Fall Activities

Late fall is usually a good time for getting work done and playing golf but the wetter than normal and cooler than normal weather has put a little damper on that.  Since mid-October is seems as though if it isn’t raining it is windy. The weather usually averages out so perhaps the recent cool spell will be replaced with a few nice days to get the last rounds in.

We have a few things going on besides leaf cleanup on the course.

 

BLOWOUT – On October 30/31 we “blew out” the irrigation system. We rent a 750 CFM air compressor and set it up by the pumphouse. We then use the compressed air to “blow out” any water that could freeze in winter causing pipes to burst. We work in all directions away from the compressor to push the water to the ends of the course.

Although it rained both days it made the job quicker because we did not have to look out for golfers when turning on heads. Due to the size of our pipe system we blow out the system 3 times with time for water to settle to the low areas between each shift. This ensures a complete job and no problems next spring.

HOLE 2 DRAINAGE – You may have seen the dump truck and backhoe working over on the left side of hole 2. When we have medium and heavy rains the water that comes down swale on the left of hole 2 backs up onto hole 9 because our underground piping cannot handle all the water at once. We are extending the swale all the way to the pond so the drainage system will handle the water from the golf course and the new swale will handle the water coming from Trowbridge Drive and the Industrial Park.

The spoils or dirt from the new swale is being used to build a mound on the right side of hole two for a visual effect for holes 2 and 9. The mound is in the natural area and considered. The new portion of the swale will be out of play for most golfers and runs right along the out of bounds. It will not be marked as a water hazard but it may have casual water in it at times.

NATURAL GRASS AREAS – We hope to burn most of our natural areas this fall or next spring to reduce organic matter and mat that builds up from the leaf tissue. We have mowed the areas that are too close to buildings or the neighbors to burn but the others we will leave with hopes a low humidity weather window for burning will happen before spring growth.

Burning in fall usually provides a hotter more complete burn while spring burning is cooler because the ground is cool and wet.  With the industrial park and roads around the course we need the wind to be in different directions for burning different areas so it takes a few days to complete the job.

NEW TEES – Through the US Kids Golf Program Rolling Meadows is going to create a “PGA Family Course” with two additional sets of tees per hole. For a few years we had our “yellow tees” in the fairways. Those will be replaced with a blue and gold set to yardages recommended to allow juniors and beginners to use the same variety of clubs longer hitters use.

At this time most of the tees will be placed on the edge of fairways and marked with PGA Family Tee markers. The tees will not be limited to juniors or beginners as we expect some of our seniors to use them and hope other players will use them in the spirit of “Tee It Forward” to play a shorter course.

 

The graphic shows that if the average white tee player uses a driver/7iron to reach the green the Family Course Tee player will do the same.

We will mow greens, tees and fairways one more time to clean them up so we can spray winter fungicides on them. Greens will then be top-dressed with a heavy layer of sand to ensure a smooth surface for next year and to reduce thatch levels.

I hope to see you out on the links a few more times before the snow flies for good.

Didn't You Dig That Hole Last Year?

Thank you for noticing but last year we dug over there, two years ago and three years ago we dug here...... Irrigation leaks happen to all golf courses just like water main breaks happen to all communities no matter how large or small or how new the system may be.

Our golf course like most has several miles of piping underground leading from our pumpstation located behind the 11th green to the 500+ sprinkler heads. All of our underground piping is PVC and varies from 6" near the pumphouse to 2" around the greens and tees.

Our pumpstation has two 75 horsepower pumps for general pumping and a 5 horsepower pump for maintaining the pressure or running one or two heads. We keep the pressure in the pipes at 80psi when we are not watering to reduce stress on our pipes but the pressure slowly increases based on flow rates to 110psi when pumping over 200 gallons per minute up to the 1400 gallons per minute capacity of the station. We have seen our number of leaks decrease by over 50% by keeping the pressure lower when not watering.

