Change of Schedule - Aerification

As the club changes so to must our cultural practices. We have aerified greens the day after Labor Day for as long as I can remember. There used to be a two week gap before the busy Fall tournament schedule commenced. Well, per my suggestion, the club has moved the championship out of the summer season and so the gap is gone this year. My thoughts were that the majority of people playing in this event are here in the Fall and maybe we could get it back to a 3-day event if it was out of the high-season. What this means is we will not aerify greens in the normal fashion until October 10th. We will do the tees sometime before that. Greens may get a smaller tine aerification such as we did in August. This is much less disruptive and heals very quickly. As with everything we do this new schedule will be evaluated and we will adjust if needed. This is the first year trying the championship in the Fall so who knows how that will be received?

Greens aerification on 10/10 this Fall.

We have had a great season so far and the long range forecast is for a warm Fall so we should continue to have a great year. We all know that Fall is the best season on Martha's Vineyard and the weather is perfect for golf. It would appear that we had a much cooler and wetter year compared to 2016 so I did a bit of comparison and it is interesting to see the difference.

personal rain totals

Rainfall is not that far off from average in most months. It would appear we are in for a few dry months if we are to stay "average".

2016 weather station data

2017 weather station data. note: thru 8/28

The rainfall totals include the storm this week whereas the weather station data does not. I uploaded the weather station on 8/28 and we received 1.15" on 8/29. The interesting columns for me to look at are the mean temps, total rainfall and rain days. For what appeared to be a hot dry year it is not far off from this year which appeared to be cold and wet. Amazing what a couple of degrees can do I guess.

sunrise gazebo