518 Man Hours of...

Last Sunday's rainfall event that totaled 7.1" took its toll on the golf course and on our staff. We spent 518 man hours to clean up silt that overflowed from creeks, restore Bunkers, and remove debris that washed on to our property from who knows where. The entire staff worked extremely hard and diligently to restore the course and to begin prepping for the upcoming week's aerification on the Greens that will officially begin the Greens Conversion. Here are a few pictures that you can compare to last Sundays pictures.

This picture is looking from #17 cartpath towards #17 Tee on the left and #12 Green on the right. This is the standard look that one would see from this view.

This is the same area last Sunday morning during the 7.1" rain event.

This is #6 cartpath as you approach the Green and Bunkers, this was taken on Thursday as we slowly progressed through the course clean up.

Here is the same area from last Sunday, there was approximately 8" to 12" of silt on the cartpath and surrounding turf.

I mentioned above that we began prepping the course for next week's Greens aerification which meant we needed to get the bermuda Tees, Fairways and Approaches under control. We achieve this by spraying a growth regulator that allows the turf to grow laterally and not vertically, thus creating a denser and healthier playing surface. We start by mowing the area to remove the dew and have the turf at its daily playing height, in the picture below we are mowing #1 Fairway at sunrise.

Once the area has been removed we spray the area with a combination of Primo Maxx and fertility to aid in divot recovery. Here is Tim Murdock our Second Assistant Superintendent spraying #3 Fairway. The white dots you see are from our staff using a foam marker instead of a dye, this method is less expensive and there is no staining due to the dye.

Tomorrow is the last day to play on our Greens until after the conversion and this is the only slow thing moving across our Greens in the past few weeks.

We hope everyone has a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend! Thank you for reading our blog and please let us know if you have any questions or comments.

A Sunday to Remember...

7.1" of rain fell on Sunday morning, beginning around 2:00 in the morning, and the clean up is going to be time consuming. We closed the entire course on Sunday as #6, #12, and #16 were impassable as Dave's Creek had risen to highest level in my 5 years as Superintendent. We were able to open the Front 9 this morning, but #16 was still impassable today due to silt and debris. Today we focused our efforts on clearing Cartpaths, removing silt and debris from turf areas, and going ahead and beginning to edge Bunkers as they are completed washed out. Tomorrow we will finish cleaning up silt and debris  on #15 through #18, then we will begin restoring Greenside Bunkers starting on #18 and working towards #1. Here are a few pictures of the course from Sunday and Monday, this is #17 looking towards the Tees.

Here is #6 on Sunday, around the corner there was approximately 8" of silt on the cartpath.

#7 looking towards the Green where Dave's Creek is 8' above normal flow.

Fairway Bunker, Rough and Fairway on #12 covered in silt and debris.

#16 Cartpath is submerged in water and silts and the Rough is buried in silt and debris. We removed approximately 12" of silt from cartpath near the Green prior to the second bridge.

#15 Fairway Bunker looking towards the Green. Lots of time will be spent properly fixing the Bunkers to ensure the best playability possible.

#17 Greenside Bunkers that borders Dave's Creek is covered in silt that will be removed prior to moving sand.

A Sunday that we will remember for a long time! Thank you for taking the time to look at the damage caused by 7.1" of rain. We will take pictures as we clean up areas and restore the grounds to optimal playing conditions. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.

Finally a warm Spring day...

After a record low on Tuesday morning, we rebounded with a day in the mid 80's. We took advantage of the sunny and dry weather today by mowing the Native Area to the the left of #9. We typically try to mow this area once a month from May through September to aid in pace of play for that hole. We use a Bushhog attachment on the back of a tractor and mow this area at a height of 6", being tall fescue and slightly wispy gives the player the ability to play out of it, but not allow you to go for the Green in two. We do love the look of the seed heads in the wind, but we also know the difficulties in finding your ball in this area. The picture below is Kellan, our Equipment Technician, using the tractor and Bushhog attachment to make a pass the entire length of the hole, you will notice the distinct difference in height from what has not been mowed to what has been mowed.

We also took advantage of the weather and decided to mow our Tees and Approaches. We are currently maintaining these areas at .300" and our goal is to maintain them at .375" throughout this summer. With the weather pattern that we have been in for the past two months, we have been able to mow these area just twice per week, as the weather becomes more seasonal we will increase our frequency to three times per week. Mowing this often allows the grass to appear more groomed and smooth, which is similar to someone who shaves daily versus weekly. Here is a photo of Olegario mowing the Tees on #11 with one of our Toro triplexes.