Leaks can happen due to improper glue fittings, defective parts, stress from the ground moving due to freeze / thaw or dry / wet periods and water hammer. We blow out all the pipes with compressed air each fall so breaks from the pipes freezing are very rare.

This particular repair on hole 17 was made for the fourth time which is rare. We average 4 leaks a year and in my 16 years we repaired 2 of them twice and now this one 4 times.

This section of pipe is a 6" mainline with a 4" tee leading up hole 17. The first time we had a glue fitting leaking and found the entire area encased in concrete. We chiseled out the area to be repaired and being it was the middle of summer took the easy route and repaired only that section. The repair was difficult because the pipes did not line up close at all so we had to pry quite a bit to get it all together.

That lasted a couple weeks when the stress was too strong and the new glue fitting failed.We made the decision due to the pipes not lining up to dig up both sides of the pipe, rent a jackhammer and air compressor to break out the concrete and replace the entire area. We made what we thought was a good repair and it lasted a year when our new 6" tee cracked either through the ground moving, a defect or the pipes moving due to water hammer even though we had properly installed thrust blocks.

We made our repairs and this time used more gasket fittings rather than glue to allow the pipes a little flex and we thrust blocked them again to ensure we would not have problems. Well that lasted two years when the tee split again during the recent dry spell leading us to think the pipes are moving as the clay dries and re-wets.

Our irrigation consultant Tom Emmerich suggested we use a ductile iron tee and fittings to take the stress better than the PVC fittings. So $1,100 and a lot of digging later the repair was made and we are up and running again. I hope this is the last time we see this stretch of pipe.

Working in slop is never fun!

The PVC fittings have been replaced with a ductile iron tee and 

couplers to give it more strength. After this picture we added thrust blocks and

filled in the hole.

Summer Maintenance

It is hard to believe it is middle August and our hard working student employees are heading back to college. It seems as though they have just started. I had good intentions to keep this blog updated but one thing led to another and work on the golf course comes before updates!

After a wet and cold spring and early summer the weather the past 6 weeks has been darn near perfect for golf. Ample rain and cool nights have been kind gifts from Mother Nature. I wanted to highlight some of the maintenance activities we do to keep the putting greens consistent from week to week through the growing season. 'Growing" is a key word because unlike carpet the grass is always growing or changing and we need to manipulate it to preform as we want it to.

Even at 1/8" height of cut on greens new shoots are growing and old shoots are dying as well as stolons, rhizomes and roots. All this activity combined causes thatch to accumulate in the turf canopy. A little thatch is okay but on putting greens less is best in order to provide smooth firm surfaces that are receptive to a well hit golf ball.

Core aerifying may be the best way to reduce thatch levels but that is disruptive to putting so it is only done once or twice per year. The second best way is to verticut or thatch the greens by cutting the grass vertically by using blades that go 1/8" into the turf canopy. Verticutting is time consuming and messy but leaves the greens putting smooth.

This greensmower has special carbide tipped verticut blades to thatch the greens

 leaving quite a mess of debris.

After one mowing most of the debris is removed but some remains.

After blowing off the debris and mowing in two more directions the lines are visible

but the green is ready for play or topdressing with sand.

A light layer of sand also smooths the surface of the green while

diluting the thatch in the turf canopy.

After a topdressing with a sand that meets USGA specifications the green is

rolled and ready for play.

 Our other main activity on putting greens is to increase air exchange by opening up the turf canopy without reducing putting quality. The easier it is for air to move in and out of the greens the healthier they will be and the more they will survive the heat of summer.

 

This spiker attachment on our sand rake can make thin 1" long by 1.5" deep holes for air and water to move through. Although the holes are not deep we can spike all 28 greens in 4 hours.

Our Toro Procore 648 is fitted with 60 needle tines to leave a 1/8" wide x 3.5" deep hole. These holes provide for great air exchange but the process takes 11 hours for all 28 greens.

