Ruff around the edges....a US Open like most have never seen

Today is one of those great days of my job where I get to take advantage of some of the perks to my profession. Today I'm visiting the Little Putter Boy's play ground, also known as Pinehurst. Which, as you probably know is host to this year's US Open. 

After rummaging through a tent the size of a football field filed with every nick-nack and logo'd thing you can imagine (I needed an official US Open hat of course) I ventured out to Donald Ross's legendary #2 course. I'm going make a pre-tournament call to say this tournament setup will turn this course into someone's nightmare. 

This course isn't just dried down for the tournament, it is built to be this way. Pinehurst's #2 is a total throw back in time when the ideals of the game were centered around playing it as it lies and threw the green. The single row irrigation line down the middle of the fairways is DESIGNED PURPOSEFULLY TO NOT BE ABLE TO MEET THE WATER DEMANDS OF THE NORMAL "PERFECTLY CONDITIONED" COURSE we all associate with USA golf. This is the way they wanted it. I had the pleasure of speaking with a senior rules official while on the course today. I was asking some questions about this and that regarding expectations to Par....he just smiled and said "just remember when Stuart Cink finished his final match at Shinnecock Hills a few years back and was questioned about Par, he said "Par doesn't matter, lowest score wins."  Eluding that the course is going to severely test the players. 

To get an idea of how different the course is now as compared to then check out is picture. Gone are the days of perfect grass everywhere. Honestly, any player that played today had a chance to win on the old course of lush grass and secondary rough cuts. The brutal fact is that now the course puts an even higher premium on accuracy off the tee. And on those 550+ par 4 holes, those layup shots better be spot on as well. 

To say Pinehurst wants the course to play like the day Donald Ross designed it is an understatement. The only areas with 100% irrigation coverage are the tees and greens. Everything else outside of the single head down the middle of the fairway is left to it's own or had the water turned off for a while. Oh and by the way, it was over 90 degrees at the course today....brown is going to be ok for this tournament. However, I did see the staff hand watering the bent grass greens to keep them from frying, at least for now. It's going to an interesting event. 

Lastly, I have to say that just like Augusta National, TV will not due the greens contouring justice. These "turtle back" greens look like the backs of turtles that have gone through Chernobyl and have severe growths under their shells. The wicked mounding on top of the turtle back greens and the run-offs that roll forever are going to play havoc with the errant shot. 

My new putter boy hat...

If you get a chance to watch some of the tournament, I'd do it. These type of setups are far and few between. 

First assault, 100 day war - 2014

This year's first assault on the 100 day war (a.k.a - summer aerification) has gone pretty smooth so far. At the last minute I modified the game plan a little bit due to a lack of available irrigation water from the City.

I didn't want to totally shred the golf course and not be 100% certain I would be able to nurture the course back to health, so I cancelled the heavy verti-cutting of the playing surfaces. Despite the mild set back, the vast majority of aerifications and standings are taking place.

With all the rains as of late (none of which have hindered our closure thank goodness), it looks like the City's irrigation supply is building back up quickly.  We should be able to accomplish our agronomic goals throughout the summer in the long run. 

The most valuable commodity

If you were to think about what is the most precious "thing" you need to have in order to have a great golf course what would you think of? Would it be people, fertilizer, machines or maybe even pesticides? I would say a good water source. 

As many of you know the Club receives reuse irrigation water from the City of Naples. I got a phone call from the City reuse water people on Tuesday that I've been waiting for, but also dreeding. It wasn't good news, the City is out of water to supply us with for irrigation. Anyone that has lived in Naples for a while knows that this time of the year it gets really hot and really dry. 

This time of the year I can usually consume 750,000 gallons of reuse water every night to keep up with the water needs of the course. Due to the reduced flows of incoming sewer supply from the vast majority of City residence leaving to go back north for the summer, I'm lucky if I get enough reuse water to irrigate the course 3-4 days a week. Needless to say the course is going to start showing signs of drying down. 

The course a few weeks ago with plenty of irrigation water. 

The extreme potential of what could happen, but we are no where near this. Not to worry though. Once the rains come and we start watering a little more the grass will green right back up. 

