Want to know why the course is looking "HUNGRY?"

It is great to see everyone back enjoying the course again.  It was a long summer and I hope everyone is ready for some outstanding winter golf.  Although it has been rather warm these last couple of weeks, it definitely beats the alternative up north! I was speaking with a member this morning regarding the course and turf conditions and I thought it would be appropriate to share with everyone the conversation.  The member expressed to me that although the course is playing exceptionally well, upon returning from up north the course didn't really meet their expectations aesthetically.  All I could do is say that I completely agreed so I wanted to let everyone know what happened and what is planned to remedy the problem.

Hungry turf- Needs to be fertilized

If you take a look at the course with a broad view, it looks like it needs to be fertilized.  That's because it does.  I have actually been fertilizing the course all summer and fall, but something unusual happened a few week ago to counteract my efforts.  The reason why the course looks "hungry" has to do with all of the rain a few weeks ago.  In very simple terms, the rain flushed out all of the nutrients in the soil and left nothing for the grass to use to grow.  Under normal circumstances I make regular light fertilizer applications which applies just enough to give the grass what is needed to be healthy.  I only have to apply a small amount because the soil has a reserve of nutrients built up that will sustain the grass until the next application.  The rain wiped out the soil reserves.  Additionally I only apply small amounts regularly so I can control the growth of the plant.  The grass plant is like my kids with candy, they both do not know when to stop eating.  All of the excessive consumption translates into problems!  For the grass it means excessive growth.  The excessive growth means lots of mowing, thatch production, playability problems and long term issues. 

Excessive growth from lots of fertilizer during grow in after the construction project...not good long term

So imagine now that you are walking the line perfectly between just the right amount of food for the grass and not enough.  Then all of the sudden you get knocked way into the "not enough" side because what was there was flushed down the toilet by 15 inches of rain. Now the only way you correct the lack of that much nutrients in the soil is to apply a massive dose of nutrients.  Guess what I had delivered yesterday?

Fertilizer Dump Trailer

I was going to have the entire course fertilized today (11/17/11), but we are supposed to get some weather later this afternoon into tonight that might include some rain.  I didn't want to have some freshly applied fertilizer get washed down the drains and be back in the same boat.  So next week I will have my staff apply the material to the course.  I had the fertilizer custom blended to give the course a quick shot of nutrients from about 25% of the fertilizer.  The remaining 75% of the material is a controlled release material that will give a slow feeding to the turf over the next 3-4 weeks.  This issue of the course not being as pretty as it has been in the past couple of years is only a temporary issue.  Once the course is fertilized next week it will explode with color and growth and we will be back to our normal selves.

Out of bounds rule change on hole 16

From our Golf Committee Chairman....out of bounds change to Hole #16.   "You will notice a change to the way Hole #16 is now being played from the Rules of Golf standpoint.  The prior Local Rule deemed the fence to the left of the hole, behind the ficus hedge, out of bounds.  The area has now been marked with red stakes, which indicate Lateral Water Hazard.  This means rather than a stroke-and-distance penalty, you may proceed under the Lateral Water Hazard provisions, which allow a drop within two (2) club lengths of where the ball last crossed the margin of the hazard.  The area is now treated the same as the area left of Hole #13 and Hole #14.  "   The picture below shows the area on the left side of hole 16 as it is now to be played.  Please take note the next time you play Bill

The Sand Man comeith, better get ready!

Hopefully everyone has heard me stand on my soap box and shout about the need to sand the greens all the time.  Well, this time I going digital with my message.  The bi-weekly sanding of the putting surface is an absolute necessity to maintaining superior playability.  The sand does a variety of things for us like filling in any surface blemishes such as ball marks or scuffs from shoes.  The sand even helps speed up the greens due to the decrease is ball roll resistance from the grass leaves.  Most importantly though, the continual sanding helps dilute the every growing organic material layer under the grass called the mat layer.  Some mat layer is wanted as this is what make the greens "receptive," but now that we have enough mat layer we want to make sure we are managing its growth appropriately. 

To help the sand work its way into the grass canopy more effectively, the day we are going to sand we also groom the greens.  Grooming is a very mild version of verti-cutting.  In the picture you can see faint grooves or lines from the grooming.  These lines act like channels for the sand to settle into as my staff is trying to incorporate the sand into the turf canopy.

The grooming is great way of opening up the canopy for the sand, but it also has another intended purpose.  I use the grooming to also help control the grain of the grass.  Grain is the tendency of the grass to lay over in a certain direction.  The way we do this is by continually grooming the grass in different directions.  Here's how it works.  Think a green like a clock face.  I will assign the mowers a specific direction to mow across the face of the clock.  For example, one day we will mow from 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock and the next day we mow from 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock.  So in golf maintenance terms we say "Today we are cutting 10-4" or 8-2 or 6-12 or 3-9.  The direction of the cut is always changing to help control the grain of the grass.  Another way I like to control the grain is to mow the same pass twice, down and back on the same line.  This really works best for controlling grain when using the groomers.

here's and example of double cutting, down and back on the same pass

In this picture you can see Omar making his first pass while cutting 13 green, notice the position of the flag stick.