Once we mowed the Tees and Approaches we sprayed these areas with fertilizer and a wetting agent to keep them thick and green. We sprayed a quick release fertilizer that should last approximately 14 days and provide excellent playing conditions. The wetting agent is a combination of Humic Acid, which aids in soil microbe activity, and a penetrant that allows water to break the surface tension of the soil and be absorbed versus running off. We spray this wetting agent monthly from May through October and we have seen excellent results from this product. Here is Israel spraying the Tees on #10 with the fertilizer and wetting agent, you will notice the white foam on the Tees, we use this to mark the areas that have sprayed versus a dye that will tint the turf either blue or green.

We also began our program of spraying a selective herbicide in the natural areas so that we can restore these areas to weed free areas that thrive with the native grasses selected for this area. This is a very time consuming project and we are staying committed to improving these areas to ensure a more uniformed mono stand of turf versus a collection of assorted weeds mingled into the turf. Here is Tim Murdock, our Second Assistant Superintendent, selectively spraying weeds in the native area in front of #17 Tees. We will hopefully finish up these areas this week and continue to monitor the areas to make additional herbicide applications as needed.

Thank you for reading about our activities and progress on improving the conditions of Windermere Golf Club. We hope that you will contact us with your questions or comments.

Record Low and Driving Range Aerification...

We set a record low temperature of 37 degrees this morning for this date, not exactly what we would have predicted for the middle of May. We know that warm humid weather will be here very soon, thus we decided to get started on an overdue aerification of the Driving Range. We were testing our equipment this morning during our maintenance hours on the Driving Range, which took a little longer than expected as there were a few kinks to work out. Everything is running fine now and we were able to aerify approximately 15% of the floor of the Driving Range. Once we aerified the area, we tried to drag the aerification cores to shatter them but unfortunately the clay was so compacted that we had to eventually use our Rough mower with mulching blades to chop of the cores. Finally we blew the excess clippings and thatch out of the area with our blowers and the area was open at 1:00 PM. We will continue to work on the range over the next few weeks during our maintenance time and we will make it a priority every year going forward to ensure a better product for our members and their guest.

Here is a picture of an area of turf prior to the aerification process.

This is a picture of the same area with our John Deere 1500 aerifying the turf. We used a 3/4" tine with a 2.5" x 2.5" spacing which should alleviate some of the compaction on the Driving Range.

The following picture shows the cores on the same area of turf that was in the original picture. The clay is easily seen and part of the issues in the compaction.

Here is our Rough mower mulching or aerification cores to help pulverise and ease the clean up process.

This is a picture of the initial area after being aerified, pulverized, and blown. We will continue this process over the next couple of weeks until the Driving Range is completed.

Finally, here is a picture taken from the White Tees on #3, a downhill then uphill dogleg left Par 5. The TifGrand bermuda grass on the Tee and as you can see from the clippings in the Rough, from our late afternoon mowing, the bermuda was has not been set back by the cold temperature the past few mornings.

Thank you for reading our blog and we hope that you gain some insight to the daily maintenance of Windermere Golf Club.

Tournament Browns...

As we approach the middle of May, we set a record low this morning of 40 degrees, which is 18 degrees below average for this date. Not exactly what we would call ideal temperatures for warm-season turf, such as bermuda and zoysia. We are still looking at transitioning Roughs that are waiting on warmer soil temperatures before becoming completely active. Our Tees, Collars, Approaches and Fairways are green, tightening up and getting into mid-season form. Our Greens on the other hand are smooth as glass and lightning fast, the only problem is that they are not green anymore, more of a "Tournament Brown". Here is a picture of #17 Green looking back towards the tees, there is a stark difference between the Approach and the "Tournament Browns".

This is #10 Green looking toward the cart path.

Here is #18 Green looking across one of the Bunkers towards the Clubhouse and #10 Tee.

With our conversion officially starting in 15 days we have begun the process of preparing our Temporary Greens. We will be scalping these areas down, aggressively verticutting, heavily topdresssing and fertilizing these areas to provide an acceptable putting surface until we re-open Greens in early August. Here is a picture of AJ Benefield, who is an intern from ABAC in Tifton, Georgia, he is learning how to use our John Deere 220B Greensmower on the Temporary Green on #15.

Once we mowed the Temporary Greens, we started out topdressing program on these areas. Our plan is to apply a 1/16" thick layer of sand to these areas 2-3 times per week for several weeks to ensure smoothness. Here Tim Murdock, our Second Assistant, is showing our intern AJ how to operate our Turfco Topdresser.

