Around the course and tournament prep

I often use pictures to inspire the topic of a post. I see something of interest and think "I should write about that". If I take a picture it will remind me of something I wanted to talk about when I upload them from my phone. Of course finding the time to write this blog has been another story. Some of the things that happened the past week or so are that Kevin hurt his back and missed three full days; we had our first real heat of the summer. Great if you like the beach. Not so much if trying to grow cool season grasses. In the link below there is a great reference to selecting the grasses that are right for your environment and how the right ones thrive in the worst weather as opposed to struggle to survive. I covered issues of salt water intrusion and its effects in the last blog post as well as the need for everyone to use less stuff on their lawns. This post will cover member guest prep and a link to a video on PGA Championship prep at Atlanta Athletic Club that I found interesting and informative. Our prep is virtually the same, except for the total re-grassing, replacement of bunker sand, re-construction and placement of bunkers and all that other stuff they did. Although as the picture below demonstrates our conversion to bentgrass on the greens is progressing. Last year we had a disease on number two that we could not get a handle on. So after repeated chemical applications failed about a week before President Obama might play I decided to replace the damaged areas with cup cutter plugs from the nursery. These plugs have expanded a bunch in less than a year. I tried to draw a circle the size of a cup cutter in the dew on this patch of bentgrass.

bentgrass plug from nursery overtaking poa on 2 green

We will try not to lose any more turf in the next week. We will tidy up some off-play areas like the woods along three and eight. Staying on top of ball marks is crucial because they take a few days to heal. Of course then there is the normal everyday occurrence of the following:

bicycle skid on seven green

Divot middle of the day on 3 green

not quite sure but guess is gasoline spill as you come off cart path on 5 T

We will juggle our mowing schedule around this week to avoid the ladies member guest on Thursday while still trying to provide a clean mowed course for the men's member guest over the weekend. We may save a few choice spot on greens for cups this week. Our greens are small and so to come up with three sets of placements in a row can be a challenge. If you played a few tucked ones or questionable weekend placements that is why. As long as nothing major pops up it will be business as usual with a  few extra hours put into fine details. Our goal is to provide consistent conditions year round. It is a constant balance to accomplish the tasks needed on a daily basis.

some of the crabgrass we have been spraying

some kind of caterpillar on putting green

My biggest focus for this week is to make sure we do not do anything to set the course back. We have our 75th the following week and many more weeks of play before the season winds down. A few days of "putting the shines" on the gem and keeping morale up through the dogs days of august.

good for morale. fourth hole early in the morning