Fall activities at Rolling Meadows

Happy Thanksgiving! As of today 18 holes are still open for play but the end is near as we enter the last week of November. It has been a year of ups and downs in the weather with an early opening followed by a cold wet spring, a wet and mild summer followed by a cold September, a warm October and what has to be the coldest November ever. Oddly October was very warm with beautiful but it rained 7 out of the 8 weekend days. What will December and the winter bring for the Badger State? I guess we will just have to wait and find out.

Thank you for your business and support this year and I hope you enjoyed the course. One of the highlights included planting 69 trees throughout the course to replace some of the ash that have been removed. Thank you for all those who donated specific trees or money towards the trees.

Our fall work including mowing much more than average due to the warm October weather, our other time was concentrated on putting the golf course to sleep and getting ready for winter. Some of our fall activities included:

Leaves – Leave cleanup is a major part of fall operations. This year many of the maple trees leaves have hung on much longer than normal extending the leaf removal season. I have heard different explanations as to why the leaves were on so long but all of them tied to the weather and ample moisture we had all year. The past 3 years we have averaged 340 labor hours blowing and mulching leaves to keep the course playable for the fall season.

Leaves are generally blown from the greens tees and fairways and mulched into the rough. 

Patio – A year ago we removed the wooden deck on the south side of the clubhouse because the boards needed replacement and provide a better staging area for the cart fleet. This year we took the second step with the project and installed a patio on the South East side of the clubhouse near the putting green for your enjoyment. There is seating for 44 and the walk to the bar area is more convenient than the old deck.

14 Bunker – Sometimes it is better to cut your losses and move on as is the case with hole 14 greenside bunker. We rebuilt the bunker 12 years ago and it performed better for a few years but it is just in the wrong place. The entire green drains into the bunker washing out the sand and mixing it with the clay subsoil each time it rains. The mixed sand/clay creates a hard pan on the lower bunker and the sand that is pushed up after every storm is soft and provided fried egg lies on the slope of the bunker.

The current bunker is 2,960 ft² . After the work most of the bunker will be removed with a small portion of the bunker (approx. 350 ft²) remaining as a visual aid to the hole more than a hazard to catch balls. Our other goal to improve the hole is to keep the reeds on the edge of the pond mechanically cut down do improve the view of the green from the fairway.

With the reeds cut and the bunker removed the hole has a new look.
This change should be well received by customers who would carry the pond
and then have their ball plug in the bunker face. 

The large bunker will be replaced with grass swails and a small bunker.

14 Silver Tee – Along with the bunker project we are installing the long talked about silver tee behind the current silver/red tee on hole 14. The base material has been hauled in and shaped and will be allowed to settle over the winter. The tee was needed to reduce problems during match play when a male receives a stroke while playing a female from the same tee surface.

A golf course is rated with two handicaps, male and female. Hole 14 is odd in that 3 “mens” tees have a forced carry over the marsh and 1 (the silver) does not.

The additional tee will not fully equal the playing field in match play but it will help. We did look at adding a tee over the marsh but the location of the bridge and the worry errant shots from hole 13 could hit a forward silver tee the new location behind the red tee is the best option.

Irrigation – The irrigation system is tuned up, the heads are all trimmed around and the water is blown out of the pipes hooking up a large air compressor to the system. This two day process helps ensure pipes do not shatter from water freezing in them.  

Blowing water out of the lines on hole 20.

As we move into the last week of November we hope to:

• Remove some more dying ash trees on the practice hole, hole 16, 17 and 20.  
• Mow rough one more time to shorten it for winter. Normally we are done mowing by this time of year but this year the rough just kept growing with the warm temperatures in October. 
• Put a layer of sand topdressing on the greens to protect them from winter winds and provide the benefits of a normal topdressing of smoothing the surface and diluting thatch. Here is a story from the United States Golf Association regarding the benefits of fall topdressing. 

  

  8 Green covered with sand topdressing.

Thank you again for your business and support. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments and we look forward to seeing you in the spring. 

She is in charge....