In this picture notice how Omar is cutting the same line, just in the opposite direction.  Again notice the location of the flag stick.

In doing the grooming this way, a slightly more aggressive approach is taken while we are still actively growing.  Again, its all about ball roll and playability and this practice is aimed at removing some of the thick, prostrate leaves that create extra ball roll resistance.  Ideally what is wanted is the ball to roll across the tips of a very dense, thin bladed leaf and not across the length of a coarse, prostrate leaf.

On hole 11 in the front of the green I'm sure everyone has seen how thin it is.  I took this picture today at 9 a.m. just to show you how the change in seasons affect grass health.  Notice how the shadow envelopes the entire area that is weak.  The shadow is from the trees on 12 tee.  The shadow is not the only reason why the grass is weak, but it definitely isn't helping the grass recover.  In the summer, there is no shade problems on this green, but as the sun becomes lower on the horizon due to winter setting in this sort of issue pops up on different areas.  The red lines on the green are for my mowers to know to not cut the area under stress.  The mowers will lift up the green's mower to allow the grass's leaves to grow a little bit longer.

In the picture below notice how Jose is walking with the mower's cutting head raised up once he crosses the red lines.  I call this red line trick on greens a "false collar cut."  The concept with the false collar is to allow the grass on the putting surface to grow up a little higher so that it can collect a little bit more sunlight.  Remember, plant leaves are like tiny solar panels...they are turning sunlight into energy.  The principle is the same and the larger the solar panel the more energy that can be produced.  In grass guy terms, the longer the grass leaf...the healthier the plant.  This is why problems almost always show up on greens first since they have the shortest leaf surface.  In this picture you can also see the shadow at the back of the green.  There is no visible stress related turf issues in the back, can anyone guess why?  The answer has to do with traffic flow on and off of the green.  The majority of the golfers enter and exit in the front right of the green.  The related foot traffic coupled with the shade on an already stressed part of the green equals thin turf. 

When it comes to bermuda grass's sunlight requirement, its all about duration.  Bermuda grass likes to have at least 8 hours of intense sunlight to thrive.  There's an old wives tale about the morning sun being better than afternoon sun, but realistically it doesn't matter when the grass gets the sun just as long as it gets enough sun.  Now that the days are getting shorter as we go deeper into winter, any shade on an already stressed out part of the putting surface just worsens the problem.   

Seeing Red on the Green

One of the largest decisions that had to be made during the renovation was what variety of bermuda grass was going to be used for everything except the greens.  The decision was made to use a variety called Celebration.  This grass has excellent wear tolerance, good cold weather color, and is very aggressive in growth habit.  All of these are exceptional qualities that are highly desirable for the golf course.  Out of all of these great qualities there is only one that creates an issue for us, the aggressive growth habit.  The only place that the Celebration's aggressiveness isn't desirable is the putting surface / collar interface.  The reason being is that the Celebration is so aggressive in growth that it will grow right into the putting surface if left unchecked.  This is called encroachment.

To combat the problem of Celebration encroaching into the MiniVerde putting surface my staff edges the perimeter of the greens bi-weekly.  This is done just like you would edge a sidewalk and is a very time consuming ordeal.  To complete the edging process can take 40 man hours for this one task.  Ultimately though, this is just a measure to slow the encroachment.  The Celebration eventually will send out a below ground stem called a rhizome that will eventually surface and start a new patch of Celebration.  Once that Celebration has made it past our first line of defense of edging, we have to physically remove it by plugging the putting surface.  To help my staff identify where the Celebration is that needs to be removed I dot the putting surface with turf paint for easy location.

Celebration bermuda grass in MiniVerde putting surface

 Once the putting surface has been dotted, a staff member can go to our nursery green and remove plugs that can be inserted into the putting surface to replace the area where Celebration is found.  In this picture you can see that a little bit of Celebration was left behind and is starting to grow again.



 You might even find a piece of Celebration a long way from the perimeter of the green.  I attribute this to the aerification process as we always start outside of the green's perimeter in the Celebration, just in case something happens when the machine is set on the ground.  During the process of lowering and lifting the aerifier is typically when something goes wrong if it is going to happen.  My guess is that a tiny sprig of Celebration is transplanted somehow during the core cleanup, sanding and brushing process. 

To date we have been able to stem the tide of encroachment by being very diligent with our combination program of edging and plugging.  So don't be alarmed if you see some red while on the green.  It's just me trying to maintain a pure MiniVerde stand of grass on the putting surface.

