2nd Assualt in the 100 day war -

In my five plus years at The Country Club of Naples, outside of when we were using a bull dozer to mow fairways, I've never been so aggressive with my summer cultural practices.  The course is at the age where it's time to take the summer maintenance practices up a notch.  The increased aggressiveness is also attributed to the late start on all the intensive cultural practices due to the heavy summer tournament schedule in June and July.  The first aerification done at the end of May was just enough to get us to the end of July.  It did very little to prepare us for next season's golfing demands.

So concentrating on making up for lost time in a compressed summer season, my orders were to "lay the wood to the course" and for those who are around and have played the course...we did just that.    On the greens this time around I had the guys verti-cut the greens twice as deep as we normally do.  I needed to really dig out the thatch that has accumulated over the last year.  The entire process took two days to complete all the greens.  A normal vertical mowing on the putting surfaces takes about 5 hours.


Due to the aggressiveness of the verti-cutting on the greens, some of the perimeters of the greens have thinned out a little bit.  This looks worse than it is.  The greens have been put on an increased fertility program in these areas and will heal up quickly with all the great sunshine we have been getting recently.

After the verti-cutting it was time to clean off all of the material extracted.  That was no easy task!  Teams of drag mats and blowers cleaned off all of the dead material to prepare for the aerifier.  Now when it comes to aerification, the name of the game is affected surface area.  To get the right percentage of affected surface area, size and spacing of the extraction tines make a massive difference.  I have the machines setup to extract approx 15% of the putting surface.  That doesn't seem like a lot, but over the course of successive aerifications throughout the summer we will remove somewhere between 40-50% of the putting surface.  This is ultra critical in maintaining a healthy soil, which will in turn give us healthy grass to play on.

A new practice done this time around is a HEAVY verti-cutting of the fairways.  This was the first heavy verti-cutting of the fairways since the reconstruction.  We have verti-cut the fairways before, but never like this.  If this type of verti-cutting was done on a golf course up north on cool season grasses, it would kill the grass.  It looks way worse than it is and the playing surface produced when healed in is superior.  Here is a little video of how aggressive we went.


Here is picture of #2 fairway after verti-cutting.  This little fairway took almost an hour to clean off.  Large holes like #3 take a couple hours with 2-3 vacuums going.

Just like in life, it's fun to make the mess verti-cutting and horrible to clean it up.  It is a dusty, dirty, choking mess. 

 

I'm sure everyone has seen those giant 45 yard horticultural waste trucks that have the massive grapple boom on them rolling down the road...well after all of the fairways were cleaned off I had enough thatch and waste to fill six of those trucks.  Check out this short video on why we need to verti-cut the fairways and how much waste is generated.

 

Once all of the vertical mowing debris is removed, there's still a tremendous amount of grass left over.  Ultimately what we want is to play on the tips of the grass, not the side of the grass which is laying over. To eliminate the left over parts of the grass that are now sticking up due to the verti-cutting we circle cut.  The circle cutting is literally mowing in circles.  It's a way to get the cutting units to really sink into the turf and do their job.  Here is a picture to show how much the grass stands up after the verti-cutting.  The mower is set at 1/2 inch and the grass is almost 1 inch tall now that it is standing straight up.


Here is a pic of the circle cutting


Here is a picture of half of 4 fairway after just circle cutting the grass that was left over after verti-cutting and vacuuming.


Here is a short video on the actual process of circle cutting following verti-cutting and vacuuming.




To say that the Celebration grass has an aggressive growth habit is a bit of an understatement!!!! But this is exactly why it was chosen as our grass, we just have to manage it properly.  Here is pic of what a fairway looked like after it was aerified, verti-cut, vacuumed, circle cut with a fairway mower, and then vacuumed again.  Don't worry, it is already green again.


Part of the closure was also used to manage the grass in the roughs as well.  Just like the grass in the fairways, the roughs become a tangled mess of six inch long grass laying over.  I would need to close the course for a month in order to verti-cut the roughs, so the way we manage the mangled mess is to just scalp the grass down.  This is a huge undertaking as the grass goes from the 1.5 inch height I have it in the winter to 3/4 of an inch.  In order to go this we have to lower the height slowly and the process takes weeks because we have to cut, clean up the debris, and then lower.... cut, clean up the debris, and then lower,  cut, clean up the debris, and then lower, cut, clean up the debris, and then lower....you get the picture.  Additionally, the roughs compose the largest portion of the golf course with the most obstacles like trees, landscaping, and bunkers.  It takes a long time to say the least.

Here is picture of one of my machines working hard on the roughs.


During the closure I had a contractor and level all of the green's head as well.
 

I've also started to re-landscape around the main Club sign off of Solona. The area had become overgrown with noxious weeds and looked ratty. The process will include killing all the existing stuff, removal of the dead material, and then sodding the area around the sign so that I can keep it crisp looking. In the picture you can see the material starting to yellow out and die.


Another spur of the moment project that pooped up due to all the rains is the replacement of this culvert. The original steel one finally rusted out and started caving in. The contractor should finish the replacement today.



It is important to remember that the purpose of the summer maintenance activities is to get ready for the next golfing season. Because the course never has a true dormant period like up north, I have to get pretty aggressive in the summer when the grass is actively growing and can heal. This is completely different than what you would see up north. In fact, those that are up north should show your Superintendent this blog posting. Just be careful though, the videos might make them pass out! The good news is the course is already green and starting to look good, at least everything except the roughs...I'm still lowering the height of cut on them.

Next week, the course will be closed on Monday and Tuesday for our annual Curfew soil application to kill the soil nematodes. The reason for the closure is due to a Federally mandated 24 hour no reentry period. Even my staff has to staff off the application sites. During those days my staff will be edging cart paths and trimming landscaping. Then the following week we will be closed again for summer maintenance again. Don't worry though, we won't be doing heavy verti-cutting that time.