As a result of the limited suply of reuse water, my team has been forced to rely on our emergency well pumps to supply water to our crucial areas of the course first, such as greens and tees, and then water whatever we can afterwards. It's important to know we only have 24 million gallons of water to last the entire year so we can go hog wild using the wells right now. If we consume the backup supply quickly and the dry period lasts for a while we will be in a pickle. 

The good news is the rainy season is just around the corner and then the City should be able to build its reserves back up and supply us the needed resource. Until then, a little brown isn't so bad. 

Teaching others to blog

Today I gave a 20 minute talk, seemed only like 2 minutes, to a group of Superintendents about how blogging can help them communicate.  My talk concentrated on how effective and easy blogging is. I shared a lot of my experiences with how the Club's membership has used the blog as the go to source for information about the course. There was a lot of "holy crap, that's looks really easy to do!" 

All I kept saying was "You're right & your membership will love it!"

Perfect temperatures

The Bermuda grass on the golf course loves the same temperatures you do. The mid 80 days and the cool 60's at night are perfect....I call it the 150 rule. That's when you add the day time and night temps together and the closer you get to. 150 the better the growing weather it is. Funny, it's also the perfect temps for us too!

All this growth doesn't come without some negatives though. As we transition out of winter survival mode and back into active growth control there's a little transition period the course goes through where if you know what to look for you can tell this are happening. One of those things is very light scalping of the grass as we begin to gently dig into the grain as seem in the picture below. 

Notice how the scalping isn't all the way across the fairway as is just in the one mower width. This is where the machine was digging into the grain during that specific direction of travel. When the machine traveled the other direction it was going with the grain and didn't scalp. 

As the summer progresses I will have my staff slowing intensify on grain control, culminating when the course closes and we heavily verticut the fairways. For now though, don't worry if you see a tiny bit of scalping...it's on purpose 

Augusta National Syndrome

This week is hell for Superintendents some times. Some golf members watch tv and see the holy place of golf and then think to their own course and wonder why their own course doesn't look like Augusta National. It can be a trying time to explain to someone that it's like trying to compare apples and tomatoes. Both are red, but in totally different categories.

This morning as I was scanning my social media outlets I saw this great picture of Augusta National mowing their fairways. I have a great friend who worked at Augusta National and when asked why there are no stripes in the turf he said, "It's simple, anyone can mow stripes into the turf. It takes extra effort to not mow stripes."  During the course of regular play the fairways are cut from the tee to the green, but during the tournament the direction is reversed and the fairways are cut from the green towards the tee. 

And if your wondering about the apples and tomatoes thing....there's almost a million dollars of fairways mowers in this one picture. I use 2 mowers regularly, sometimes a third for a special occasion. 

Operation Pollinator

I've always thought of my job as part grass grower, part artist, and part environmental steward.  So when an opportunity came up to get involved in a project to help the native environment I stepped right up.  The project I am referring to is to help native wild pollinators....yep, bees.  Many are unaware that the numbers of pollinating insects have declined significantly in recent years. The decline has been linked to habitat loss, diseases and viruses, changes in agriculture practices and urban sprawl among other factors. While farm landscapes often lack the diversity and abundance of flowers that pollinators require, recent research has shown this trend can be reversed.
Requirements for supporting a pollinator community include a range of foraging habitats, with diverse, rich nectar and pollen nutrition, as well as adequate nesting areas. This is where Operation Pollinator provides a multifunctional landscape solution and golf courses are perfect for this.

The Club's role in Operation Pollinator is really just one of public awareness.  The golf course already has all of the multitudes of habitats, and with all of the flowers all over the place there is an abundance of food for the pollinators.  If you have ever stopped to admire the flowers around the property you've seen all the bees flying around.  The one things that the golf course provides that is essential form any public awareness campaign to be successful is a great audience.  So like many of the things that are done around the golf course, there are secondary benefits to having the beautiful flowers other than the obvious. 

In the next couple of days my staff will put out some signs like the one above. The signs will help give awareness to one of the many great environmental things that are being done on the golf course that probably would go unnoticed.