With the cooler than average temperatures that we are still experiencing, our bermuda turf at the Clubhouse that is overseeded is still looking phenomenal and striping wonderfully.

Thank you for taking a moment to read our blog and we would love to hear your feedback about the course and answering any questions you might have.

Liquid Fertility and Hot Air Balloons...

We finally were able to allow golfers to return to 90 degree cart rule today as the Fairways and Roughs finally dried out. It was also the first day that we were able to mow Fairways and we decided to take advantage of the firmer Fairways and spray a Urea Ammonium Nitrate solution, also called UAN, at a rate of .4 LBS of Nitrogen. This quick release fertility will allow us to push the bermuda grass even though the temperatures are not completely conducive to warm season turf growth. This fertility will typically push the bermuda for approximately 14-21 days depending on the weather and with the anticipated rain this upcoming weekend we are expecting growth for 14 days. With the anticipation of rain we decided to add a Wetting Agent, called Duplex, to the application today. Duplex is known for is ability to allow water to penetrate the soil, which allows for quicker drying times and firmer soils.

With the cloudy, cool, and wet weather that we received since Friday we were not expecting many clippings today, but in case there were clippings or debris from the trees we used our turbine blower to clean of the Fairways prior to the spray application to ensure 100% coverage of the UAN and Duplex. The photo below is taken of #1 Fairway looking toward the Tees and the Toro 6500 Fairway mower and the turbine blower are close to finishing up.

As the blower makes its last pass around the Fairway we begin to spray the Fairway with our John Deere 200 Gallon sprayer. By allowing all tire traffic to leave the Fairway we ensure optimal drying time for the fertilizer thus increasing efficiency. We calibrate our sprayer to spray 40 Gallons per Acre on our Fairway or Rough applications to increase efficiency. Here is a photo of the sprayer making its first pass on #1 Fairway.

Windermere has approximately 23 acres of Fairways and were able to mow, blow, and spray all 23 acres today with 18 man hours. We believe that we are very efficient, but we are always looking to improve. 

As the mowers were making their first few passes on #9 Fairway, we were able to capture these pictures of a few Hot Air Balloons passing over the golf course. Pictures like these are what make waking up at 5:00 AM worth it at the end of the day!

This is taking from #6 Fairway looking back toward the Tees with one of the Hot Air Balloons directly above #3 Fairway.

This photo was taking from the Native Area left off #9 Tees looking towards the Fairway Bunkers.

The last photo we took captured two Hot Air Balloons and the mower making its first pass down the center of #9 Fairway.

Thank you for taking the time to read the Windermere Turf Maintenance blog and please feel free to comment or ask questions.

Thoughts on Quail Hollow...

There has been much speculation about the Greens at Quail Hollow Country Club in Charlotte, North Carolina and our honest opinion is, "Another reason to switch to ultradwarfs". Grasses are like any other organism, they feel great sometimes and other times they don't. They were obviously under the weather the past few weeks and their staff did everything possible to get them as playable as they could. Their were a few bumps here and there but overall the roll was acceptable, granted ascetically they were awful. 

Several members and other golfers have asked us our thoughts on what caused this. Since none of us have been there for the past 8 months, we could not give a reason that is not full of assumptions. Our assumptions will not be made public as it would be unfair to them. Do we think the situation was handled correctly? Not at all, we think there should have been full disclosure as to what happened. It was something other than the "cool and wet weather" comment I heard several times last week. The weather has been absolutely perfect for growing bentgrass. Our Greens were probably the best they have ever been over the past few months and our weather has been almost identical to Quail Hollows. I heard someone mention it was possibly vandalism or a miss application of a chemical. Neither of those reasons could be farther from the truth as it would have entire Greens or there would have at least been some sort of pattern. At some point as small is this industry is, some of us will find out exactly what happened and we will either understand why it happened or we will shrug our shoulders and accept it. Until that moment we will keep our assumptions in our Maintenance Facility.

One thing is certain, there will be an ultradwarf grass on the Greens at Quail Hollow next year when the PGA rolls back into town and I can promise you that the staff there will make sure they are some of the best Greens that will be played on next year. Thank you for taking a moment to read our thoughts on Quail Hollow and their Greens issues.

Cool Weather, Cool Soils...

