Green Superintendent Update


As we roll into May I would like to highlight some of the work my crew and I have done. Aerification took place from the 15th-18th of April. With a small crew that is all new to the golf course practices, we functioned like a well-oiled machine. The weather has been less than pleasing. Hopefully, the overnights of 30 degrees are gone. We are moving into favorable growing temperatures and conditions. This will allow the turf to get into a consistent growing pattern. I am overall happy with the condition of the course and only look to improve on the playability of the course.

 

 

Aeration

 

I base all of my aeration process off of the soil testing I conduct twice a year. The main factors we look at are thatch levels and organic matter content. The greens are well within tolerable range of the organic matter. Upon testing, we look to see the OM between 1.5% to 2.5%. With the test results landing in that range, I chose to solid tine the greens. Solid tine will always heal faster, but the day will come when we will need to pull a core on the green complexes.  We always try to put as much sand in the profile to help with the filtration rate and porosity of the green. This will help with drainage of the

surface as well as increase root growth. Our tees and fairways are very heavy in thatch. We pulled a core on tee boxes to remove organic matter, we then picked the plugs up and discarded them in our dump area. We top-dressed greens and tee complexes with over 60 tons of sand. Overall the healing process has been slow due to weather. We have fertilized tees and greens to give us an upper hand on healing since Mother Nature is not on our side.


 



Bunker Detail

The crew has edged and cleaned all of the bunkers on holes 1-17. We have assessed edges that have fallen or crept over from the years. I have studied old photos of the property from our archives to bring the bunkers back to the architects original shape. More sand will need to be added as needed. This is a temporary fix to increase playability until we can achieve a long range plan of bunker reconstruction. If anyone has suggestions on bunkers that need sand added I am all ears.





Irrigation


Our irrigation is old, but is functioning to keep the quality of turf we all know at Sky Meadow. My team and I have replaced old valves and broken heads over the past two months. With more to fix upgrades out there. Some of the fixes have been straightforward. Others have forced us to think on our feet and be creative to find a solution.  The picture shown is my assistant Bryan who is 5’7 chest deep for a fix on three green.





  










  Range Tee



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