After mowing and a light topdressing with sand the holes are visible but

do not reduce putting quality.

All these processes along with proper watering, fertilization, fungicide treatments and help from mother nature provide consistent greens through the golf season.

Spring at last!

The weeks have been flying by and it seems the weather is finally cooperating for some great golf. I am a bit behind on my posts and it seems 6 weeks of work to prepare for late May golf was crunched into 3 weeks.

Thankfully college is out and most of our seasonal employees arrive this week to gleefully start mowing and maintaining the course. They are a valuable part of our team and allow you to enjoy great conditions day in and day out.

What happened to the trees????? This is the number one question I have heard this year as golfers returned to see some large trees had been removed over the winter. All of the trees large or small were losing branches during every wind storm and had become a danger to golfers. They were 40 year old silver maple or green ash trees that one were planted too close to the greens and two were at the end of their useful life. In addition the trees on 4 and 16 caused morning shade reducing putting green quality and the trees on hole 4, 16 and 27 had roots that went under the green and further reduced putting green quality.

• On hole 4 four silver maple and one ash were removed. New trees are not needed due to the tree line a little behind the green.
• One hole 16 three large silver maples were removed. Replacements will be planted to the center and right of the green only a bit further away.
• One hole 27 two silver maple were removed and will be replaced but further from the green.

You may have noticed we have resodded some of the collars around the greens where the grass was thin and reseeded fairways and collars for the same reason. 

New sod being laid on the collar on hole 5.

 

 

The sod came from Heath Farms near Coloma and is pure low mow bluegrass. It looks terrific and deep green. It should play well as soon as it is mowed a few times. The areas that were not sodded were aerified and then seed was was spread and spiked in. This process does not provide a instant green but will help those areas recover quicker. Most of the thin areas have some green in them but were damaged from water sitting in winter and were weak entering fall from last summers drought.

 

PROJECT UPDATES -

The 10 tee and chipping green seedlings are coming up albeit slow after the long winter and cold spring. The surrounds of the chipping green were all seeded but the green itself still needs a little more mix to be added before it is seeded sometime in the next two weeks. A few golfers have asked if we are putting top soil on the sand/peat moss material the green is made of now. No, the sand/peatmoss mix is the proper material to build a green that is healthy yet drains well for quality putting conditions.

 

The new red silver tee on hole 17 should also be seeded in the next two weeks. It has been graded a couple times and is ready for the irrigation and cart path to be installed. Then one final grading will have it ready for seed.

 

I hope to see you on the links and if you have any questions about the golf course do not hesitate to ask away! It is why I am here.

Where is spring

After the spring of 2012 golfers and employees alike were spoiled by the early warm spring. When March was cold I said "It is okay as long as April is nice." Well now we are into April and things are not improving. That 60 degree weather is always 8 days out on the 10 day forecast but it never gets here.

We were able to open the driving range on Sat April 6 and my Sunday the 7th the back 9 holes were firm and snow free despite the snow and wet conditions on the front and middle 9's.

On the 7th I was able to blow off the greens and changed cups to prepare for a Monday the 8th opening. We were open for about 5 minutes when we received a half of inch of rain, followed by 1.8" of rain from Tuesday through Wednesday AM. Wed brought with it a a blanket of ice on the trees and turf along with flooded ponds and ditches.

We hope to allow play by the weekend but it depends how fast the water goes away. Looking at the forecast we should be firming up and greening up early next week. THINK SPRING! no scratch that... THINK NICE SPRING WEATHER!

The ice brought down part of a Willow on hole 4.

The pond on hole one is covering the fairway.

The trees are glimmering with ice.

 

This shot from Augusta National is a reminder that good weather is around the corner for us!

Ice removal from greens

I am a couple weeks behind with posting this but as I suggested in my last post grass under ice is not a ideal situation. We removed snow from the greens in early March to facilitate ice melt but then more snow fell and temperatures remained cold.