Up until this year our staff and the majority of golf course maintenance staffs who had cool season grasses, such as bentgrass, enjoyed cool springs similar to the one we are having in 2013. Unfortunately for us, we would like the complete opposite of that this year. We looked up the research on soil temperature this afternoon and at a 2" depth the soil is averaging 64 degrees Fahrenheit, our past 5 year average is 75 degrees Fahrenheit and our 30 year average is 73 degrees Fahrenheit. With the cool and wet weekend ahead, we expect soil temperatures to drop two to three degrees. Warm season grasses such as bermuda and zoysia, start greening up when soil temps are in the 60's but do not begin vigorously growing until the soil temp is in the mid to upper 70's. We are pleased with the progress our Tees, Approaches and Fairways have this year and we attribute their progression to a Lime (calcium carbonate) application in January. Lime helps unlock the nutrients that were bound up in the soil by allowing the calcium to effectively knock sodium out of the soil. We also made multiple wetting agent applications throughout the spring, typically prior to major rainfall events. The wetting agent was a penetrant that allowed our staff the ability to equalize our soil moisture more effectively than in years past. As you can see from the picture of #16 below, our Tees and Fairways are significantly ahead of our Roughs, but I promise the Roughs will catch up.

These cool soil temps have allowed us the ability to maintain the overseeded Clubhouse grounds at a extremely high level. It still amazes our staff that the staple of southern landscapes, the azalea is just now coming into bloom. We typically see the Azaleas in full bloom the first week of April, but with the cooler soils this year we are a full month behind schedule. The picture below shows our overseeded Clubhouse lawn, with the Autumn Royalty azaleas in the background, and one of our seasonal color beds with American Pie vincas bordered by Scarlet begonias.

You will notice a blue dotted circle on every hole, typically in the Fairways but a few holes they are in the Roughs. Starting next week we will begin scalping these areas down and topdressing and verticutting them as we begin establishing these areas as our Temporary Greens. We will begin using theses Greens on Tuesday May 28th and use them until our Grand Re-Opening in early August. If you hit into these areas, please take relief from them as we want to be divot free so that we can provide a smooth and consistent putting surface for the summer. Here is a picture of Zach Abernathy, our First Assistant Superintendent, painting the area that we will use on #18.

Here is a picture of #5 where the Temporary Green will be placed in the Rough between the Forward Tee and the Bunker. 

Once again, thank you for your interest in our daily activities and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. We hope the weather forecast are incorrect but we are looking at a washout over the weekend and we will be prepping the course tomorrow morning for the anticipated 3" to 4" of rain we will see over the weekend.

Cool, Breezy, and Damp Day...

We continue to look at the calendar with a befuddled look on our faces as we continue to wear our jackets or pullovers for the entire day. Today's high temperature of 60 degrees coupled with mist and a sustained wind of 16mph made the day less than joyful. The sun did finally peak through the clouds late this afternoon and it sent me scrambling for my sunglasses as it seems like it has been a week since we had a bright and sunny day.

The good thing about this weather is that the Bermuda grass on the course is not growing at its peak currently and that allows our staff the opportunity to continue to work on small projects. The bad thing about this weather is that the Bermuda grass is not growing, we are anxious to start pushing the limit of how good we can make the golf course. Mother Nature will come around soon and for once in my career, I can honestly say that I want a hot and humid summer! We did take advantage of the weather and mowed some Tee Surrounds and Green Surrounds. As you can see from the photo of the Rough on #13 we are definitely not into "Warm Season" grass growing weather.

We are currently maintaining the Rough at 1" as we want to encourage the grass to become extremely thick and as the turf density increase we will slowly increase the height of the rough. Our goal for the Grand Re-Opening in early August is to be at 1.75" and lush in the roughs. Mowing the Roughs at 1" creates an enormous amount of clippings that must be blown. In the picture below, we are pulling a turbine style blower behind a utility cart on the Green Surround on #10 to disperse the clippings into the surrounding Native Areas. Using this set up allows our staff to get closer to Bunkers and Greens without damaging the turf.

We also mowed Fairways today in our traditional "Tuxedo" cut. We are maintaining the Fairways at .400" currently and we will remain there through mid June. We will be aerifying Fairways in early June and once that process is over we will slowly raise our heights with a goal of .475" for Early August. As you can see in the picture from #14 Fairway, we are using Toro Fairway units that we have fabricated a self contained drag system. This allows our staff to break the clippings up as we mow, granted this does not disperse 100% of the clippings but it disperses 90% of the clippings.

As we approach the weekend our focus is on finishing up a few small projects, prepping the course for rain, and improving the course one day at a time. We are thankful that you took a moment out of your day to read our update on today's progress. Please feel to free to leave a comment or ask a question.