Superintendent News

Welcome to the web site-Hope you like it. As was the case last year I hope to keep you up to date on course happenings here. Aeration schedules, daily tasks, course issues, and my own observations will be the fodder here at Superintendent News.

May 15- So what goes into tournament preparation? A lot of the work is done the weeks previous. Little things like trimming around bunkers and making sure sand traps are consistent and fair are handled the week prior. Also any fertilizer and chemical applications are secheduled to "peak" during the week of the tournament. Once tournament week is here, the mowing schedule ramps up so that everything is mowed daily instead of every 2 or 3 days. Greens most likely will be double-cut and rolled also. Sand traps will be raked daily and cups cut to the tournament committees' specifications. Irrigation will be applied sparingly during the week to make the course play as firm as possible. The amount of irrigation is the toughest call during the week as you want to keep turf healthy enough for the weeks to come but still challenge the golfer. This isn't the U.S. Open though and we will lean toward more water rather than less as most Open courses are left with some dead grass! Each morning is anxious as all equipment must perform properly so that we can prep the course and get out of the way in time for early tee times. So far so good-1 day without any problems!

May 14-- It is hard to believe that over two weeks have gone by since the last post but we have been scrambling to get the course ready for this week's National Pro Tour event. Golfers have traveled from all over to compete so we hope to represent Wild Horse and Nebraska golf well.

We are excited to showcase Wild Horse to some great players from all over the country but a bit apprehensive about the condition of the course. Another couple of weeks would have benefitted us greatly in recovering from the winter damage we incurred but we are thankful for the mild spring that has definitely helped our preparation. This time frame is not ideal for tournament conditions for a couple of reasons. First the weather is not real consistent which can result in spurts of growth or a stunting of growth. Gussing what you might get and how to prepare is a bit difficult. Another difficulty with this time of year is getting good consistent ball roll due to the growth habit of the grass now. All cool season grasses want to grow up and produce a seed head this time of year and while bentgrass greens never produce a seedhead they still want to grow up aggressively and that can make ball roll a bit "squirrely". Also it tends to limit your green speeds. Once we hit June the greens are much easier to get to roll true. That said we have made great progress the last week in getting more consistent ball roll as the aeration holes have slowly filled in reducing the bumpiness and double cutting has taken out some of the "wiggle" in the ball roll. Many of you may not have even noticed but I have and am never satisfied until you get a billiard ball like roll! So all in all the course is about a 7.5 rating-- we would hope for a 9 this week but achieving a 9 in mid-May is really tough to do.

April 26-- Completed greens aeration this week with mini-tines. Should have put a dime down for reference but those holes are about the size of half a pencil.

And here is the topdressing to further smooth the putting surface.

Then we drag and mow and roll and by then the putting surface should be pretty good.

So why do we pull cores everywhere else but not on the greens? The reason we are able to get away with a less aggressive aeration regime on the the greens is because of our consistent topdressing program that dilutes the thatch that accumulates. Also it is somewhat of a compromise between what the turf needs and golfer's expectations. On the surrounds, tees, and fairways we pull cores to physically remove the thatch in addition to opening up channels for air/water movement. The main goal of aerating greens is to maximize the number of openings (albeit small) to "catch" water that can easily run off. This should get more water into the soil profile where it can be used.

Our goal in April is preparation for the summer months ahead. Aeration is a key component to creating a healthy turf. Also we fertilize more regularly to stimuate growth to help recover from winter injury and develop roots. So April is the set-up month where we are trying to grow as much grass as possible with limited soil temperatures, but we are nearing the time when we start to "manage" the turf more for playing conditions. Once we have a good stand of turf established by mid-May our focus turns to maintaining a better playing surface. That means less fertility, conservative irrigation, and chemical growth regulation. More to come on those topics through the summer but look for playing conditions to become more consistent in the next couple of weeks.