On March 25th the forecast suggested sunshine and upper 30 temperatures so we decided it was time to clear the greens. We started with the snow blower but when it took 8 hours just to clear the 15th green due to the deep snow I tried the dump truck and plow. It did a great job clearing the greens, but getting to the green took some skilled driving and luck as the drifts were deep.

Our goal was to remove snow on Monday/Tuesday and allow the ice to melt quickly before cold temperatures returned.

Plow on 3 green. With the ice no damage was done to the grass.

15 Green freshly blown off. The snow was too deep to plow.

 

Green dye applied to the green on Wednesday March 27.

The dark color absorbs sunlight and speeds melting.

 

With the deep snow we used a sled, a hand sprayer and jugs of water

 to apply dye to the greens.

 

Thursday March 28 the green is almost bare. The temps were only in the 30's

but the sunshine did the trick.

After plowing vole runs could be seen in the ice on the greens. I have never seen this before on greens. After the ice melt there was no visible damage.

By Saturday March 30 only holes 12 and 16 had any ice remaining and we chopped that up by hand to speed melting.

 

The greens may have been fine no matter what we did but after the long winter removing the snow and ice was the best decision.



Ice, Is it A Problem?

It is hard to believe a year ago we had the range open and the grass was green and we were 4 days from opening the golf course. Last March was the warmest March on record and actually on average was warmer than April. Unless we have a sudden heat wave that will not happen as the golf course is still covered in 1-3 feet of snow with deeper drifts. Yes that is feet!

Even this year it is hard to believe the golf course was clear of snow in early January with temperatures in the 50's. This was followed by rain and snow and rain and snow and snow and rain and more snow. I could go on but I think you get the picture.

The best winter for the grass you play golf on is mild like last year or cold and stays cold. Frozen, dormant and under snow is the best way for greens, tees and fairways to go through winter with no damage.

We do have some dreaded ice on the surface throughout the course but especially on greens and fairways. In the low pockets it formed during the January rains but most of the water drained away from that storm. The 1-1.5" layer of ice formed in mid February when rain on top of snow was followed by cold temperatures.

Ice can be a problem as we found out a few years ago when we had substantial damage from ice. But ice is not always a problem but just a natural part of winter. When ice kills grass it is usually in two main ways.

Suffocation - A solid clear ice over turf can kill poa annua in as few as 45 days through suffocation and bentgrass in 60 to 120 days depending on the level of dormancy. The greener the grass the quicker it dies under ice. Brown grass is good grass in winter!

Crown Hydration - Any damage we have in Fond du Lac is usually caused by crown hydration where the plant is green and full of moisture due to winter rains or melting snow followed by a sudden cold snap before the plant can get rid of the water in its cells. This actually causes the cells in the plant to burst and kills the plant.

This can also occur when the turf is covered by ice and the ice actually magnifies the suns rays causing a greenhouse effect. The grass starts to come out of dormancy and takes up water. At night the water under the ice freezes and the grass is weakened. If this happens day ofter day the grass will die. It is referred to as freeze thaw damage.

This year we have a layer of white ice across most of the golf course. So far it is nothing to worry about but a quick meltdown will help us get through spring without damage.

To speed up the process we started removing the snow off the greens last week so the ice would melt faster and this weekends rains would run off the putting surface without being held up by the snow. This late in the winter we would prefer the grass was exposed rather than covered in snow.

The greens I cleared this week had an average of 12" of snow but any swails where we need the water to run had 24 - 36" of snow that would have stopped water from running away and cause ponding and solid ice puddles as we go through the freeze thaw cycles.

Finding key drains allows water from melting snow or rain to reach the drains.

This one on hole 11 was under 2' of soft snow and 2' of hard packed snow that

would have stopped drainage.

Toro 3280 with Erskine Snowblower.

The heat doesn't work but it gets the job done.

 

The snow on the middle of 5 green is almost to the top of the blower.

