July 2014: On the course

After a lot of rain in early July, the last couple weeks have been beautiful.  We are especially grateful for the moderate temperatures this year since the harsh winter left us with weaker turf than usual.  The National Weather Service is predicting a similarly mild August with average rainfall which should equate to great conditions for golf.

Below is the putting green on June 27th.  I am often asked about the ornamental grasses you can see in the background along the first tee.  They are Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'.

Early mornings have been beautiful lately:

5 Green

4th Hole

Karl changing cups on the 4th green

Below is the 9th hole and clubhouse.  On the left you can see some of the Ash trees that were killed by the Emerald Ash Borer over the last year.  For more on this destructive insect see here.

 

 

The renovated bunkers are performing very well.  Improved drainage, new sand, and a sod "face" have greatly improved this sand trap on the first green.  A small amount of rain used to wash this trap out and make it unplayable. Now it is playable hours after a strong thunderstorm.

 

 

 

Even the infamous 7th fairway has been cooperating this year after starting out more than 50% dead.  So far, we have not experienced the deadly combination of excessive rainfall, high heat, and solar radiation that damaged this floodplain fairway in 2010 and 2011.

7th Fairway enjoying 2014

And finally . . . Safety first!  Two junior greenkeepers try on bump caps before inspecting the course:

 

 

 

 

 



Spring 2014 Turf Recovery in Pictures

The winter of 2013-2014 was tough on turf.   The cold temperatures and snowfall lead to a lot of dead Poa. Many golf courses were left with large areas of dead turf that had to be seeded, sodded, or otherwise coaxed back into playable shape.  At Sugar Creek, the rough, greens, and most tees survived the winter fine but the fairways are another story.  In areas of shady floodplain, solid layers of ice sometimes a foot thick formed and eventually suffocated the Poa annua that calls these areas home.  After a lot of aerifying (3 times), slit-seeding, levelling, watering, and sodding, the fairways were almost 100% filled in by the end of May.  I'll be the first to admit that Mother Nature did most of the work -- we can't do anything without the right temperatures, moisture levels, and sunlight to grow plants -- but we significantly sped up the process and made some progress against Poa.

Here are some pictures from the last 3 months that dramatically illustrate the recovery:

7 Fairway - April 12, 2014

Here you can see some of the creeping bentgrass we have been able to get growing after the floods in 2010 and 2013 (and the heat wave in 2012).  Everything green in the fairway is bentgrass. Everything brown is Poa annua. 

7 Fairway - April 12, 2014

7 Fairway after slit-seeding  - April 25, 2014

Below you can see the fairway filling in with new seedlings.  We wish they were all bentgrass seedlings, but many are coming from the dormant Poa annua seedbank in the soil.  At this point, you take what you can get!

7 Fairway filling in - May 30, 2014

 

And below is now.  You can tell we had moderate temps and a lot of rain recently!

7 Fairway - June 27, 2014

7 Fairway from the reverse angle:

The first fairway suffered similar damage but not as extensive.  As an experiment, we slit-seeded T-1 creeping bentgrass when it was still very cold at the end of March and had seed coming up in April.  It filled in quickly after that.

Slit-seeding germination - April 25, 2014

 

These photos were taken of the 1st fairway toward the tee:

 



A Sampling of Winter Projects

During the winter, golf course equipment needs to be maintained and serviced for the year.  We have finished our long list of preventative maintenance tasks and have moved on to the projects that can add new life to old machines or extend the life of a newer machine.

Rusty mowing decks get scraped and repainted. This adds many years to the life of these decks.  If allowed to rust, the structural integrity of the deck is compromised.

 

This year we tried a product called "Rust Reformer" as a primer after wire brushing off the loose material. It claims to "convert" rust to a paintable surface. Not sure what what that means, but it sounds good. Time will be the judge.  As auto body workers have told me, inspired by Neil Young of course: rust never sleeps.

 

We also tiled the bathroom and put up waterproof panelling this winter:

 

Here is a bench waiting to go out on the 4th hole Red Tee.  It was donated by the Carey family who lived across the street from the golf course for many years:

 

Our 1996 sprayer now sports new plumbing and a "Cleanload" eductor on the side. This is the black container on the side. It will be used primarily for disolving granular fertilizer and mixing it into the tank.  Many people aren't aware of this, but we actually use our sprayer most often for fertilization.

 

These are just a few projects that the Superintendent and Equipment Tech completed over the past few months. We are ready to turn our attention more to the outdoors! Spring is coming soon.

Dry Weather, Great Golf

Northern Illinois has been very dry for the entire first half of the year.  Here at Sugar Creek Golf Course, we have had only a 1/2 inch of rain in June so far.  Combined with days of very low humidity and high wind, the soil is as dry as we've ever seen it.  It has kept us busy in the maintenance department trying to relieve the stress on the turf through hand-watering and targeted irrigation.  For us this is good news after the last 3 years of excessive rainfall.

In the following shot you can see some dormant rough on the high side of the hill:

Dry rough!  It's beautiful!  Why do I say that?  I have not seen this area dry out since 2007, but I also haven't seen the fairways as firm and consistently playable either.  Areas of rough that are out of play and at the margins of the irrigation system should be dormant in a drought.  It is only natural and indicates that playing conditions are probably outstanding where it counts.

The course is weathering the drought thanks to some great root growth this spring.  We are glad this drought didn't come after the cool, wet, rootless springs of 2010 and 2011.  We could certainly use some rain soon, but the course is holding up well to the dry conditions.