It has been a few weeks since I teased our audience by saying the next post will cover green speed. "Green Speed" is a sexy topic for golfers as they hear about fast greens on tour and most players think they like fast greens. I had the post written in my head weeks ago but have been tossing around the title for weeks. I thought "speed kills", "the need for speed" or even "how low can you go" in reference to shorter mowing heights but settled on "She Is In Charge.....".

Who is she you may ask? Is it Wendy from our staff who often rolls or mows our greens? No, it is that often cursed fickle woman Mother Nature who gives you good golf conditions one day and just as quickly she can take them away. Although the weather has a major impact on ball roll and putting conditions but we humans also have our say. So why are the greens faster one day then the next or one year to the next? I will try to explain this complicated topic and how it effects your game at Rolling Meadows.

The stimpmeter designed by golfer Edward Stimpson in 1935, is a machined tool
to release a ball at a consistent height or release point. 3 balls are released and then from the
point those balls stop 3 balls are released the opposite direction to achieve a average greenspeed.
The stimpmeter allows a measurement of green speed from green to green. 

Mowing height is a key component to green speed but certainly not the only factor. We mow greens at .120 or just under a 1/8" during the main season with heights of .140 or 9/64 in the shoulder season. The height of cut determines how much grass your ball is rolling on, the less grass, the less friction, the faster the putt; in theory anyway because there are many more factors to it.

• It takes consistent mowing for the height to be reached on a green due to the fact the grass is always growing and the rollers that set the height ride on the very grass we are trying to mow. For instance if we were to take a greens mower onto a tee mowed at 1/2" it would take multiple mowing to reach 1/8" even though that is the bench setting of the mower. It is why greens are mowed multiple times on tournament courses or you may see us mowing greens a second time in the afternoon during grass growth surges. 
• 1/8" on our Jacobsen Greenskings is not exactly the same as 1/8" on a Jacobsen walking mower or Toro and John Deere mowers. That is why it is difficult to simply compare mowing heights from course to course because the type of mower and how it is setup varies. 
• The greens at the recent U.S. Open were mowed 2 to 4 times per day at .09" to reach the consistent green conditions for the worlds best players. The speeds were listed at 13 to 13.5 on the stimpmeter. 
• Then why doesn't everyone mow at .09 if that is good enough for US Open conditions? Some courses do but the lower the height of cut the less room for error and more time is spent monitoring and caring for the greens. More time correlates to increased labor costs and higher green fees. At .120" we can provide good greens with a consistent ball roll through most of the season. We know a couple of our customers would enjoy a green speed of 12' but many of our customers would struggle on our contoured greens. Our greens average a speed of 9' to 10' but can be faster on dry windy days and slower during growth spurts. Yesterday they were 10'4" under dry conditions and after being topdressed Monday. On the fast side for us but still enjoyable. 
• Height of cut is only one of many factors in green speed. 

When Homer Fieldhouse designed our greens in 1970 6'6" was
considered a medium green speed for daily play. The faster our
greens putt the higher the challenge which will lead to more putts
and slower rounds. 

Surface smoothness is the other key component to green speed. Smoother greens allow the ball to roll without interruption or bouncing that would reduce speed of a putt. A bumpy green at a stimpmeter reading of 10 will seem slower than a smooth green at 10 mainly because the ball will not "roll out" around the cup. Smoothness is achieved by:

