Dear Members,
Front 9 greens/collars Renovation Update:
On May 21st we sprigged our greens with grass called Tifeagle, which is an Ultradwarf putting green grass that grows lower than our Tifdwarf grass previously on the front nine greens. Today is our 35th day (June 25th) of an approximate seventy five-day process in the grow in. Additionally, today is the first day of sodding the green collars and will be complete by tomorrow (June 26th). As the grass is laid, we will roll, water and fertilize the new sod, it will take the new sod approximately two weeks to root and then we will start mowing the collars down to .5-.7 inches where they will rest for the remainder of the season. Taking into consideration the amount of hard rainfall during the first two-three weeks after sprigging the greens, which caused the sprigs to washout that our staff had to repair, they are on point and growing nicely, and ahead of schedule. We have been and will continue to be in the process of fertilizing the greens every four days to provide enough nutrients for the greens to grow hard, we will stay the course and continue to lower the height of cut of the greens mower and should be at playing height by day forty five and the greens should be almost one hundred percent covered in grass. The next step is to apply growth regulation chemicals and core the greens to maintain a consistent playing surface during the first year.
By day forty-five, we will have been verticutting, lightly topdressing as well as rolling and grooming the greens. It is my hope that we will release the greens back to the membership by the end of July or beginning of August. The determining factor will be based solely on puttability.
Up to this point of the season, we have cored all the fairways and tee tops on both front and back nine which hasn’t been completed in twenty plus years. The fairways and certain tee tops are not near as hydrophobic because of the coring and tilling of certain areas up and nutrients from our mass fertilization were able to get into the rootzone much more efficiently thus allowing the grass to be less hydrophobic and uptake the chemicals where needed.
Green sixteen was re-sodded with a thousand square feet of Tifdwarf grass on June nineteenth and June twentieth to repair winter shade/winter kill due to the lack of adequate sunlight from the trees besides, behind and to the right of the green that shades it for too long of a day. It is growing nicely and should be open on the thirtieth for normal play. We still need to top-dress and get back down to an acceptable height of cut but that cannot happen until the sod roots.
July will be more of the same relative to course agronomics.
Mike
