Changes

Every year brings changes and improvements to Chautauqua Golf Club. Some, like the newly paved entrance road or new tee signs and amenities, are immediately obvious and some go largely unnoticed. Things like mowing patterns, newly painted rain shelters, trimmed trees, or new stone on cart paths make the course more enjoyable to play and golfers notice that the course is nicer, but can't quite put their finger on why.

Two such changes this season will be new carpet and paint in the pro shop and new pin flags at the greens.

The carpet is being replaced for the first time in over a dozen years and should give a new and fresher look to Troy's pro shop. Troy will decide on the carpet and paint to be used and will be done by the end of February.

The pin flags have been updated to include the 100th anniversary logo and a new subtle argyle background. I like them and think they'll be a nice change.



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Baby, It's Cold Outside!!!!

The weather is a little different than it was at the time of my last post. The NJCAA Div III National Championship had just concluded and we were about to head into summer. Now it's 9*F with a windchill of -9*F (much warmer than a day ago) and the snow is cold and crunchy. Some are already south, some are staying, and some are just now heading south.


I head down to the GCSAA conference in Orlando this weekend for a week of education, trade show, and networking. If asked which of those three aspects I found most beneficial, I would have a hard time choosing between the education and the networking. Probably because I consider them to be strongly linked with of all the ideas that get passed along from these conversations, whether it's in a class, on the trade show floor, or over a beer at night.

While I'm gone, Bill and Dan will continue with our annual winter equipment maintenance to ensure our day to day operations and maintenance practices run flawlessly throughout the summer. This isn't always easy as some of our equipment is getting a little long in the tooth. As a 36 hole facility we have a fair amount of equipment and keeping up with replacements is a little tough when times are tight. They work hard at it and deserve a thank you when you see them in the summer.

Too date they have completed all 160 carts, maintenance vehicles, rough mowers and fairway mowers.





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A Little Crew Recognition

Thanks, Jim Riggs and the Post Journal for recognizing the efforts of my crew in last week's NJCAA tournament.

No one sees first hand what my staff does more than Jim. He's here at first light every day.

http://www.post-journal.com/page/content.detail/id/623717/



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Course Update 6/14/13

As you might imagine, the course is extremely saturated this morning.  Pinehurst Golf Club just down the road in Westfield claims to have had 9" in the last 12 days. While we've fallen quite short of that mark, we have had just shy of 4" in the last week, equalling our average June rainfall at only the mid way point of the month.

With this in mind, we have decided to only mow greens this morning. They are also getting a roll and cup changing. The course looks great considering the high amounts of rain and play we have experienced in the last week and sending the larger mowers out on the course would only bring up mud and leave ruts. The trade off is going to be slightly higher fairways and rough for a couple days until it dries out, but we'll be better off for it in the long run.

The only other routine maintenance being done today is course setup (moving tee markers, etc) and bunker work repairing washouts and pumping them dry.

We are allowing carts today, but I implore you to use sound judgement and stick to paths where possible. Maybe even opt for a pull cart over a power cart to save wear and tear on your golf course and keep it nicer for next week.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend!

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Just Ducky

Today marks yet another day of trying to be productive without making the course a complete mess. With all the rain we've received in the last week, mowing and projects have taken a back seat to those tasks that can be done without further damaging the course. We've survived two 100+ person shotgun tournaments since Saturday morning with little more than some superficial mud tracks, but the rain in the last two days has taken us past the point where we can mow without doing more harm than good.

Mowing is out for a day or two and projects have come to a complete halt. Trying to work with soil, leveling tees and making gardens around new tee signs, is a mess and hurts us more long term than leaving them until they dry out. That's never what anyone wants to hear but it's the cold hard fact of the matter. On the bright side, turf growth has slowed considerably in the last few days and it won't be out of control if we skip a mowing or two and , with any luck, it will dry up enough that we can get out there soon.

So, today we are working on repairing cart path washouts, edging bunkers, trimming trees along cart paths, repairing irrigation leaks, weedeating,and other odd jobs.

In the meantime, if you ask me how I'm doing, I'm "Just Ducky"




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Upcoming Schedule

With the NJCAA Division III National Championship starting next week on the Lake Course, our normal maintenance schedule gets a little out of whack on both courses as we prepare for the tournament. 

Most notably will be our cup changing schedule and locations on the Lake Course.  Our normal rotation is Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, but with the cups being changed every day during the tournament I like to eliminate a day or two from our rotation.  This week's cup changing days will be Thursday and Sunday, having already skipped Tuesday this week.  The schedule after the tournament will also change to let the recent cups heal from the week.

You will also notice some pin placements in some unusual locations, some good and some not so good.  This is done because our greens are too small to support cups being changed 10 times in 13 days and it keeps healing old cups out of the way of the kids trying to win their national championship.  I realize this is an inconvenience to our membership and our guests and appreciate your understanding and patience if you feel you have played on the same pin locations too many days.

Mowing and rolling also ramp up over the next week to keep everything tight for the tournament.  This really doesn't affect normal play except for the fact that we will occasionally steal a mower from the Hill Course route to assist on the Lake Course. Early morning golfers will certainly catch up to and pass our mowers at this point and will have to play on dewy grass for a little while.

Again, thank you for your patience and understanding over the next few weeks.

Post Aerification Greens Recovery

If you've been out playing recently I'm sure you've noticed the difference between the Lake Course and the Hill Course greens.  The Lake Course greens are taking much longer to recover than those on the Hill Course.  The difference?  Grass species.  The Hill course, being the much newer of the two, has a much higher population of bentgrass as opposed to the Lake Course greens which have a very high population of poa annua.  Bentgrass is a stoloniferous grass that spreads laterally quite well while poa annua is a bunch type and spreads quicker through their prolific seeding than spreading. 

Another factor that comes into play here is the size of the aerification tines used this spring. In an effort to improve the growing medium of our greens as quickly as possible, I used larger coring tines.  This hasn't been much of a problem on the bentgrass greens, but is certainly a factor on the poa annua greens.  To avoid this problem going forward, I will be changing back to smaller tines this fall, but using a multi-tine setup to increase the overall number of holes and still be able to make progress in converting our root zone material.  I have used this setup in the past and the greens heal rapidly with the 7/16" tines, regardless of the turf type.  The reason I went away from the smaller multi-tine setup was our difficulty getting the sand down in the holes.  I don't believe this will be a problem with our new topdressing brush and look forward to quicker recovery times.

Today we have put another shot of fertilizer on the Lake Course greens and with tomorrow's verticutting and topdressing they will be back to normal in no time.