Tee Divots

This photo is taken after an outside event on one of our par 3 tees. I just wanted to show you all how many people fail to put sand back in the divots after they hit. This slows the healing process of the hitting areas tremendously. My staff is currently working on catching up on these tees and will hopefully have them all filled in soon.

Fairway Aeration

Here is a photo of what the fairways looks like after we aerify them. The above photo is after we have swept up the plugs in the fairway. Aerification is huge in helping the grass get the oxygen it needs to breathe and by helping water move through the soil profile and keeping the turf hydrated. Aerification will also help the turf plant extend it's roots and grow more of them in the holes that where created.

Cooler Temps Are Coming

Well it looks like we are going to have some more favorable temperatures coming in for next week.  It should make the week a little more enjoyable.  My staff is going to be busy taking advantage of these cooler temps.  Some things we are going to be doing this coming week are verticutting the greens, aerating fairways, spraying native grass areas for broadleaf control, and our usual weekly mowing.  We will be continuing our solid tineing of the greens as well.  I hope everyone had a great week despite the heat and I hope you all are enjoying your weekend.  I will try and upload some pictures of us verticutting the greens and aerating the fairways next week.    

The Heat Continues

With all the high temperatures over the last couple of days the golf course has started to dry out a little bit. We have had our hands full hand watering greens and tees over the last couple of days. We however got a .5" of rain on Tuesday night which was a great sight to see after all the heat and high humidity we have had. Although this moisture won't help us much later today or the rest of the week, it gave us a nice refreshing morning this morning. We are also doing some more sod work in our zoysia fairways. We are trying to get everything patched up as well as we can within reason of our budgets. This last bit of sod should go a long way in helping us get some of these areas looking better and make them a better playing surface. I have got a lot of questions lately about why these areas look like they do. These areas are areas where we got hit with winter kill this winter due to excess moisture during times when temperatures where low. In the coming week I hope to start our fairway aerification and spraying the native grass areas for broadleaf weed control.

The Heat Is On

I hope everyone had a great weekend and a very Happy Father's Day. It looks like summer is going to come in like a lion as they say. Man it is going to be extremely warm here this entire week. This is going to be a huge challenge for my staff and I keeping the grass hydrated with this high heat this early in the year. The turfgrass plants are not adapted for the heat yet and have been rather babied along with all the timely rains and cool weather. Their root structures are not where they need to be going into extreme heat due to the above timeliness of rain and cool weather. It is going to be interesting to see how they adapt and get acclimated this early into the season. We where able to get out today and get to mowing the roughs, fairways, greens, and tees mowed. We also applied an organic fertilizer to our greens for fertilization. We are going to be continuing to spray for clover in the roughs and around greens and tees.

Weekend Golf Course Update

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend of fun and sun.  It looks like we are going to get lucky and should dodge most of the rain drops that were in the area today.  On Thursday and Friday my staff was able to get most of the golf course mowed out and caught up on getting the grass knocked down.  We still need to do some detail work like weedeating and push mowing around some areas.  We are planning to attack these next week as we should have a long and hot week ahead.  This is going to be the first heat test we have had this year.  I hope everyone has a great weekend and a fabulous Father's Day!!  I am thankful I don't live on Long Island New York!  Man what a mess they have on their hands!  See you all next week.

Still Battling Wet Conditions

We are still battling some wet conditions today on the golf course. We were able to get out and mow some rough in some high spots and get some of the green banks mowed as well. We where able to get all the bunkers repaired 1-13 today and will finish the others tomorrow ahead of the Reece and Nichols event. We also were applying fungicide to the green banks and some rough areas. With all the moisture and the temperatures soaring to upper 90's it is prime weather for a fungus outbreak. This morning we also spiked the greens ahead of the mowers. Spiking is very important especially when you get conditions like these. Greens tend to suffocate and can't breathe as easy with all the moisture and high temperatures at the same time. Spiking allows the greens to breathe easier by allowing oxygen to the roots system and it also helps in the drying out process of the greens which helps them to firm up.

Another washed out bunker with the liner showing.

#7 Cart Path

Here is a photo of #7 cart path at 9:30 am. Roughly two hours after it stopped raining. My staff is unable to get across this path at this time. We will have to wait on the water to go down which will then allow us to open the golf course for play.

Pictures from Tuesday Morning

In the above picture you will see a bunker on #2 that is still full of water. This is what happens to our bunkers after a rain. They will hold water until the creeks they drain into go down, then we can get in them and skim the silt out of them and push and rake them. In the bottom picture this is of #1 fairway at 9:30 am this morning with standing water still on it and water still in the bunkers.

Is The Rain Ever Going To Stop??

We have another wet and messy day ahead of us today. We are going to be cleaning silt off cartpaths and hopefully working on the bunkers if we can get around. We received a little over 2.5 inches of rain overnight and that is on top of the 1 inch we received Sunday night. The rough is tall and deep and we will try and mow it as soon as it dries out and we can get the mowers out. I hope everyone had a great weekend with the member member and all the other activities.

Another Beautiful Morning

We had a great morning this morning as we finally got all the fairways mowed and the course seems to be drying out somewhat. We still have a couple of trouble areas that are slow to dry, but all in all I feel pretty good about where we are. Carts will be off paths today on all holes except 8 and 9. These two holes seem to be really holding on to the water in the low areas. I hope everyone has a great time in the member member if you are participating. If you aren't playing I hope you have a great weekend.

Mow Mow Mow

Our staff today will hopefully be concentrating on getting the rest of the golf course rough mowed out. We tried mowing fairways this morning and realized they still were just to wet from all the rains. We will have to try again on Saturday morning if we get some dry weather today!! Everyone keep your fingers crossed as we have some chances for more rain today and into the night. We will also be concentrating on getting some weedeating done around the bunkers and such in preparation for this weekends member member.

Rain Rain and More Rain

As many of you know we have been getting bombarded with rain over the last couple of days. We received .8 inches on Sunday night 6-7-09 and received 2.75 inches on Tuesday 6-9-09 and then Wednesday night 6-10-09 we recieved another .5 inches. This has caused us to have some severe bunker wash outs and the usual areas of mud on the golf course and cart paths. My crew has been spending the last couple of days just trying to get all of this cleaned up and get the bunkers put back in order. What this rain also causes is my staff to get behind on mowing the roughs and fairways due to the wet conditions. Please be patient as we wait on the ground to dry a little bit which will allow us to get out and knock the rough down without causing a lot of extra damage to the golf course. I know this time of year the rough is very thick and juicy with all the moisture and temperatures we have had and is difficult to play out of at times.

Welcome

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome each and every one of you to the Creekmoor Manitnance blog. My intent with this blog is to keep everyone up to date with happenings going on around or on the golf course at Creekmoor. I would also like this to be an opportunity for any of you who have quesitons that you would like to ask of me to feel free to do so. I will be updating this at least a couple times a week and will hopefully conitinue to develop it and provide more information as we go. Again thanks for taking the time coming by and checking it out. I hope you all will find it as useful as I will.