 

 

Removing snow this deep is a slow process and often it takes a hour to get from one green to the next due to the ice under the snow. This week we cleared our problem greens 5, 7, 10, 16, 19, 21 and 24 where we no the snow would stop water from running off. The forecast yesterday was saying 1 to 1.5" of rain for tonight so time will tell what the golf course will look like tomorrow. That much rain should melt a lot of snow if we can keep temperatures above 40.

Think spring and we hope to see you on the links soon!

Winter Education

One of the highlights of being a golf course manager in the north is the offseason allows for more than equipment and building maintenance and that necessary evil called paperwork. It is a great time to tune up our minds and learn new ideas and hear about current research.

Every 5 years we need to brush up our knowledge on pesticide applications, products, safety and regulations as we study for our Pesticide Applicators Certificate. That can be a bit boring after the 2nd time but is a necessary item. On top of that we are lucky in Wisconsin to have strong organizations that offer outside education each year.

Starting the offseason is the Wisconsin Golf Turf Symposium a two day session entering its 47th year. The symposium is unique because it takes one topic and breaks it down for two days. This years topic was "Whats In Your Tank? and it covered the variety of items that can be applied to a golf courses to promote plant health. Herbicides, growth regulators, fertilizers, fungicides, insecticides, amino acids, wetting agents to name a few. New research focuses on using less products and how proper applications of select products with proper timing can reduce overall pesticide or fertilizer use with better results.

New technology in herbicides has developed products that can not only take crabgrass out of turf it can take bentgrass out of bluegrass or bluegrass out of bentgrass. The new buzz is a product called Poa Cure from Korea that so far has shown to take the dreaded poa annua out of bentgrass greens, tees and fairways successfully. Trials are still ongoing but this product shows promise to do so without damage to the bentgrass or reducing overall turf quality. It is expected to cost $2,500 per acre annually but may be worth it considering it will reduce other plant protectant inputs and water use while providing better playing conditions.

In January the Wisconsin Turfgrass Association hosted a Research Day when 11 researches at the University of Wisconsin Madison presented their latest research. It is valuable to see results locally rather than nationally because the soils and climate are similar to ours. The groundbreaking presentations were by professors and graduate students at the university.

In February the granddaddy of all trade show / educational conferences is hosted by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and the National Golf Course Owners Association. The show moves around but is always in the south to reduce weather concerns. This years show in San Diego was smaller but still large with 13,192 attendees and 517 vendors occupying 172,900 sq.ft. of trade show space. The trade show is a great opportunity to see vendors of every golf product imaginable from cash register systems to shovels and clubhouse design firms to  equipment manufactures. The real benefit of the show is the education and this year offered 89 free seminars taught by educators and researches and 105 seminars for an extra fee.

Some of the sessions I sat in on included:

• The Benefits of Rolling Greens - Research is showing that rolling properly made sand profile putting greens doesn't just increase green speed and smoothness. Regular rolling is shown to reduce diseases and moss while increasing soil moisture holding capacity and good bacteria levels. Recommendations were to roll daily while mowing less than every day to balance plant health and green speed.
• Women in Golf - The speakers taught different ways to not only attract women golfers but keep them as long time customers. Women control the time and finances in many households and have a major impact on the economy. It also focused on all beginning golf programs and the barriers to enjoying the game as a newcomer.
• How to protect and promote our online brand - New "apps" are available to consolidate social media platforms while tracking what others say about the facility. Discussion also included how to increase website search capability.
• New technology to monitor turf conditions especially during stressful weather - Soil probes, portable weather stations and infrared thermometers are common on golf courses to promote plant health and to determine when to syringe or lightly apply water during summer stress periods like we had last summer. A light pass of water can reduce surface temperatures of greens or fairways from 100+ to 80 and allow the plant to survive the day.
• Advocacy In Action - This session discussed the challenges golf and the ag industry are having with the EPA and the work in progress to fight back and in some cases ask for help from congress to reduce those challenges from all powerful agencies.

