Fusariummy

In a previous post I showed how changes to our mowing and rolling frequency cut our equipment use costs on our greens in half. This post will discuss how those changes impacted our green speed. It's great to be able to cut costs but it also has to take the course conditions into account. My philosophy has always been that you need to keep conditions the same if you are cutting costs. This is, of course, unless you are facing a substantial financial crisis where some loss of playability is justified. Either way, if you have the option, try to keep conditions the same or better if improving efficiency. I consider myself lucky as our greens have some extreme slopes so our green speed is limited by topography not ego. We even skip rolling on a few greens to keep speeds lower because they become unplayable at speeds over 11'. Our daily target is 10 with a low of 9 and a high of 11. This is based off golfer feedback. The chart below shows the average green speeds per month per year....

Unless you have been living under a rock you have probably heard about Chat GPT, a chat bot created by the company OpenAI that is leaps and bounds better than anything created so far. I decided to see how good ChatGPT was at greenkeeping. Wow. Not too bad. As a generalized summary of green speed it isn't too far off especially with the caveat at the end suggesting the guidance of a golf course superintendent. Even the Machine understands the importance of a qualified superintendent. I wish more golfers did the same! haha. I then asked it about mowing. Again, not too bad especially with the recommendation of professional turfgrass managers supervision. What about rolling? Generally, this is still probably the recommended advice although my experience of rolling over the past 12 years would suggest that we can safely roll up to twice daily without serious concern as long as you do it under the guidance of a golf course superintendent which the AI continues to remind me.  Awesome.

Lately there has been a lot of talk about sustainability in golf and reducing our reliance on chemicals.  For the most part if we can reduce or manage the stresses that are affecting our turf we can manage the turf pests that have the potential to kill the turf. How often do we need to cut our greens in the winter? One of the most common stresses that we as turf managers force upon our putting greens is intensive mowing. Many superintendents mow their greens once or twice a day in the summertime to keep the putting greens consistent and smooth.  In the summer this is often sustainable as the turf is growing and usually quite healthy.  In the shoulder seasons as well as winter we often have to reduce our mowing frequency to match the changing growth rates of the turf.  We have to take special care not to cut the turf too often or not enough. Cutting too much causes extra stress and cutting not enough will increase the chance of scalping unless the heigh...

Ok so here is another Google Docs Spreadsheet that I made that will calculate your stimp meter readings and will display them in a spreadsheet.  This isn't that wimpy iStimp app that is out there.  This is for the real "big boy" Stimp meter readings.  It is simply a way that you can input data on your phone into a spreadsheet that automatically sorts, calculates and visually shows you the consistency of your putting greens.  .  You can find the file  here . Open the file Go to File, Make a Copy and rename the file whatever you want Now if you don't already have a google sites maintenance website you need to make one.  Make a google site and embed the form from the spreadsheet into it somewhere.  If you want to know how to do this....google it;) Now you can open the website on your smartphone and enter data directly from your smartphone in the field and automatically have it entered into your spreadsheet.  Cool!  The spreadsheet only cal...

It is easy to get used to a particular way of doing things.  For years we at our course have cut the greens daily during the growing season.  This was just the way we did things.  We felt that this was the best way to provide smooth consistent playing conditions on our putting greens.  For the most part this statement was true.  Two years ago we purchased a roller for our greens.  Most of the literature I had read warned that rolling the greens too frequently lead to compaction and wear damage on the green collars.  It suggested that greens be rolled a maximum of 4 times a week.  Other articles suggested that adequate green speeds could be achieved if you cut at a higher than normal height and rolled more often.  So this is what we did........because that was just the way it was done..... We had our greens mower set at a bench height of 0.125" and we rolled 4 times a week.  Green speeds averaged 7-8' on the STIMP meter.  This sucked...