• Rolling which we have done nearly every day for 2 years as multiple university studies have shown the best putting quality is reached when greens are rolled daily and mowed daily. Second best was rolled daily and mowed every other day which is what we try to follow.  
• Verticutting or thatching the greens removes thatch and organic matter while and increases smoothness. We verticut 3 to 4 times a year. 
• Brushing stands the grass up to provide a closer cut and less stragglers.
• Topdressing with sand dilutes thatch, fills surface imperfections from shoes and ball marks while providing a surface that tends to drain quickly. 
• Thin grass blades provide for less friction and a smoother surface for increased green speed. Blade thickness of individual pieces of grass is somewhat determined by grass variety, moisture levels and nutrient levels.
• Controlled plant growth has a major impact on green speed especially afternoon green speeds when the plant has grown all day. This year we are making a concentrated effort to apply less fertilizer to the greens and keep them a bit "leaner" while still leaving them growing enough to heal from ball marks, traffic and environmental stresses such as heat, cold and drought. Grass is not a carpet to be mowed once in a while and forgotten about. It is a complicated living and constantly changing life form that putts perfectly one day and is bumpy the next. Growth is controlled by many factors but some of the main ones are:
• Fertilization is key to growth and we spray our greens every 14 days on average with very light amounts of nitrogen and other nutrients as shown by our tissue and soil tests and iron mainly for color. We can do everything right with mowing height, topdressing, rolling, fertilization and water applications but if mother nature gives us rain and humidity the grass is going to grow faster and the greens are going to be slower and require more mowings to provide the same quality we had before it rained. Although our nitrogen inputs can be controlled during warm wet weather a natural process called nitrification releases nitrogen from the soil and the plants grow faster. It is why your lawn lawn looks greener after a rain even if you didn't fertilize it. In the summer of 2016 nitrification from perfect growing weather slowed green speeds around the state despite turf managers best efforts. 
• Moisture is key to green speed because it effects surface smoothness as wet greens are subject to foot-printing, faster growth, fatter leaf blades and ball marks. Dry greens are usually firmer than wet greens and dry greens often putt faster than wet greens. The dryer and firmer the greens become the more skill it takes to get a shot to hold, especially from the rough or a club with less loft. Golfers without the skill to hold a shot often need to consider a bump and run approach to reaching the greens. As a general rule grass and especially putting greens are healthier and play better when they are on the dry side. 
• Growth regulators have been shown to reduce vertical plant growth while still providing a healthy plant. The use of regulators started in earnest in the late 80's with some new products that could reduce growth while providing a healthier plant and other products that controlled growth and left plants on the verge of collapse. We have been very happy with the growth regulator use on our fairways but have found on the greens controlling fertilizer and moisture have been more effective ways to control growth. In 2016 we along with many other courses had little luck with controlling growth on greens because mother nature decided the grass was going to grow and there was nothing we could do about it. 

I have heard more comments this year about green speed than any year in my career and I will admit the greens have been faster this spring than most. We have not lowered our mowing height, we are actually mowing less and rolling the same amount as last year. We did purchase a new style of greens roller the Smithco XL70 and it does do a great job. The XL70 is very visible compared to our vibratory rollers that looked and operated like greensmowers. From a distance most customers thought we were mowing. I believe the biggest reason the greens have been faster so far this year is because we had a cold spring that controlled growth and we are applying less nitrogen.

I may not have fully explained green speed but if you take anything away from this topic I hope it is that greens are a living organism and we take great effort to control their quality but mother nature is in charge and we just go along for the ride.  

We hope you enjoy the golf course and mother nature gives you great playing weather. 

Why is that ........?

It is past time for a spring update and I will write while answering common questions I have been asked this spring. Spring.... is this spring? Our memories of weather are short as we remember the best and worst of the weather patterns and forget the many average days in the middle. Having said that I believe this has been one of the worst springs for cold and wet we have seen in many years despite seeing on the Milwaukee news we just finished the 3rd warmest April on record.
It may have been warm in Milwaukee but it was far from warm in Fond du Lac and we had plenty of moisture to keep golfers off the links. The good news is sunshine and golf are in the forecast for the next several days so we hope to see you playing. Now on to the common questions:

Why is that pond so high? Why is that pond so low? With 12 ponds that answer depends on which pond you are looking at. The 4 ponds across the lower part of the course (Holes 1,9,10,18 and 27) are kept low so we can accept water from the industrial park without flooding. The ground is saturated so every drop of water is run-off coming our way. The golf course ponds take the water and slowly disperse it down stream so the house do not flood across the street.
The pond on 5 was very high due to a collapsed drain line and then we pumped it low to allow us to work on it without drowning. The line was original (1971) corrugated tile and you may remember we patched a section last spring. The replaced section was good but a different section collapsed so we waited for a dry spell, pumped the pond down and replaced 150 feet of corrugated tile with solid PVC to fix the problem permanently.
The pond between 7 and 13 is a little low on purpose to allow it to take water without flooding. That pond overflows above ground so we keep it low during wet periods so the cart path is not washed out.