April 15-We have finished up aeration of greens surrounds and fairways. Aeration is crucial to our turfgrass and its performance through the summer. That is why we like to punch holes whenever we get the chance. Whenever someone asks how much should I aerate I will jokingly tell them as soon as you finish the whole course, turn right around and start again. Realistically that is not possible because of time and golf events, but you get the point that aeration is critical to highly managed turf areas. We try to minimize the disruption this process causes by going early in the year to avoid as much play as possible. Then in the summer we try to get done as quickly as possible. We understand this is an inconvenience to you as the golfer but we make every effort to quickly clean up our mess and return the course to normal. We appreciate your understanding that aeration is a benefit to the course in the long run. You can see some benefits of aeration if you scroll down to some pictures from last year (May 12). Those benefits are readily apparent again this year if you look closely especially on hole #6 and #8.

The weather has returned to more "normal" and our turf is in a holding pattern. Not much growth right now but we are nearing the time of year when the grass really gets going and you should see some improvement in the course conditions as we head toward May.

April 2-- The burn went off well on March 28 which is about two weeks ahead of usual. The wind was cooperative and we got most of the areas done that we wanted to. The outside of the course is the hardest to burn because of the larger amount of fire breaks and backburning that is necessary so it takes more time. I greatly appreciate the crew that helped perform the burn. It is a lot of work and everyone is whipped by the end of the day. It is a fun day but remaining careful and vigilant takes its toll so once we're done we are all relieved!
The picture below shows our golf pro Don Graham helping us out. It is nice to have a pro that is willing to help out the maintenance crew whenever need be. You can scroll down and read about last years burn and why we burn what we do.
We will be aerating greens surrounds this week and then will continue with fairways after that. We should finish the back nine fairways today so we are off to a good start on our aerating season. The weather continues to be good and the course looks like late April already. There are still some thin areas on hills due to the dry winter but overall the course is ahead of schedule by about two weeks.

March 22-- Soil temperatures are already running 50-56 degrees. Last year we didn't hit that mark until late April. In fact most of April soil temps were around 45 degrees. So undoubtedly we are progressing much quicker this year than last. In fact we may move our burn up to next week to avoid the rough getting too green to burn! Amazing March so far!
We are starting to mow the greens more regularly already (about every 3-4 days). Most years we have not mowed at this time. Fairways and collars are greening up but still are not growing enough to warrant mowing yet but will soon. I have already started doing some fertilizing ahead of schedule so that should continue the green-up. We have also been doing some other small cart path projects-trying to take the bumps out of some entries and exits to fairways. We also replenished the sand in some bunkers as this winter was especially conducive to blowouts! No snow and several big winds carved out some of our bigger bunkers, but we have tried to get them back into shape. The irrigation system has been checked and tweaked and has ran a couple of cycles already so it should be ready for the season.So we are getting lots done in March. Usually the weather prohibits much progress in March but this year feels like April and we are getting into a groove already.

As many of you know I love to kill unwanted grass species in the fall and these pictures show the results this spring. The first picture is a bentgrass patch in our fairways. As you can see there is still some bluegrass and rygrass left there and it should fill in that patch quickly. We have made great strides in taking out unwanted bentgrass in fairways and there are only a few small spots left to attack.
The picture below shows an area right in front of the white line on #10 fairway. This area was treated last fall to kill the poa annua (annual bluegrass). Poa loves wet compacted soils so it thrives in the trafficked areas near the white line. Unfortunately poa is a yellowish grass with unsightly seed heads that make it undesirable in our turf stand so we try to keep it under control. This particular area had a healthy populuation of poa as you can see by the amount of dead grass so we will probably throw some seed in here to get the turf stand back. Most of the time our treaments are taking out golfball to softball size spots of poa- so small that you may not even notice anything occurred (which is how you and I like it!) These treatments can be a little harsh on our desired turf species and if you look closely at #1, #3, #4 green surrounds you can see that they are slow to green up this spring due to those treatments last fall. There may even be some thinning of the turf but the overall long term condition of those areas will be better without the annual bluegrass.

