory for me.  I don’t ever remember it being this hot, for this long, this early in the year.  Last year, there was a stretch of 21 days where the weather was similar.  But, that started on July 20^th.  We are now wrapping up our 3^rd major heat wave of the summer on July 8^th.  Most of the turf has survived quite nicely.  Dollar spot is showing it’s ugliness on the fairways and tees.  Greens, tees and fairways were sprayed last week.    



This is where we missed applying fungicide to an area. 



Pythium showed itself early in the week on 15 and 16 fairways.  When we see this we stake off the area, to avoid traffic through the area and the chance of spreading the disease.   When the night time temperatures are as high as they were last week, Ruth and I spend the morning looking at the turf and searching for any signs of disease.

Staking of area infected with Pyhtium

Even though the afternoon rains caused for the outbreak of the diseases, last week.  The rains did wonders for greening the playing areas up.  It just shows you how much more a rainfall can do in a short period of time, compared to the irrigation system.          

Cheers Kendall