Hello and welcome to The Greenkeeper! Today is Monday, September 6th and I apologize for the delay since my last update Click Here thirty-seven days ago. Hopefully by now most of you have seen and read the Ross Report. It was a pleasure to submit material for the club's new e-newsletter, and I did not want to spoil the surprise with a post here. I will be sharing some of that information below, along with weather related statistics about last month, and wrap up with a quick reminder of what takes place beginning tomorrow morning! So let's go!
This is certainly an exciting time for the golf course as summer winds to a close and we enter our busy fall
season! The cart path
improvement project saw numerous areas adversely impacted by tree roots
demoed and repaved eliminating the bone jarring bumps and creating a
smooth ride.
The work was carried out over several Maintenance Mondays
with the folks from John E. Jenkins, Inc. out of Gastonia. They have been grading and paving since 1948
and were a pleasure to work with. They
were thorough and careful removing all the offending roots prior to resurfacing
and they even carried out some additional skim patching at no extra charge on
areas they identified in need.
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| Demo Adjacent to 18 Tee |
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| New Surface 18 Tee |
After completion we ordered new sod to patch the
edges where needed from the repair work. It is most cost effective to order a full
truck load, so we patched up other areas throughout the course
as well. By now you've probably noticed additional
stakes to keep all traffic off the new turf until it has
sufficiently rooted.
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| Thin Areas from High Traffic |
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| Celebration Bermudagrass |
I elected to sod these areas with Celebration bermudagrass, as it has a higher shade tolerance than 419. Nearly ever area targeted aside from the path edges were areas impacted by high traffic in conjunction with the stress of shade. We can adjust our mowing patterns to help with the traffic in the future, and hopefully you will adjust your cart usage patterns to assist us in our efforts to provide you superior conditions. In fact, if folks would simply refrain from parking behind the 4th and 6th greens we could keep the main artery of golf car and utility vehicle traffic flowing without the need to go around by driving on the turf.
Well, if you thought last month was unusually warm that would be putting it mildly. The oppressive dew points and subsequent humidity made the final stretch of August one to remember. When the dust settled August ranked as the 13th warmest all-time in Charlotte and warmest since 2016. I know the greens were experiencing weather induced stress and this change in the pattern we've all enjoyed the past few days brought an amazing bounce back!
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| Courtesy of Brad Panovich, WCNC |
I even texted with my former major professor from VA Tech last Thursday morning telling him the resilience of bentgrass still amazes me after all these years. The plant's natural response when the stressor is removed is a beautiful thing indeed.
So if you did read the Ross Report, then you know starting tomorrow we have an exciting project taking place on Holes 1 and 2. Our friends Golf Course Services, Inc. will be renovating the 8 bunkers located on those two holes using the capillary bunker system https://capillarybunkers.com/. The process includes removing the old bunker sand and stockpiling on site (we will use for future topdressing). Removing the existing drainage pipe and gravel. Stripping the turf from the bunker faces and surrounds. Setting a new 6-inch bunker edge. Reinstalling drainage pipe with new gravel. Installing the Capillary bunker liner. Installing new sod on the bunker faces and surrounds. And finally installing new G-Angle bunker sand.
We expect the project to take approximately 2-3 weeks and our intent is to minimize your disruption as much as possible. When necessary we will either move tees forward into the fairway, use a temporary hole located in the approach, or close access to the hole in order to ensure workers can complete this work in a safe and timely fashion. We will communicate daily with the Golf Professional Staff so you will know what to expect each day of the project.
But that's not the big news starting tomorrow. The big news is greens aerification takes place as we will be performing a hollow-core aerification and topdressing Tuesday and Wednesday. This will be the first September aerification to our bentgrass greens since 2017. That's right, we moved aerification to early summer in 2018 for the U.S. Mid-Am and attempted similar practices in 2019 and 2020. Last fall with the record play the greens just did not possess the same vigor and vitality entering the winter, so the decision was made to reinstitute a traditional fall aerification once more.
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| Big News Big Tines |
Contrary to popular belief, I do not lie awake at night dreaming up ways to torture you and your golfing soul. Despite the ominous appearance above I assure the greens will heal relatively quickly and be ready for whatever Mother Nature brings our way between now and next spring. Be sure and check back for a recap of aerification and the bunker project in a few weeks.
See you on the course,
Matthew Wharton, CGCS, MG
