Ramblings of the week & 25 days until greens aerifying on 9/8

We finally received some rain. Murph and I continue to argue about amounts. He lives a couple of miles away and always has more in his gauge. We received 1.61" here while Murph had 3". This could happen as there are micro-climates and rain cells that differ sometimes yards apart. Either way it was a welcomed change to the dry pattern we have had. Looking through my phone pictures to gain inspiration for this post I was struck by a few of the images. One shows damage from both drive cart and walking cart on the right side of one green. You don't often see proof of walking cart damage but it is out there. The efforts to keep greens dry has been great for them but a bit tough on the surrounds especially where we do not have rough only sprinklers. The picture of the POA on the right side of three green clearly shows how it is the weaker plant as it is the only one wilting. Another picture has John and Colette Vargas on the original 4th green. Not the one we replaced 20 years ago which was basically in the same spot as the current one. I am talking about the 1936 location. The dry conditions highlighted the perimeter very well. I doctored the picture to help also. The next time you play walk over there and you can see the elevation changes and get a feel for where the green was. My guess is that it was too close to 5 so they moved it. As I have stated before the greens have a red clay in them which is the only place I have seen this on the property except the clubhouse lawn where I suspect they stockpiled it. This was done to aid in water retention which explains why the area stays green while everything around it is browning out.

Very dry. Traffic too close to green

Dry Poa. everything else looks great

 

Original 4th green

This morning while raking bunkers I ran into a root. Not uncommon for us since we have so many large trees right on top of our greens and bunkers. These can be dangerous to golfers since you are not expecting to hit anything but sand while playing out of a bunker. We monitor for these but do not have x-ray vision so please be careful when playing out of bunkers near trees. The solution is simple but controversial and just one more reason we need to remove the emotion when it comes to tree management on a golf course.

broken wrist waiting to happen

The final set of pictures and video will be of the course itself. Some of the perks of getting up early are catching some amazing sunrises and seeing the course in differing light. Sometimes I capture them and sometimes I cannot do the original viewing justice.

Vanishing cart

4th hole

resembles a water color with this lighting. 3 green