Fall Projects

There is a still a lot of golf to be played this year and for the Grounds Department, there are still a lot of projects we want to have completed before the covers are placed on the greens. This year aeration is scheduled for the week of Labor Day. On Tuesday the 7th the course will be closed. We will begin the aeration process on Tuesday the 7th and it will continue throughout the week.

Aeration Schedule
Sept 7th-Deep tine aerate greens, roll, topdress and fertilize.
Begin solid tine aeration of Fairways
We will also be core aerating high poa populated areas on fairways and over-seeding these areas with creeping bentgrass
Sept 8th-Deep tine aerate approaches, roll and topdress
Sept 9th-Solid tine aerate tees, roll and topdress

If the weather cooperates and we have no major equipment issues we should be able to complete the entire aeration process by the end of the week.

6 Tee Stone and Timbers

The old timber edging, timber steps and Pillsbury stone along the 6th tee walk path will all be removed and replaced starting the week of September 20th. West Lake Landscape from Hopkins is the contractor who will be working on this project. This project is quite in depth and will take at least 4 weeks to complete. But once complete this will be the last of the timbers that need to be replaced on the course. Nine years ago we set out to have complete consistency with our landscape throughout the course. This is the last area on the course to have the timbers phased out and the lannen stone phased in.

Drainage

As we work toward increasing our creeping bentgrass population on the fairways we are working hard toward increasing surface drainage wherever we have areas where water stands following heavy rains or extended periods of rain. This past spring we added drainage to fairways 5, 9 and 13 as well as the approach on 16. The next area we will be working is the 18th fairway. First there is an old steel irrigation pipe that's very shallow and needs to be removed before any drainage can be installed. We have good bentgrass in this area of the fairway, but its difficult to maintain firm conditions during periods of extended wet weather, so adding drainage to this area will greatly improve the quality of this fairway area.

Bunker Repair and Maintenance
Due to the excessive temperatures we experienced this summer we have some areas on bunker edges and bunker faces that will require some additional attention. The second week in August we recorded greens surface temperatures reaching 130 degrees, soil temperatures close to 90 degrees. Plants don't function well in those conditions. Those were greens surface temperatures, I have no idea what the temperature was in the bunkers. Turf growing on bunker edges suffered, in some areas more than others and repair will be required.

We have struggled with the quality of the turf on the bunker faces on the left fairway bunker on 16 as well as the first fairway bunker on the right of 16. These are south facing bunkers and additional irrigation is needed. We will be pulling pop-up irrigation heads onto the shoulders. This will allow us to supplement these faces with additional irrigation as needed.

1 Tee Sod Job

The back right corner of the first tee receives a great deal of foot traffic throughout the season. No matter what the maintenance practices are it's difficult to maintain quality turf. On a given round there are typically four players and anywhere from 2-4 caddies that congregate in this area. Last week Rick Krause sodded this area. We will keep it roped off for a number of weeks until the sod has completely knitted and healed.

Following Labor Day we will begin working on these projects and do our best to have them all completed this fall and I'm sure there will be a lot more we can add to the list.

Dutch Elm Disease

Next Monday we will be removing the large American elm tree behind the 13th green. About 3 years ago this tree showed signs for Dutch elm disease. Since that time we have tried yearly fungicide treatments to protect the tree and in hopes that it would overcome this deadly disease. Unfortunately the tree has lost the battle and will need to be removed. Tim's Tree Service will be removing the tree Monday morning.

Going Organic?

Organic Golf Course Article

A very good article in the New York Times regarding the Vineyard Golf Club on Martha's Vineyard and their 100% organic approach to managing a golf course. I have often thought that managing a golf course organically could quite possibly be a due able concept. There would need to be some creativity on the Superintendents part and it would require some help from those in the organic farming industry to aid with the process, especially when it comes to insect control. In the process communication to golfers and dealing with loss of turf, especially in the early years would need to be tolerated. After a season like we endured this year with extremely high disease pressure, it would be interesting to see how that could be handled. I think its extremely important for us as Superintendents to think about the concept and go through the thought process as to what could be done to reduce our dependence on fungicides and insecticides. Changing our approach to how we manage with less fertilizer and less pesticides is not an easy proposition and yes at times it takes some GUTS. But change is never easy and going against what has been the norm for the past 30 years and traveling the road less traveled, some times you end up walking alone on the path.

This past 6 weeks, based on environmental conditions, has been one of the most difficult I can remember in my 20 years in the business. The heat, humidity and moisture produced by Mother Nature forced some extremely difficult disease pressure on us. The past 3 summers have been a cake walk compared to this summer. Summer patch, brown patch, dollar spot and pythium, diseases that at times were simultaneously active. I don't recall EVER seeing that in the past. Throughout the tough stretch of weather, yes we applied fungicides to protect our fine turf sward, but we have still reduced our overall dependence on fungicide as well as fertilizers in the past 3 years. In the past we were on a strict preventative fungicide regiment on greens, tees and fairways. Now we continue to treat greens regularly but tees and fairways are only treated on an as needed basis.

By treating only when required it forces us to be more diligent watching the extended weather forecast as well as our scouting for disease incidence on the course and then deciding if we need to make an application or will the weather change and the disease pressure changes and an application would not have been required. Sometimes the weather pattern dictates we spray, whether or not we have seen any fungal activity or not. The last 2 weeks were a good example of that. We knew night time temperatures were going to be in the 70's and daytime temps in the 90's with dewpoints in the 70's for an extended period of time. We treated greens, tees and fairways, knowing full well that pressure for brown patch was ideal. We also were required to spot treat fairways for pythium, multiple times.

Now with cooler nights and limited hot days we will monitor as the conditions dictate and will apply fungicides as we feel are required. But as the temperatures continue to decline and the humidity and dewpoints stay low we might very well be able to not make another fungicide application to tees and fairways until we begin to make our snow mold protection applications in the middle of October. Now wouldn't that be nice.

Wall Street Journal Article

This Wall Street Journal Article does a great job explaining the stressful summer it has been throughout the country and what golf courses have been dealing with. Thankfully we have not endured these types of conditions in our area(or at least not to this degree), but the past two weeks have been the worst weather conditions in the Minneapolis area regarding heat and continual humidity we have experienced in a long long time. Disease pressure has been off the charts. We have experienced brown patch, pythium blight, dollar spot and summer patch all at the same time. Other courses in the area are also dealing with these issues as well as anthracnose, another potentially destructive disease.

The weather forecasters are predicting the weather to break after this week. Lets hope their forecast holds up or the weather breaks sooner.

How Turf Dies in the Summer

Click here to see how turf dies in the summer

Every want to know how turf dies in the summer? Here is an excellent 6 minute video explaining how.