The 7th fairway in the shot above is healthier than it has been in a long time after the many projects and aerifications we have given it in the past two years.

The new sand trap in front of #8 is functioning well so far.  Thankfully it has yet to be tested by too many thunderstorms.  It did handle a rain event over an inch in May with zero puddles. 

The 6th fairway is also looking good and enjoying the dry weather:

It looks like this dry period is going to get a little worse before it gets better, but we are looking at the bright side of things.  Too dry is much better than too wet!

Great May Golf Days

After a streak of rainy days early this month, the course has dried out and is in great shape for the weekend. Take out that 30% chance of showers tomorrow and next week's forecast looks great. Second to October, I think May is often the best and most comfortable month to play golf. Sunny and highs in the 70's! My favorite.  A favorite of turfgrass, also.  Coincidence?  Probably not!

 

 

 

 

Are we sure this is March?

A string of record high days in the 80's has really kick-started the growing season. It's amazing what  2 weeks can do.  We have had hundreds of golfers out enjoying the course.  What a great start to the 2012 season!

9 Green with blooming Magnolias

 Here is March 16, 2010.  Not bad but nothing like this!

March 16, 2010

 Back to 2012, the first picture is from early March:

March 7, 2012

13 days later, and . . . 

March 20, 2012

March 20, 2012

Aerifying Day 2011

It's that time of year again!  The greens at Sugar Creek were aerified on September 21 with a deep tine machine that loosens up the ground up to 8 inches deep.  Aerifying is essential to the long term health of a green.  Here are a few pictures of the process.

We started spreading sand before the deep tine machine this year.  This helped it dry out before brushing.  Here is the deep tine machine on the first green:

Topdressing the greens:

In this photo, you can see the brush in action on the 5th green and the tractor aerifying the 7th green:

After brushing as much sand as possible into the holes, we used some custom built brush reels on the old greens mower.  These reels have a bedknife set to a little under our usual height of cut.  Brushes then come around to pick up extra sand and debris and collect it in the baskets.  These brush reels help to create a puttable surface:

After the first day, the greens look something like this area:

We try hard not to over-sand them even if all the holes aren't full to the top. It is easy to add more sand later but very difficult to get rid of too much.  After testing many spots, the holes almost never interfer with putting after we roll the greens out.  At least in my opinion, excessive sand is more difficult to putt on and can delay recovery. 

At the end of the process, we used a pull behind roller to smooth out any bumps.  One of the difficulties of dealing with recently aerified greens is dew in the morning.  The next two mornings were too dewy to mow or roll the greens without making them clumpy and unputtable.  Instead, we will be brushing and mowing them in the afternoon after they have dried out. 

They are putting smoothly and especially in the dry afternoon are almost too fast.  Some golfers even told me they loved putting them the afternoon after they were done.  Others said they liked the challenge of the different speed.  I hear a rumor that some golfers are not big fans of aerification, but I haven't run into them yet . . .  Well, maybe one or two!

Bug Spray Harms Turf

I have received a few questions about the mysterious patches of light tan turf that appeared over the weekend.  This is one turf problem that has a simple explanation:  Whenever the weather is muggy and buggy, we experience an outbreak of "bug spray disease."  Most golfers do not know that their insect repellent will harm turf, especially when directed at legs and ankles.  The overspray usually leaves a pattern of a green footprint or footprints surrounded by straw-colored injured turf. 

The solution to this problem is to spray legs and ankles on a cart path or other non-turf surface where the overspray will not contact grass.  Depending on conditions and the amount of spray on the grass, these spots usually recover in 1-4 weeks.  In extreme cases, though, they can result in the death of the patch of turf. 

Bug spray injury on a tee with a footprint in the center

Bug spray injury on a green collar

Can you see the footprint?

 Hopefully these pictures will help us all remember to use bug spray on the cart path.  I know it has slipped my mind in the middle of a mosquito attack.  Next time you golf on a buggy day, please help us educate others about the cause of the mysterious green footprint disease.

A Beautiful Sunday Morning

The weather is finally cooperating in our area and many golfers have been coming out to enjoy it.  Here are some pictures from this morning - a typical Sunday morning during the season at Sugar Creek.  You can click on the pictures to enlarge:

Mowing the first green

Jim prepares the greens

View of the clubhouse from the 2nd hole

4th Hole early in the morning

Spring Green-up

Spring is coming slowly but surely!  We have had a cooler March than last year, but April is here.  In 2010, we had some unusually warm days early on.  April 1 and 2, 2010, were over 80 degrees!  We haven't had any really warm days yet, but temps are climbing gradually and turf is starting to respond.

Here is a pair of photos that illustrate how different each year can be:

March 31st 2011 - Starting to warm up

April 2nd 2010 - 80 degrees and green already

April in 2010 was unusually warm early on, so we're not complaining.  We're just looking forward to those 70 degree and sunny days that are on their way.

2010: The Year in Pictures

2010 Fall Scramble

It is a beautiful day for the Fall Scramble at Sugar Creek!

These golfers try their luck on the third hole's risk vs. reward bonus. They may gain a 1/2 stroke advantage over the competition for shooting at the difficult far pin placement (Blue Flag).  Which one will it be, guys?

If you look close, there are 2 flags on the 3rd green! (Just for today).

It may be October 30th, but Mr. Hoffman is not ready to give up his shorts for winter gear: