Power Outage

We lost power this afternoon and power company says it will be out for 24 hrs. Not good with this heat. Lake Course #6, 7, and 8 greens are taking quite a beating with this heat and lack of roots from the wet spring.

Because of this, we will skip the morning mowing and roll greens instead. This will help ease the stress level for a very long day tomorrow. Normal mowing practices will resume Saturday morning, assuming we have power back.

HOT, HOT, HOT

It has been a few years since we've had a summer this dry, and the next few days are going to be hot as well. Fortunately not as hot as the Midwest has seen recently (upwards of 110* in some areas), but hot by our standards.

I read on a turfgrass disease blog recently that cool season grass roots pretty much quit growing around 77*F at 4" deep in the soil. Our temp on #13 Lake Course green yesterday was 82*F at 4" deep at 4:00pm. It is going to be a tough stretch for the rest of the summer.

What does the heat this mean for golfers? Not much other than tolerating some daytime irrigation to keep the grass alive until we get some cooler weather. Also, please be patient with some of my boys who are out trying to repair irrigation leaks and wiring issues. They are instructed to be courteous and get out of the way when golfers approach, but please give them a heads up when you are approaching so they know you are there.

Drink lots of water!

Home Lawn Care

As we head into the heat of the summer, be careful of when and how you mow your lawn. Try to keep the height of cut around 3" and, if possible, mow after a rain rather than in the middle of the day during a hot, dry spell. If things are getting shaggy and you can't wait for a rain, then mowing later in the evening is your best choice as it is cooling down and has all night to recover before the next day's heat.

Happy 4th!

This has been one our better 4th of July weekends for weather in a long time. Hope everyone has had a chance to play.

Enjoy your day!

Welcomed Rain

I can't believe I am saying this, but the rain we've had the last couple days has been a welcome sight and very timely.  We were finally able to get out and get some fertilizer on tees and fairways for the first time this season and, although I've been irrigating, nothing gets it going quite like a good rainfall.

I'm also hoping the showers give the rough a bit of a kick so it can start covering up the brown seed stalks from the poa annua seeding earlier this month. It can really detract from the overall appearance of the course.

There is a fair amount of concern in the region that turfgrass managers may see a fair amount of turf loss if we hit an extended hot dry spell this summer.  As explained in the previous post, I like to firm the course up and let the turf roots chase the water down through the soil profile and it was just this past week that I was able to do this for the season.  The fear is that it may have been too little, too late as the roots were already too shallow this late into the season.  This can be counteracted with more frequent irrigation and hand watering, but this also leads to more compacted soils, potential anaerobic conditions, and a dramatic increase in fungal activity, which leads to an increase in pesticide use.  But for now we'll just have to wait and see what the summer brings.

A Little Firm

Every year as we get our first dry spell I like to let the course dry out to let the turf roots chase the water down through the soil profile in an effort to make the course a little more stress resistant during the summer.

Most seasons this is done in May before we get too much play and bothers too many golfers, but due to this season's wet spring, we haven't had a chance to do it until just now. It is an inconvenience and overly firm at the moment, but will be appreciated later on when our turf is toughing it out during the hot, dry weather of July and August.

We will be back to normal before you know it.

Stewart Cink on Twitter yesterday:

USOpen set up at Congressional is very tough. Even the Port-a-johns are on the edges of the slopes.