Dr. Chris Williamson Entomologist at UW Madison discusses

Insect Research

The Wisconsin Golf Course Superintendents Associations host their meeting in early March with the State Chapter in Fond du Lac with a half of a day of education and the association business in the afternoon while the Northern Chapter in Wausau with a full day of education on various topics. This year the state chapter focused on leasing vs buying capital equipment and the use of water or how to use less water. The northern chapter focused on how to prevent and recover from winter damage along with new plant health research.

And finally this year one of our vendors Reinders Brothers in Menomomonee Falls has a trade show / education day in Mid March at the Waukesha County Expo. Reinders is our vendor for Toro, Foley, True Turf, Progressive and many other lines of turf equipment. They also have Toro irrigation and carry fertilizer and turf protectant products. One of the highlights each year is the sessions taught by Dr. Joe Vargas from Michigan State. He presents some of the latest research on pythium, summer patch and other turf diseases.

Overall the mystery topic of "plant health" is discussed over and over. 25 years ago when greens were mowed at 1/4" and fairways at 1" the plant had less stress on it. Currently greens are mowed daily at under 1/8" there is a greater chance for serious diseases and environmental stresses reducing quality. Fairways are mowed around 1/2" and increased use of golf carts and the traffic stress they bring has added disease and environmental stresses they face. The lower the height and higher the traffic causes plant health problems and puts a premium on proper irrigation, soil profile and plant protectant use.

Just like for your own health there are plenty of snake oil salesman in turfgrass proclaiming their latest product will provide a panacea. By following university research we are able to separate fact from fiction and only spend funds on products that are needed and work.

Chipping Green Work, Even In Winter

Happy New Year! So far we have had variety of weather this winter with a blizzard that left me sleeping on the couch in the clubhouse rather than risk the ride home and a 15 below temperature on Jan 1 followed by a warm up and almost 50 degrees on Jan 12th. Now the forecast is for very cold next week but in the Badger State you never know what is going to happen next.

I would have preferred the snow stayed around but the next best thing was most of it melting and the water running away through the drainage system to reduce the chance of ice cover. I walked the course Saturday and cleaned leaves off the drains and everything looked good.

Despite winter work continues on the new chipping green. If you read my last post you know we seeded the surrounds and installed the drain lines and a layer of pea gravel at the base of the green. Our next step was to install 7 truckloads of a 70% sand and 30% peat moss mix that meets USGA specifications for greens construction. This would take the green site from a hole in the ground that confused onlookers to a nice looking green site.

The heavy December snows left us with unfrozen ground and no way to get trucks to the green without damage. To fix that problem January 4th we blew the snow off in a path to the green from the parking lot to allow the ground to freeze so the heavy dump trucks could get to the green site. After four cold nights we had three loads of mix delivered one hour apart so we could gently move the mix across the site without disturbing the 3" gravel layer at the bottom.

The first load of sand being spread across the snow covered green base.

The snow was not removed in the green base because it would have

disturbed the 3" gravel layer.

 

Three loads of mix spread as a base to protect the gravel from silt washout

from the surrounds if we had a heavy rain storm. It also will provide a

base for the trucks to drive on to deliver the remaining mix.

 

 

As luck would have it the warm spell caused the snow to melt followed by a hard freeze so we could put in four more loads to fill the green site on January 16.

 

 

The new chipping green filled with mix as viewed from the putting green.

 

The new chipping green from the mounds.



 

The mix is in and rough graded but the frozen chunks prohibited us from doing a final grade. By having the mix in now mother nature will help pack and settle it through freeze thaw processes and spring rains. In spring the green will be final graded and seeded and with any luck be open for practice sessions in late July.



 

Our final job will be to finish the sand bunker with a final grade, drainage and sand installation.

 

Enjoy your winter and remember the golf shop is open on Wednesday and Saturday from 8-2 for your golf conversation needs.