March 19--Mowed greens on the 16th which is the earliest we have ever mowed and it was probably the most green grass we have ever collected in our first mowing. 4 straight days of record heat has really moved things along.

These pictures illustrate the importance of snow cover during the winter. The picture below is the putting green-it is readily apparent where the snow drifts were (green vs. brown) The brown areas are greening up quickly now and within another week the difference will be negligible.
The top picture is a bit more puzzling if you didn't know what had been happening on this (#6) green. That line is where the hose that we watered with this winter laid. Just having that little bit of protection shows up quite vividly this early in the spring. These pictures beg the question about why not cover all the greens rather than just the high spots. I never was much of a fan of greens covers but these newer fiber covers really do a good job of insulating the greens from temperatures swings and also allow good water penetration (something the older woven plastic covers did not). The problem with them is the space needed to store them and the labor required to do large areas. However, we will continue to add areas that we cover but will probably never do the entire green.

May 12-- Superintendents are always defending their aerification practices by extolling their benefits to golfers who think we are just out to make a mess. Many times the benefits derived from aerification are unnoticed, but I have some pictures that clearly illustrate the virtue of poking holes. In the first pictures you can see some broken darker green lines which is where the holes are. That grass is obviously healthier and happier! The bottom two pictures illustrate that the holes punched by the aerator definitely improve water infiltration. The dry brownish squares you see are where the aerator was picked up to miss the sprinkler. Proof that we are accomplishing something when aerating and not just "making a mess".

April 21--A couple of people have asked why we don't burn all the rough every year. There are 2 good reasons that we burn each part once every 3 years. First, logistically it would be nearly impossible to burn everything in one year. The amount we do now is a full day's work and as mentioned in previous posts is physically all we can do. So to burn all would take 3 days-it is hard enough to find one day in April that is conducive to burning let alone 3 days so the amount we do now is just right. Also, burning every year would change the composition of the rough dramatically. Doing so would weaken the grass stand allowing weeds to become problematic. Also there would not be enough fuel to carry a fire if burned every year. So we feel a 3 year rotation is the optimum burn schedule.

April 14--FIRE!!! FIRE!! FIRE!!

September 1--Here's the long story on our greens surrounds management and how it has evolved from day 1 and the goal of our overseeding program. Our surrounds were originally planted to fine fescues after much consternation. The goal was to provide a nearly green-like surface that allowed putting and bump and run from off the green. Unfortunately, bentgrass seed from the greens contaminated the approaches and over several years has become the predominant grass on the collars. Bentgrass naturally plays softer than fescue or even bluegrass/ryegrass (fairways). So in order to make the bent play well, it really needs to be dry, and lean on fertility. This sometimes can cause the collars to look "a bit haggard" and not as "pretty" as the fairways. Some people care about playability; some more for looks so in order to please everyone including myself we are overseeding with ryegrasss and bluegrass (same as our fairways). Most everyone loves our fairways and in hindsight we should have probably planted that around the greens, but at that time I was not convinced that the bluegrass could be managed to play firm and fast enough. It would not have eliminated the bentgrass contamination but we would be closer to our goal. The overseeding program is a long term conversion to a stand of more favorable turf (blue/rye). In order for this to be most effective, it is necessary to abuse the bentgrass in order to give the blue/rye a competitive advantage. So that means dryness to the point of losing some grass (as seen on #1 and 17 approaches) and constant growth regulation which can give an off color to the greens surrounds (especially during heat spells) Pictured below is a bentgrass patch that is succumbing to drought, but you can see the sprigs of ryegrass that are surviving and thriving. The conversion process may take several years but each year we hope to get more and more blue/ryegrass in the surrounds. Once this happens, we can become more aggressive chemically in removing the bentgrass. So what does all this mean to you? Most days you will not notice anything, but there will be times that the collars will be off color or even a bit thin, but as the years go by we will get more of the grass we want there and gradually they will look and play better.

Feel free to contact me at jmahar@cozadtel.net or 308-537-4430 with questions/comments.

Josh Mahar
Certified Golf Course Superintendent