Summer 2014 Update

As most of you may have noticed, we have had a tremendous amount of rain this summer. Since July 1 we have had over 19" of rain to date. This has caused some set backs in our overall goals for the summer and has caused some adverse conditions throughout the golf course.

The bunkers have taken the brunt of the rain causing major washouts over the last seven weeks. We have discovered that the washouts are happening due to the integrity of the sand which in turn has caused the silts to build in the sand. By having excessive silts in the sand the drains have been compromised and have lost their functionality to remove water from the bunkers. Once your silt levels build the fines of the silt build up in the drain rock and slits in the drain pipe causing a super slow draining of the bunker.We have also determined that the original function of the bunkers does not allow for proper diversion of water around the bunkers. By diverting the water away from the bunkers it would ultimately prevent the excessive rush of water into the bunkers.

The fairways have also had a set of its own issues with water retention. Over the last 2 weeks we shot grades to determine if our drain lines are adequate enough to remove water from the surface of the fairway. We determined that if we are to get a drier surface we simply need to add more drainage to the existing catch basins that already exist. During construction of the golf course it is often difficult to determine if you have installed enough drainage at that particular time. We feel we can make a significant improvement in our surface drainage next summer by adding some more drains throughout our common wet fairways. By doing so it will make for more fairways accessible by cart during our rainy periods. Some areas might take longer to dry down than others after this project due to the water table, but we feel confident that it will shorten the intervals of CPO.

Greens have also been a challenge this summer due to the excessive cloud cover and rainfall. just in the last few weeks we have gone from excessive rain to extreme heat and dry weather. This plays a big part in the health of the green. Excessive rain causes the roots to shrink up closer to the surface. The reason the plant does this is for survival purposes. If the plant is getting water everyday it does not have to put out new roots to go search for water since it is being supplied right at the surface. Once you turn the spigot off, in our case rain, the plant is confused and starts scrambling to find water. Since the roots have shrunk the plant goes into panic mode searching for water. If the plant does not receive the adequate water it needs it will go into a protection mode and show signs of wilt to protect the healthy stands of grass. Once this happens the soil usually becomes hydrophobic. When a plant becomes hydrophobic it repels water instead of absorbing water. When this happens we have to break the surface tension on the soil to allow it to accept water again. This process usually takes 3-4 days of aggressive hand watering before we start to see a change in the volumetric water content. Volumetric Water Content (VMC) is the amount of moisture in the soil which is measured by a determined number based on the plants water requirements. At this point we feel we have the situation under control and are providing the troubled greens with the proper care they need for a full recovery.

Some positives thus far this summer include new flags throughout the golf course, bunker, and chipping greens. We also have completed a spray of the driving range which eradicated 90% of the goose grass and smut grass weeds. We are currently working on a plan to try and eliminate the signal grass that has called the range its home. Among all of the weather we have managed to apply a growth regulator to the fairways and an organic fertilizer to the tee surfaces as well. We also plan on fertilizing the fairways within the next week to build the nutrients back up after the rain flush.