The Irving Park greens were aerified on June 4-5 and are now two weeks into recovery with a full recovery usually taking three weeks. This week we are experiencing our first sustained heat wave with several days in the mid to upper nineties and with that comes stress on the delicate cool season Bentgrass. With this type of heat related stress comes the need to begin our summer hand watering program to maintain the proper amount of moisture on the greens and to cool down the surface during the hottest portion of the day.
Hand Watering - Cooling - Misting - Syringing
It is called a lot of things but the practice of applying a light amount of water during the afternoon hours is crucial to maintaining the overall health of a Bentgrass green mowed at .110 throughout the summer months in the South. When temperatures are high, even a moist green will need to be lightly watered. When soil temperatures becomes extremely high the roots on Bentgrass will become incapable of replacing the amount of water lost to evaporation (the combined losses of evaporation and plant transpiration). Thus, water is lightly applied to the entire green in an effort to cool the plant and/or replace excess water loss. Temperature readings this week showed the canopy as high as 108 degrees prior to a light misting of the green and quickly down to 96 degrees (matching air temperatures) after being hand watered. With the Farm course closed and it being Father's Day weekend the course was especially busy this past Sunday. As such we had 4 guy's on duty to keep the greens from wilting too much because it is especially difficult to cool greens with a course completely full of golfers.
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| Taylor Wilkerson Misting #7 - Air Temp 96 degrees |
From the staff's perspective we clearly understand that the practice of hand watering is necessary but we also know it can be a very disruptive process to golfers due to where the majority of it takes place, on the greens. While our staff is trained to avoid golfers whenever possible there are always days when keeping a low profile becomes nearly impossible. This past weekend was a good example of just such an occurrence with very high temperatures and almost two groups on every hole left little opportunity for the staff not to interrupt play. During a worst-case scenario where the greens are actively wilting and play is heavy the staff may find the need to motion to approaching golfers or remove the flagstick and temporarily suspend play to allow them to catch up with the plants requirements for water. Whether it is one of these busy and stressful days (for both the greens and the staff) or maybe just a routine afternoon of cooling greens we do ask for your patience and understanding. Please remember the staff’s main objective is to keep the greens in the best possible playing condition so that your long term golfing experience will be more enjoyable.
Winterkill Repairs
The staff at both courses continue to work on repairing damaged areas on the two courses and will be installing 2.5 truckloads of new sod this week on each course. After this week each course will have approximately 3-4 truckloads of sod left to repair and we continue to plan on being completed with the vast majority of this work by our original mid-July timeline. On the Irving Park course we will be focused on making repairs to the #7 fairway this week, which was the worst or largest affected area on the course.
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| First of two truckloads on #7 |
FARM COURSE
Greens
The farm greens are now on day 25 and everything is going along as scheduled. We are mowing the greens 5-6 times a week and will be applying our first moderate topdressing application to the greens on Friday. Next week we expect to begin vertically mowing the greens and continue taking the mowing height down. The very hot weather that is creating stress on the Irving Park greens is creating ideal growing conditions for the Farm greens. With sprigging always comes small little areas on the greens that simply take time to fill in and the current weather pattern will prove to be very helpful to hopefully speeding up this process. Our original goal was to reopen the course on July 28 but if we continue to experience normal to above normal temperatures we do not think it would not be unreasonable to get the course opened before that time frame.
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| Areas Filling In - Day 25 |
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| #15 - 6-18-18 |
Winterkill Repairs
Just like the Irving Park course the staff at the Farm will be installing 2.5 truckloads of sod this week , which will leave them with another 3-4 to go. Two of those truckloads will need to be used on the Farm range tee. When we do finally get around to working on the practice teeing area we will be encouraging members to use the rear Zoysia tee at the end of the range, which we have noticed many members having been taking advantage of this year.
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| #6 Tee hillside ready for new sod |
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| #6 Hillside Sodded |
Drainage Work and New Forward Tees
While the greens and other winterkill related repairs have keep the staff busy they have also been making improvements to several areas of the course. Drainage was a small part of the issue where some of the Zoysiagrass died and in those areas the staff has been working to install new drainage before sodding the area back with new grass.
Also, a few areas on the course died where we were going to eventually add some of the new forward tees that we committed to a few years ago. In these areas it did not make sense to lay new sod and then come back at a later time and build a new tee. So new tees are being constructed on holes #1, #2, #4 and #13.
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| New Drainage on #2 |
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| New Forward Tee #2 - Early Construction |
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| New Forward Tee #1 - Early Construction |
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