Fusariummy

I seem to have caught a few of the members off guard this year with my late fall greens aeration.  This is something that I have done for the past 3 years on our putting greens.  It usually goes unnoticed as the weather is usually terrible in November.  This year I did it on November 14. I punch the greens in the late fall and sometimes in the late winter with 3" long 3/8" diameter solid tines.  These tines don't take a core out like we do every spring and fall. There are two reasons I aerate this time of year.  The first is to increase drainage on the greens to help keep them as dry as possible.  We often see large volumes of rain and puddling is a concern as well as ice if it gets cold out.  Last night the course received about 1" of rain and there wasn't a single puddle on any of our putting greens!  Ideally we would aerate deeper but our current equipment only allows us to punch holes 3" deep. The second reason I aerate in the late fall is to ...

Don't worry, that yellow rope is just there to hold the channel iron in place while it was bolted to the pole!! This week George and his usual group of volunteers set out to reinforce the poles on the left side of the range.   These poles were some of the originals installed and were quite rotten right at ground level.  The rest of these poles were still in good shape. George devised a plan to reinforce the poles to extend the life of them for a few more years.  He has all the materials and labor donated for the project except for the concrete so the cost to the club was almost nothing. Thanks to George, Robbie, Gerry, Wayne, Terry, and Kirk for their help on this project!

Over the years I have seen a few different methods that golf clubs use to keep track of their equipment usage.  The first and most basic of these is writing it down on a piece of paper after each use.  The more advanced of these systems automatically check the hour meter reading each time the machine enters the shop area and automatically enters this info into your equipment management software.  While both of these systems do work they both have drawbacks. The first pen and paper system is very labor-intensive.  It requires that after each use the operator must fill out the sheet.  Later on the Mechanic or designated individual needs to interpret this data to make sense of it.  This works good but takes a lot of time. The automatic system is great but the cost of acquiring such a system is astronomical.  This system also requires that each machine has a hour meter that can communicate wirelessly with your computer.  Another drawback is that ...

The turf in the foreground is Poa annua grown from hollow tine aeration cores from our putting greens. So earlier this year I made a post regarding an observation I made on our sod farm.  I noticed that the newly planted turf was growing at a much slower rate than the surrounding turf.  The grass was planted using cores from the hollow tine aeration of our putting greens. The predominate species of grass on our putting greens is Poa annua .   Poa annua is a species of turf that is very adaptable.  It is capable of withstanding heights of cut as low or lower than 2mm!  Some scientists have also observed that at low heights of cut the turf actually doesn't even grow upwards!  It had been cut so low for so long that it had adapted to not growing!   Poa annua has the ability to adapt to almost any environment.  This is one reason why it is such a widespread turf species found on every continent other than the Antarctic. The above picture was taken...

Sand Trap on 8 this past March It has been a while now since we have completed the sand trap renovation on hole 8 but I only just now have the time to write about it. Last winter we again saw a huge volume of groundwater coming out from beneath the wall behind 8 green.  The groundwater around 8 green has been crazy the past few years.  Incredibly high volumes of water have been popping up here and there as fast as we can install drainage pipe. Anyways the water that was coming out from the wall was flowing out onto the green and into the large sand trap on the right of the green.  We have since installed a catch basin behind the green to prevent any surface run-off from flowing onto the green.  Either way the way the trap was designed cause all the sand to wash down to the front and into the rough.  The quality of the sand was also at a point where we were looking at a total sand replacement in this trap. First day working with the backhoe This trap has als...