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Mid-Summer Report: Summer of 2018 we have had nearly every weather condition possible. We started off with a very wet May and beginning of June. The week prior to the Men’s Member Guest we began entering a hot, dry, and low humidity stretch that lasted just over 4 weeks till we got a significant rainfall. Then from the middle of July to the current date of 8/8/18 we got back into a wetter pattern with heavier rain falls with plenty of heat and humidity. It looks to remain in that pattern for about the next week or so till the long range forecasts call for an eventual cooling of the temperatures which I am sure that more than the agronomy team are hoping for that break in heat to come sooner than later.

Course conditions from our stand point have overall been good. Some of the tees and some fairway areas did get a little too dry from that stretch of hot and low humidity weather. A majority of these areas are the result of irrigation issues such as heads not coming on, heads not spinning, and communication issues between our central command and our satellites in the field for the overnight watering. All these issues have been addressed but we cannot rule out more to come because of the age of the irrigation system. Then we have the other end of the playing field where some turf loss was due to mechanical issues such as cart traffic and getting into areas that were just a touch too wet where the mowers did a little more damage than good.

From a project stand point this summer we finished a beautiful landscape bed out by the tee on 6 Kodiak. We also had renovated both practice bunkers near the chipping green and are looking to finish up the small bunker on the backside of the range near the lesson tee. We had done some drainage work on the waste bunker in front of 8 Kodiak tee and plan to redo that bunker along with these waste areas sometime in the future. While on 8 Kodiak we had clear cut the fly over on the right side to help expose more of the green for the white, blue, and gold tees. We are making our best effort to keep up in managing the waste areas as a whole. We have sprayed most of them down with round up and once it started turning over we went in and deep raked it with a tractor followed by a sand pro. Again, sometime here in the future we will begin to address these areas with new drainage and sand.

We have the club championship here at the end of August on 25th and 26th. That is followed up by our Dry-Ject aerification where the company comes in and uses a machine that will create a hole and simultaneously fill it with sand. These holes tend to be gone somewhere between 5-10 days and are playable with minimal effect to putting. Looking out towards the end of fall (November) we will be core aerifying the tees, greens, and fairways. The bunker renovation project will be wrapped up this winter with just some primary bunkers left on 4,5,6,8 black bear.

Mid-Spring Update 4/25/2018

April has been abnormally cool compared to most years, with the fewest growing degree days since 2008. That being said, the golf course came through it’s March aerification very well, greens are healed up and fairways are draining a bit better. April is a busy time as we are getting out fertilizer, pre-emergent, and selective herbicides on the entire property. We are currently wrapping up the last of these applications.

The attention to fertilizing and spraying has meant that we have had to put the bunker project on hold for a bit. We still intend to clean up the waste bunker by the tee box on 8 Kodiak and then completely re-do the chipping area bunkers. That will likely be the last of the project until late fall rolls around and we can get back to operating off of a single tee again.

With the cold temperatures and frequent frosts we are seeing minimal insect and disease activity. The bentgrass is growing minimally at this point as well which is making it difficult for us to mow off some of the bronze and brown tips of the grass blade caused by sand abrasion and the way that frost and cool temperatures react with some of the chemicals that we apply. Once it begins actively growing this will all disappear. One thing that is actively growing is poa as you will notice in a lot of greens currently. We limit the growth of the poa the best we can, but until the bentgrass gets going you will see a lot of lime green splotches out there. We also recently finished verticutting and topdressing to remove some thatch, poa seedheads, and dead tips off of greens. We will attempt to verticut one more time before we Dryject on May 8,9.

