Greens Update

The maintenance staff has been very busy over the last two months and I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on some items that we have finished and the direction we will be heading throughout winter.

We can start by saying that this years aerification to greens, T's and Fwy's was the best to date from a quality of core removal and seed germination.

Aerifying in Progress

 Aerification is one of the most important tasks on the maintenance of greens.  The normal aerification requirement is once in the spring and fall with large hollow tines, followed by a heavy topdressing. We also will incorporate a smaller hollow tine in the winter months, followed by a light topdressing.  Listed below are the main reasons that we aerify and why it's so important to our turf's health.

·         Alleviate Compaction, allows the soil to become loosened for better infiltration and air exchange

·         Eliminate and remove unwanted dead organic material or thatch

·         Incorporate new topdressing medium into top layer to provide for healthier and firmer greens

·         Allows greens to breathe so to speak because of the gas exchange that is going on with open holes, providing great oxygen that is vital for the plants survival

·         Improved water absorption because of the decrease in thatch

This Chart shows exactly why we aerify

 Before we started to aerify this fall I'm sure a lot of you noticed some areas of T's that where scalped down to the soil along with the majority of the fairways that where widened.  The obvious reason for doing this is to create more T-space(we need a lot more) and regain our fairway contours that will shrink overtime.  This was completed in conjunction with the aerifying because we can punch these areas and promote a faster recovery with the new germinating seed.  Here are some pics of the T's scalped.

Here is a great picture of the scalping in place along with the aerifying just being completed.  Gives you an idea of how much T-space we are getting back.  This process was completed on all T's where possible.

 We are continuing to improve our lady T-complexes as well.  We had time to re-build the the 13th (1) tree that was in need of some attention.  Along with the a brand-new rebuild we also completed a new walk-path to this T.

New Re-build with Fresh walking path.

The pictures below show new walk-paths that were installed at the request of our lady golfers.

#2 walk-off - #3T

#12 Ladies T

 What we are currently working on:
Our main items right now are native cleanup and re-seed, tree work, and application of hydro-mulch to rough areas.

With water being at the top of our priority list(at all times!) we are continuing to seek ways to install native and eliminate turf to not only save on water but to enhance our aesthetics at the same time.  Here are a few pics of areas that will be accomplishing this.

Here's an area to the left of number 11 we are converting to bed and were able to eliminate 4 irrigation heads.  Probably save us at least 75,000 gallons of water on annual basis.  We will be planting 3 new red-woods in the void area.

 

You can see the area around number 14T that will become native.  These areas area an excellent opportunity to bring in our surrounding native landscape and create some definition for the course.

Tree work:
For those of you that are not familiar with our outside contracted tree service it starts in the first week of October and continues through the end of November.  Our budget allows 40K for this service. In the future we are looking to double this budget due to the increasing death of monterey pines and the need for more removal to open some areas up. Some noticeable trees that have been taken down this year were the big pines on #11 and the willow tree on the corner of #8.  I have had a lot of people ask if we are going to replant anything on number 8 and the answer is yes.  I visited the tree farm yesterday and hand selected a larger valley oak that will be planted within the next few weeks.  Moving forward we will continue to try and provide consistency with our trees on property.  Meaning make space for what's important, our heritage oaks and beautiful red-woods while eliminating species that don't belong in our natural setting.


Projects we will be working on this winter:

Once we finish all native cleanup and re-seeding we will shift our focus to some bunker and T projects.
We will be looking to complete the bunkers on #2 and #15 that have not been completed yet.  The only thing that would hold us back from this project is being able to obtain the bunker floor material, "sta-lock."  The other project will be to re-build the #10 ladies T.  This T is way to small and we will be looking to enlarge the current T to create more T-space and give the ladies a more friendly T-shot.  Once these projects are completed we will be looking to possibly start some bunkers on #17.