How long is that dead willow tree going to lie on hole 27, it looks like heck from the highway? In a normal year we would have taken care of this big willow right away however it has been too wet to 1 drag it out of the marsh and 2 haul it away. We were able to drag the tree to dry land and cut some of it up last week and should get the job finished soon. We have planted 3 new trees in the area to replace the one that fell.

Speaking of trees... what is going on with the trees? Are you going to replace all those you cut down? As a reminder due to the Emerald Ash Borer and the advanced age of our ash trees we removed 120 ash over the past 2 years. We also removed 2 misplaced pine trees on hole 2 because they were too large to move and in the wrong place for the design of that hole.
So far this spring we have planted 40 new trees with 10 more on the way. 20 of the 50 have been donated by golfers with the course purchasing the rest. For agronomic reasons the new trees are not as close to greens and fairways but will still provide beautiful scenery and a challenge for players for generations.

This birch on hole 17 is one of 40 new bare root trees planted in April

The ladies bathroom looks nice so when are you going to redo the men's bathroom? Thank you, we did a lot of the work in house and are pleased that the women's bathroom has been well received. Our plans will be to work on the men's room for the 2018 golf season.

I thought you were getting new carts? The new cart fleet is scheduled to arrive 3 weeks ago... and now we expect them soon. Fortunately we still have the old fleet to serve our needs until the new ones arrive. Our cart vendor has been very apologetic but has to wait for the supplier to deliver the carts.

How is the course? The course came through winter good although the cold wet spring has things slow to green up. We have a couple patches on fairways to sod but overall things are growing and we are mowing as much as possible with the weather. The ice cover in winter and up and down temperatures had us worried but overall the course did well.

I heard you bought a new greens roller, are the greens going to be lightning fast every day? We did purchase a new style of roller to provide a more consistent speed. Smooth greens that putt similar day in and day out should serve our varied clientele well. Not the fastest, but a good speed every day is the goal. University research has shown daily rolling and every other day mowing provides the most consistent putting surfaces. Green speed is a combination of many factors and although rolling will smooth greens, rolling is a small part of the entire green speed equation. I will address green speed in depth in my next entry.

The Smithco XL roller is a change for our staff to learn to drive
sideways but will help us provide consistent putting surfaces.

In closing the staff, golfers and grass are ready for sunshine and fun on the links. The weather averages out so we should see some improvement soon and will see you out on the course.

Opening Day???

For the first time in our 45 years Rolling Meadows was officially open in February thanks to Mother Nature and a unusual warm spell. We really only had two days of playable weather but it was good to see customers out enjoying the course.

Just 15 years ago opening day used to be a week or so after the maintenance staff could travel the golf course without damage. Often greens, tees and fairways would be mowed, every stick picked up, bunkers raked and benches and ball washers placed by the tees before the first customer was allowed on the course.

Our philosophy on when to open changed due to the realization early season players are not expecting perfect conditions. For the most part they just want to play and get some exercise out in the fresh air. We now open the first day the course is playable and golfers can walk the course without damage. From a maintenance standpoint we can ease into the season and cleanup the course as customers play.

The decision to open is easy as it is based on when the greens firm up and we do not expect damage from walking golfers. To forecast that date more than 24 hours ahead is difficult because it is entirely up to Mother Nature.

In March of 2016 we went from snowcover and "winter" to green and "spring" in 3 mild weather days. However last week it took 6 record setting warm days to go from snowcover to playable. The difference was frost depth. In 2016 the frost was only 5 to 6 inches so once that was gone the course was firm and playable.

However this year the frost was 18 to 24 inches and although we could probe down a foot the surface was still soft and water was oozing out of the ground until the frost broke enough to allow the water to soak in.

It is too early to mow or we would risk encouraging the turfgrass to green up and grow which could cause damage when the cold temperatures return. We lightly dragged greens to even out the fall topdressing and changed cups. I am glad you enjoyed the short February season before the snow returned.

The next warm spell we should be quicker to open because it is unlikely the frost will go as deep this time of year. We hope to see you again soon!

Monday afternoon despite 4 days of 60 degree temperatures water
was still oozing from 3 green as the frost came out. This green faces north
and was the last to firm up.

 

The grass is still dormant but the greens have firmed up to
allow play on February 22nd.