All in all we are very happy with the golf course currently and hope that you are enjoying it as much as we have enjoyed preparing it

#spring update on the golf course, aerification went as smooth as possible while our team battled some wet weather. All 29 greens have been aerified, sanded, and amendments have been added. Fairways and most of the tees have been aerified as well but this past nor’easter had stopped us from finishing the last few. Bunker project update: All the bunkers on grizzly that needed to be renovated are complete. Kodiak holes 5&6 are complete as well. There were 11 bunkers in total on just those two holes alone. Currently we are on kodiak 3 with two bunkers ready for sand. We are over the halfway point and just have a few small ones on kodiak 2,7, and 9. We will refurbish the bunker next to the green and tee on kodiak 8. Then we will attempt a push on black bear. Most of you know that it has been a wet winter here. We had one large snowstorm in January that pushed our project back close to 3 weeks. It’s been raining 2-3 times a week here as well. We just had some snow on the first day of spring (pictured above) as well. We will be making repairs to rutted up areas from our bunker project and cleaning up the cart paths as we move forward into hopefully warmer weather

#icebreaker

February 19, 2018: Adding new sand to the fairway bunkers on 6 Kodiak and beginning to shell out the fairway bunkers on 5 Kodiak. These two bunker complexes account for a total of 10 bunkers and more then 2/3 of the bunkers we have to renovate on Kodiak

#2018 bunker renovation

February 14, 2018: Bunker renovations continue today on Valentine’s Day. We are currently shelling out and installing new drainage in the bunkers on 6 Kodiak.

#2018 bunker renovation

February 12, 2018: Bunker project is pushing through this terrible weather. Picture on the left is the completed 4 Grizzly complex. Grizzly bunkers are complete and we are starting on the 6 Kodiak fairway bunker complex today

#2018 bunker renovation

Working on 7 Grizzly today...we are planning on being done with Grizzly bunkers by the end of next week 2/7-2/8 time frame

#2018 bunker renovation

We are going strong on bunker renovations. Got started last week and have continued this week. So far, 1 and 9 grizzly complete, currently working on 5 and 6 grizzly.

#2018 bunker renovation

November 21, 2017- Why are you aerifying so late? Answer: I have held off on posting about aerification because i think it is a topic that has been beaten to death and there is really nothing new and exciting to post about it. However, when we hear enough of a certain question it certainly is worth speaking out about it. Yes we are aerifying our greens very late this year. Our property has unique needs and schedules and aerification within the window that suits other properties does not work for us. We need to think outside the traditional box and come up with a schedule that gives our members and guests the most access to the course with the least disruptions. That is why the Dryject process has been slated for May and late August as it is less disruptive and golf can be played right behind the machines. It does not change the fact that we still need to remove organic material from the rootzone and dilute it with straight sand which is the process of core aerification that you will still see in November and early March. This is disruptive to play which is why these two “shoulder” months to the golf season were selected. Is it the ideal time to do this? No, grass grows slower this time of year but it does still grow, making it possible to achieve very good results. I have been extremely pleased with the end result of the greens aerification in November as we could go heavier on the sand and leave it in place longer...this is what is going to firm your greens up so you should be happy as well. As for fairway aerification and the mess it leaves behind, that is also why we do it at the beginning and end of the golf season so that we are impacting the fewest golfers. It is necessary for us to complete it in order to improve fairway drainage, but it will leave behind mud and we will have some ruts for awhile. This will all be repaired and the course put back into shape as it dries out. You cant make an omelet without breaking a few eggs as the saying goes. The maintenance department has been working 10 hour days in some very crappy weather to get these vital agronomic practices completed. Please allow us the time to complete this tasks and let the healing process take its place. I think when it is all said and done, everyone involved will be happy with the outcome.

Aerification

#timelapse

What's with all this rain?

08/17/17- and more importantly how does it effect the course? Well we have received 8 inches of rain over the past 10 days. Obviously we are extremely wet and this is impacting our ability to mow the course, firm up the greens and also get them fast. We are actually hoping it does not rain anymore this week, we have not run our own irrigation in just about 3 weeks. Being too wet with the heat and humidity can lead to disease issues and just general decline of turf. We are hoping to finish all of our preventative spraying tomorrow and get the rest of the course mowed by the end of saturday. We are seeing some thinning again on 2 grizzly so we will be opening up some slits in the green on saturday to try to dry it up and get some oxygen into the soil. We will also do 5 kodiak at the same time. Once the temps drop we will be fertilizing those greens with granular fertilizer, topdressing and seeding. That should head off any issues and they should fill back in. The thinning is being caused by them being wet and having a lot of foot traffic. We will also continue to move the pins daily. Thank you for your patience while we take steps to fix these greens. We are expecting cooler drier weather after Wednesday of next week

#wetcourseupdate

There will always be issues with greens. Last year you took plugs from the practice greens and used them to repair some of the really bad areas. I believe that we need a permanent nursery green that can be used to repair significant portions of the greens rather then using plugs.

