Preparing for the future

Today the golf maintenance team started the process of the putting surface reclamation project by spraying the encroaching celebration grass with Roundup herbicide. The Roundup herbicide is a non-selective chemical that is taken in through the plant leaf and kills the plant within 7-10 days. The plant will begin showing faint signs of dying sometime this weekend.  There  will be no signs of anything done for the Lady's event tomorrow. The course will play and look the same as it did Tuesday.

To make sure the Roundup doesn't drift off target the Maint team made some drift shields out of some thin paneling board and used some smaller lumber pieces as handles. 

This method provides 100% containment and perfect edges. 

Once the Roundup is dry it is absorbed quickly into the plant. Tonight I am having the greens heavily watered and the remaining blue ring around the greens, which is essentially just a colorant like food dye, will wash into the soil and you'll never know we were there. 

Again, the grass won't show signs of being sprayed until this weekend. 

Surrogate parents

Congrats to everyone, you're all surrogate parents to a new generation of wildlife on the course. I had all of the nesting boxes surveyed last week and we have some new members in the Club. 

Screech Owl using one of the boxes

Great Crested Fly Catcher eggs

Tell tale Blue Bird eggs

Not only are the golfers happy with the course, our wildlife around the property are prosperous as well. 

Walking the line

During the next few days my staff will be marking the original perimeters of the greens with white lines. This is where the putting surface was when we opened after the golf course renovation project in 2009. The Celebration's tenacious growth habit is spectacular for wear resistance and divot recovery, but not so good on putting surface encroachment. As you'll see when you play, some areas have encroached significantly. This summer the plan is to recapture the lost putting surface.

On April 27th I have coordinated with the golf shop to close the first tee at 1 o'clock so that my staff can begin the phased process of the project. They're will remain closed for the rest of the day so that someone doesn't step onto the recently applied herbicide and then track it somewhere unintended.

Here are the steps that will happen.

4/27 : spray a non-selective herbicide on the area from the outer edge of the putting surface to the inner edge of the encroaching Celebration grass

5/16 : spray a non-selective herbicide on the area from the outer edge of the putting surface to the inner edge of the encroaching Celebration grass. The area should be 90% dead but we want to kill as much as possible to make sure it doesn't come back.

5/30 : spray a non-selective herbicide on the area from the outer edge of the putting surface to the inner edge of the encroaching Celebration grass. The area should be 99% dead but we want to really kill as much as possible to make sure it doesn't come back.

6/6 : sod cut off the dead ring of grass around the front 9 greens. Afterward dead grass removal,aerify the putting surfaces and then push the billions of tiny fresh grass plugs into the empty troughs around the greens to replant the recaptured areas. Tamp down to start the grow-in process.

The tricky part of the entire process is to make sure we do not run out of aerification plugs. To prevent this from happening we will only strip the front 9 green's perimeters to start, and then will strip more as needed after I see what sort of progress is made and how far the plugs go. There is a chance we will need to extend the project into July if we run out of aerification plugs to refill the perimeter troughs

Click here for the USGA's publication on the process for more details