Happenings on #13

When the golf course was originally built in 1964 a pump was used to drain the excess water from the property.  The pump was driven primarily by an electrical motor system the was turned on by a float switch in the lake between 11 tees and 13 tees.  The pump also has a back up diesel engine for when the electricity is out, but the diesel has to be turned on manually.  There is no automatic start system for the backup.  This same system was still in operation up until yesterday.  Yesterday, the Club made a great improvement on how the course gets rid of excess water.

What brought about the change in how the course drains its excess water was a function of needed upgrades, finances, and common sense.  Over the summer the electrical control panel that operates the pumping system had some components go bad.  The cost to replace the bad components was going to be expensive.  One reason for being expensive is some of the parts needed are not even made any more.  That's how old the control panel is.  I had three options to proceed 1) replace parts that are extremely hard to find inside a 40 year old panel, of which I'm not sure how much longer the other parts of the panel are going to last 2) replace the entire pump control panel with new technology 3) find a new way of draining the excess water.  Option one, putting new parts inside the old panel, was just a band aide fix.  It was also relatively expensive for an unknown payback period.  Option two, a new panel, was really expensive, but the future reliability of the pump was known and servicing of the panel would be easy for the predictable future.  I didn't really like either of these two fixes!  The one major flaw with both of these options is that we still had to rely on a mechanical means of flood control, a pump.  All is well and good as long as the pump doesn't go out, kind of like New Orleans.  Yet, invariably during a major storm the electricity does get knocked out.  Once the electricity is out, the pump shuts off, and the water backs up until someone comes out and starts the back up system.  By the time someone comes out and starts the back up system there is massive flooding on the course.  We did such a great job during the renovation of getting the water off of the course, into the lake system, and to the discharge point that I didn't want to rely on a mechanical means of flood control anymore.

To solve the problem I called the contractor who built the golf course and we came up with a plan to use gravity to move the water off the property for us.  Instead of having to pump the water over the berm and off the property, we made a plan to install a new 24" pipe through the berm and let the water discharge on its own.

The plan was to lay the pipe invert (the bottom of the pipe) at our control elevation, or the point which we do not want water to rise any higher.  In this picture the contractor is using a fixed laser elevation rod to determine the control point.  Once control is determined, the contractor will know how deep to dig the trench for the new discharge pipe.  After the trench is dug, the grade of the trench will be checked every foot to ensure the trench stays at the control depth.  The guy on the left is setting the control elevation and the fixed laser is behind Erick on the right.

Here you can see the final part of the trench being dug.  Notice the elevation rod on the right side of the picture.  Every foot of the trench was check to make sure it was perfect.

Last piece of the pipe installed and the crew is back filling the trench

So now once the water level rises high enough to reach the bottom of the pipe which is set at the control elevation, this will be the new view as it leaves the property  Just head for the light at the end of the tunnel, right!

And the proof is in the pudding.  This little bit of water trickling out of the end of the new discharge pipe is the same amount of water still flowing into the discharge lake from the front side lakes.  The system works perfectly!  Now we no longer are relying on a mechanical means of flood control, gravity does the work for us.  Better yet, since the Club does not need to buy electricity to run a pump anymore the pay back period for this improvement is only two years through the cost savings of cancelling the FPL service.  I am still going to leave the diesel engine driven pump in place as an emergency backup, but I doubt we will every have to use it.

Blog posting correction

Some of you may have read a recent posting about soil water I posted on accident before it was completed and wondered what happened to the rest of it.  I downloaded a new Ipad application and was playing around with it and hit "post" before it was completed.  I finished the posting and would like to invite you to check it out.  It has some great information on why wet spots happen. 

Here is the link to that section
Soil Water - More than you ever wanted to know!

October 3, Season is almost here

Normally I write about what I've been doing on the course, but this time I thought I would share with you some of the other wonderful things that have been happening around the Club. Probably the biggest thing everyone will notice is the wonderful things Tony and his staff have been doing with the Golf Operations department. Most noticeably is the refinements when you walk into the golf shop. Here is the new view of what you'll see.
....an absolutely beautiful piece of mahogany for the new counter top.


Tony has also made some merchandising changes. Its sort of a reorganization of what used to be there, but with a little better flow throughout the shop I think.


Here is the new golf club space


In other parts of the clubhouse a lot of needed maintenance has taken place as well. All of the tables and the bar inside the Tavern have been refinished to give a very classy and distinguished feel.


And the inside hallways of the clubhouse have been repainted


So as you can see, all around the Club this summer we have been busy preparing for our busy winter season. The course is in great shape, the clubhouse and golf shop look beautiful, and now all we are missing is our wonderful members! Hope to see you soon.