Happy New Year...a personal message from the grass guy (this may not work on a smart phone or iPad)

A look back

Have you ever noticed these speratically placed trees along the sides of the holes? There's only one per hole, if at all. Ever wonder why there are so few?

To find the answer why, you have to go way back in time. The trees are called Southern Red Cedar trees. They are Florida natives up around the big bend area, just not here. Yet, due to their look and growth habit they resemble a type of cypress. 

Way back when, the trees were installed as 150 yard distance markers on each hole. 

Over time, and due to the ravaging affects of hurricanes, many of the trees were lost and not replaced. The next time you are out playing take a look and see if you can spot them. There are more on the back nine than the front nine. 

Christmas with the AC on.....

Welcome to Sum-iter 2016! You think it's Winter because it's December, but really feels like Summer and makes the grass grow like crazy. 

Mowed rough today....as we say in the grass biz "we baled hay."  I've been tending to turf for almost 20 years and can't think of a Winter like this. Don't get me wrong, the warm weather has been fabulous for the course, it's Really good right now. All of the growth has the turf super dense and is producing great lyes. 

In anticipation of the inevidable onslaught of carts and traffic, the crew has been using the extra warmth and some fertilizers to make sure that when everyone comes back the course is ready. Also, the range tee has been over-seeded and the grass part will open up on January 1st for practice. This year's ryegrass stand came in very nicely and I appreciate everyone's patience in getting it established. 

An update on the two putting greens....

The two practice greens are still a little scraggly looking. They are definitely better than what they were, but quite always away from greens 1-18. I've been very cautious about pushing them too hard to recover as I don't want to make them regress by giving them too much love. Efforts to spead up recovery still include a slightly higher nurtritional diet, increased height of cut and constant plugging out of damaged areas. I know it's not much of a consolation but we are not alone in our struggles with putting surfaces. Literally everyone of my colleagues I've spoken to, regardless of the size of their budget, have at least one green that they are struggling with in some way. That should tell you how unusual this Sum-iter has been! 

Fruit cocktail

Not sure if anyone has noticed the new trees I had planted behind 3 red tee, but instead of more of the same I planted some citrus trees.  They are called fruit cocktail trees! The reason why they are called fruit cocktail trees is because there is five different fruit producing stems on one trunk. The tree will produce oranges, limes, grapefruits, tangelos & lemons. So if you are going to pick a fruit, better make sure you know what you are getting, you may get a surprise. 

Know the difference between a Monarch, a Swallowtail, or a Red Admiral??

To help everyone identify the different kinds of butterflies in the pollinator gardens, I installed a couple new signs for easy reference. One is on 6, right of the green, and the other is on 10 down by the red tee. 

Touching things up

Yesterday I had my staff resod the south end of the Clubhouse putting green. Instead of replacing the damaged grass with more putting surface I installed Celebration. The reason being is that there has never been very much room on that end to turn machines around, or an area to get on and off the green. That meant the edge of the putting surface was always getting extra wear and struggled. Then when my staff miss applied some fertilizer, coupled with the extra wear and abuse, the grass just gave up and died. Shrinking the green a little bit and installing Celebration should provide a solution to the continual problem. 

Why white divot sand

I had a great question on the course the other day about why we now have white divot sand. The answer is really simple...I had a bunch of white sand left over from the summer and we are just using it up. 

In the next few weeks my staff will be using what remaining white sand we have left to top dress the approaches and tees in an effort to get rid of all the remaining white divot sand. Once we are rid of the white stuff, I will order in the dark sand we are all used to. 

Range tee over-seeding

This wk my staff did the annual rye grass seeding of the range tee. In order to give the seed as best a chance as possible to establish, I have requested that golfers use the mats for the next two weeks. The rye grass germinates very quickly, but if we start beating it up before the root system has a chance to get established we will lose a lot of the rye grass prematurely. Once the grass is up and we have a chance to mow it a couple times it will be ready for play.