President"s Cup 2016 - Heat Warning

July 19, 2016

Everyone, including the course maintenance team, looks forward to the arrival of the President's Cup each year.  The excitement on the side of the membership seems especially strong this year with the current waiting list sitting at four teams.  The maintenance team always looks forward to showcasing what they hope will be not only a beautiful course but one where the conditions are a step above what members normally see.  This is accomplished with a little bit of preplanning to get the course in peak condition but mainly this is the result of a lot of hard work and long hours from a group of employees dedicated to serving the membership.

Irving Park #1 Green 7-19-16

GREENS
While we are expecting really good course conditions this year it looks like Mother Nature will be bringing some really hot weather on the four days surrounding the tournament. Temperatures are being forecasted to hover in the mid-upper nineties and may reach 100 on Sunday. Even more important is that nighttime lows are not forecasted to drop below 70 for two weeks following the beginning of the heatwave on Friday.  With that being the case, our Bentgrass greens will be put to the ultimate test. Survival of the greens throughout this period will be our primary focus with extremely high temperatures along with a high volume of tournament play. This particular scenario will not only lead to a slower green speed and softer surface but our staff will likely be syringing greens in and amongst play.  While we attempt to minimize disruption to play from our cooling efforts we will be asking for the patience and understanding of the participants during both Saturday and Sunday's round.

As a proactive measure we needle-tine aerified the greens this week on Monday and Tuesday with 1/4 solid tines to increase the pore space heading into this event.  On Monday (7/25) we will once again be aerifying the greens on the Irving Park course with a slightly larger 3/8 solid tine.  We will then aerify the Farm greens on Tuesday (7/26) with the same sized tine.  Mowing heights will also go up slightly beginning next week from our current .110 height.  The Farm course will also be closed on Monday-Tuesday of next week for the second fairway aerification.  This is required because the Zoysiagrass is a much more aggressive thatch producer than Bermudagrass.  As we only have two days to accomplish this our spacing will be much wider than our first aerification and recovery time will be less than a week.  

So, everyone try your best to stay cool this weekend and to those playing in the President's Cup we hope you all play great and enjoy the two courses.

# 10 Farm

Bentgrass Greens in the Hot, Humid Southeast!

July is here and so are the temperatures we have become accustom to in Central North Carolina.  90 Degrees or more are almost a daily occurrence and the humidity is often the cause of afternoon thunderstorms.  The summer temperatures are great for outdoor activities and vacations, however they can cause serious issues with Bentgrass greens on golf courses.

The greens at Greensboro Country Club are creeping Bentgrass, Agrostis stolonifera.  More specifically, the Bentgrass on the Farm course is a blended variety called Penn A-1/A-4.  The Irving Park course is a variety called Cato.  Bentgrass is what is known as a cool season turf, meaning that it grows best in temperatures of 65-80 degrees.  The A-1/A-4 variety on the Farm course is an improved variety over the Cato variety on the Irving Park course.  While both are improvements over the old Penncross variety that use to dominate the region both still require many cultural practices in order to keep them healthy and thriving. 

During the summer months the maintenance staff at Greensboro CC will spend countless hours "watching" greens in the afternoons during these hot days.  Our assistants spend their afternoons looping the golf course looking for any signs of stress or wilt (wilting turfgrass shows up as purple in color).  If the temperatures are extremely high we will often mist the greens down to use the evaporative cooling of the water to lower the temperature on the surface. "Watching" greens is the final cultural practice to keep greens alive through the summer heat.  There is much more that is done before the heat of the day to help reduce the possibility of wilt.  Our crew inspects each green every morning and takes moisture readings on a digital soil moisture meter as well as pulling cores to get a visual image of what is happening to the roots.  The assistants will pay close attention to areas that are chronically the first ones to show summer stress.

Solid Tine Venting

There are numerous additional practices that must take place once the heat sets in to help ensure survival of the greens.  Flushing the greens every 2-4 weeks is a practice we use to remove unwanted soluble salt buildup in the soil and to uniformly wet the entire soil profile from top to bottom.  The frequency of this heavy watering practice is often dictated by weather.  The hotter the weather the more frequently we will flush.  We also occasionally vent the surface of the greens with a small solid tine aerification.  Dead plant material in the upper portion of the soil profile is very common on Bentgrass this time of the year and the decaying plant material will eventually seal off the upper portion of the soil profile.  This resulting unwanted organic accumulation allows the buildup of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, which will lead to a very toxic growing environment if not managed properly.  Small tine aerification helps with the infusion of higher levels of Oxygen into the critical rootzone to combat the natural growth cycle of a highly maintained cool season grass that is growing in a region of the world where it is not fully adapted.  

Syringing / Misting