News

Good Morning,

 

This past week we completed our first mowing of the 2024 golf season. The tees and fairways were mowed on Monday and Tuesday. Lots of dormant grass was removed with a dense green grass present underneath. The soil still had plenty of surface moisture creating a lot of soil buildup on the rollers and inside the reels. The fairways and tees looked great upon the completion of mowing.

 

The bentgrass greens will not be mowed until colder night time temperatures are no longer a concern. I don't want to remove the dormant grass tissue which is providing a source of insulation to the turf plant. Bentgrass is not nearly as stress tolerant as bluegrass especially at a mowing height of 1/8 of an inch. Mowing the greens will leave the plant unprotected to the elements and I don't want to take a chance of any stress or damage to our greens. They are still rolling pretty nice with minimal maintenance being done so far this year.

I'm extremely happy with the condition of the golf course, especially considering the time of the season. I have never seen it in better condition for the middle of March. We will move forward with open golf on the nice days and the course will be closed on the colder days. Please remember the weather can change on a daily basis. Technically, it's not even golf season yet and there is no need to cause damage to the course before the actual playing season begins.

Our maintenance practices have consisted of mowing fairways, changing cups several times, raking and repairing sand traps multiple times, completing daily set up each morning, and placing the OB stakes along the property lines of the course. No amenity items have been placed on the golf course yet. Tee markers, water coolers, ball washers, etc will be placed on the course once temperatures are no longer a concern at night. Also, by not placing tee markers it eliminates high traffic in a small space on each tee. Golfers are teeing off from all different areas and it's barely noticeable that so much golf has been played.

 

The golf course received a little more than .25" of rainfall on Wednesday night. We closed the golf course on Thursday to make sure all of the precipitation soaked into the ground and there was no damage from golf carts on the course following the storm. The golf course started turning a darker shade of green almost immediately the following morning. Our moisture levels are more than adequate at this time. It was a relief to not start up the irrigation system at this time of year.