We would love to have a nursery green and it is in our long term planning, perhaps extending the irrigation from the chipping green down to the area between that green and my shop and then creating a nursery there. There was originally plans for a nursery when they built the club, but it was never completed. Thanks for your input, we are seeing some nice recovery on our three problem child greens and i think we will be in nice shape overall after this storm blows through this weekend.

The guys are making great progress opening up some airways behind 5 blackbear and you can already feel a difference

Mid-Summer Report 2017

Today's date is July 20, 2017, which means we are a little over half way through the worst of summer. We figured it would be a good time to give an update on what is going on with the golf course currently. Overall, I feel that the health and overall aesthetic of the golf course is great and is far ahead of where we have been the past two years. I think we are seeing the benefits of aerification in the fairways and tees as the property handles heavy rainfall much better than in the past. Our goal for this summer was to provide a green, lush playing field and I think we have achieved that. I do feel that after some morning walks on some fairways we are starting to trend towards the wet side and just before writing this blog I spent the past hour reducing the run times on most irrigation heads by 50%. We should see a quick benefit in firmness from this. As we have done in the past, after big events, we have taken this past week to allow greens some time to recuperate from the stresses of double cutting and rolling. We vented the greens on Monday and applied some topdressing. We also went out with some extra fertilizer to promote a little extra growth. In the short term, coupled with the fact we were only single cutting this week, this will result in slower green speeds, but the increased health of the greens will allow us to "step on the peddle" a bit over the next few weeks heading into the Delaware Open. I feel like we are at a good point with some of our weaker greens (2 Grizzly, 5 Kodiak, 5 Black Bear) compared to the past two years. 5 Black Bear got some damage from the excessive heat, but we are taking some quick action to alleviate the hot and humid conditions around the green, by cutting out the under brush and the smaller trees that are currently forming a wall. We are seeing good recovery there and I think we will be in good shape in the next 7-10 days. Over the next few weeks you can expect to see weekly light topdressing, a switch back to double cutting, and increased firmness overall. We will spend some time next week spraying rough for some of the goose and crabgrass that has emerged but our playing surfaces are pretty clean. We also will continue to work on cutting down dunes and cleaning up some waste bunkers, hopefully making the cost of an errant shot a little less painful. All in all we are pretty excited by where we stand right now at this point in the season and look forward to crossing the finish line in excellent shape this year.

#Mid-summer update

Why are the white out of bound stakes gone from Kodak one

They were brought in for a quick paint job and justin is re marking the course today. We did not want to paint in place due to overspray.

June 15, 2017: We added over 100 new bunker rakes today, including rakes in the waste areas. All of the splintered rakes should be removed, but if you find one that we missed, please let us know ASAP

#rakes

June 15, 2017 This week in golf course maintenance

This past week was extremely busy on the golf course. After spending the weekend doing a lot of handwatering in the heat, we decided to make some course wide applications of wetting agents over the course of this week. We did all tees and fairways for a total of 64 acres. The wetting agent's purpose is to make water usage on the golf course more efficient, by enhancing water penetration and absorption. The drawback to these chemicals is that they have to be watered in for a long period of time for 10-20minutes to be effective. In order to achieve this we switched the tees around over the first three days of the week. We also watered these products in for an additional 10 minutes at night so the end result this week is a fairly wet golf course, but the benefit going forward will be less water use and firmer conditions. We thought this week worked well timing wise as play was light, and we could then start drying the course out for next week's member-guest. We also verticut all 27 greens Wednesday morning, starting at 3:30am and applied a light coating of sand topdressing. We followed that up Wednesday evening with a wetting agent application on greens that requires 20 min of water to be efective. This product will eventually pull water from the surface of the greens further down in the profile to firm them up and we apply it at night so the greens have some chance to dry out before the next days play.

#wettertodaybutdriertomorrow

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