Member/Guest Time Is Here

Some of my staff mowing #10 green in early morning preparations for Member/Guest
Rory my assistant rolling #3 green with a new roller I am loaning from one of my equipment dealers. These rollers are awesome and really help us smooth the green surface and increases the speed of the ball roll. Sorry for the poor photo quality. I thought it was a little brighter then it was when I took it.



We had a great morning this morning preparing the golf course for this weekends Member/Guest event. We got our morning started bright and early this morning around 5:15 am. I apologize to any homeowners that we may have awoke this early, but we needed to get out and get some last minute things completed before play today. The weather has been simply amazing over the last couple of weeks. I don't know what I did right, but our good Lord is treating us to one heck of a summer as far as weather goes. Here are a couple of pictures from the early morning preparations.

Busy Week

We have had a very busy week this week preparing for the upcoming Member/Guest tournament here at Creekmoor. We received about .2" of rain overnight. Golf course conditions are a little damp, but not too bad. We have been working on keeping the rough and green banks mowed down as much as possible. It has been a challenge with the cool damp conditions we have been facing. Although you won't hear me complain about 7o degree days at the end of August. We also are working on getting all bunker edges weed eated and edged to give them a nice clean look. The greens were double cut and rolled today. For the rest of today we will hopefully be finishing up on some small detail items and then will get into full tournament mode tomorrow. I hope everyone has had a nice week and and are all getting ready for the weekend. We are looking forward to the event and hope everyone and their guest enjoy the golf course.

Finally Some Dry Weather

We finally have moved into some dry and absolutely perfect weather the last couple of days. My staff and I have been enjoying it greatly. We are into a part of our golf schedule that is very busy. We have got some large tournaments coming up along with our Member/Guest Tournament this weekend. The golf course has really started to dry down and course conditions should start to be returning to the firm and fast that we like to have them at. We will be busy this week keeping up on our mowing, weed eating, and bunker maintenance in preparation for our weekend event. We started applying hopefully our last fungicide application on our green banks this morning. We were unable to finish before the 12pm shotgun this afternoon, but should be able to finish on Tuesday. We also applied our high K application on our fairways. The high K helps the zoysia survive through the winter months by increasing it's cell wall density. This is the last application on the zoysia this year and we wanted to get it down before the fairways started to turn off color and go dormant as the days get shorter and temperatures get cooler. Some golfers have asked me why I spike the greens so much or poke holes in them so much. I do this to allow the turfgrass to breathe. Plants need oxygen and air to breathe just like humans. When you get as much rain as we got (6.5" in 3 days) the greens almost start to wilt due to having too much moisture in them. Spiking or solid tine helps to get the excess moisture out of them and helps them breathe a little bit easier. It also helps with water movement and helps us cut down on our isolated dry spots when the rain is minimal and we have warm temperatures. I hope you all had a great weekend.

Bunkers Bunkers Bunkers

Well it looks like we dodged a bullet last night. The forecast was calling for a potential 1-2" of rain. We received .6" or rainfall. This brings our total since Sunday evening to 6.4" or rain. My staff has been seeing so much of the bunkers lately that they are seeing white sand in their sleep. Unfortunately for them today we are once again back in them cleaning the silt out of them and raking them back into shape. On a positive note it looks like the weather is going to be good for the rest of the week which is a very welcome site for us here. It will take a few days, but the nice weather will and should help the golf course start to dry out. We tried to mow tees this morning and spray a fungicide on them, but they were still too wet and the tires on the machines were causing some mild rutting. We hope the tees will dry out a little bit as the day goes on and we can get this done later in the day. Getting a fungicide down soon is going to be very important with all the damp conditions that the pathogens have now to form and grow. We hope to then spray greens on Friday as we are planning to let them dry out a little today so that we don't wheel rut them with the spray rig. Our goal is to get back on our regular mowing schedule tomorrow with greens, tees, fairways, green banks, and rough as long as conditions are favorable.

What a Week!!!

Wow what a week it has been and it is only Wednesday. The rains have really caused some hard times here at Creekmoor. I would like to commend my staff on a couple of hard intense work days in getting this golf course playable for MGA Four-Ball event. Without them we would not have been able to play the event and have a successful one at that. We had received about 5.5" of rain since Sunday evening and then we got an additional .3" this morning bringing our grand total to 5.8" in three days. Needless to say the golf course is in a very very soggy state and will take some time to dry out. Unfortunately the weather forecast is calling for an additional 1-2" overnight. We will continue to try and get the golf course mowed and the bunkers repaired as we can around play and weather conditions. I hope everyone has had a great week so far.

Photos From Monday Afternoon Storm

An example of how much the bunkers washed out from the rainfall.
Cart path crossing between 12 and 13. This picture was taken about an hour after rain had stopped. I couldn't get to this area before due to the amount of water that was flowing over the top of the pipe and cartpath.
#10 fairway about an hour after rain had stopped
Water that is ankle deep on cart path by #13 tee just outside my shop. I have never seen it this deep since I have been here. The storm this afternoon dumped another 2.25" of rain. Bringing us to a total of 5.5" of rain since Sunday night.

Wow What a Storm

Well I guess Mother Nature decided that we weren't finished with the wet weather. Over the last couple of days we have received a little over 3.75" of rainfall. Needless to say course conditions are extremely wet and soggy. As I am sitting here typing we are in the midst of another strong thunderstorm that is forecasted to drop at least another 1.5" to 2" of rain. We have a busy week this week with the Missouri Four-Ball Championship suppose to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday. My crew was able to get our this morning and mow greens, change cups, and start removing the silt out of the bunkers. Unfortunately with this latest storm we might be redoing some of the bunkers that we already completed. It is always a tough call on my part when to let the bunkers sit and wait and when to go out and take a chance and try to get them cleaned up. With the tournaments this week and all I felt like I didn't have a choice and needed to get all I could done when I could. Unfortunately I might have made a bad call this time. I hope to post some photos of the storm damage later today when it stops raining to where I can get my camera out. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Today we started checking sand depths in our bunkers to insure they have consistent depths all the way around them. One guy checks the depth of the sand and then tells the sandpro operator where he needs to push the sand too. The bunkers where then raked out and ready for play.

This is a photo of our walk behind aerator solid tinning the green surrounds. These areas take a beating throughout the year with all the foot traffic and equipment abuse. Aerifying them opens them up and breaks up the compaction which lets them breathe and take in water to survive the warmer days.

Summer Rain Shower

We got a much needed 1" rain overnight. The golf course had really started to dry out from the last couple of upper 90 degree days along with high winds. Golf course conditions today are once again a little bit on the soggy side. Carts are on the cart paths as the fairways are saturated from the rain. We were unable to mow fairways and approaches this morning and will hopefully be able to mow them on Tuesday if we don't get any more rain overnight like they are calling for. Today we are putting the bunkers back in place, mowing tees, mowing greens, and mowing some select holes of rough where the rough dries out faster then others. The temperatures look like they are going to be a little cooler then last week which will really help us out as we prepare for the big tournaments coming up here at the end of August and early September. Some items we will be working on over the week along with our weekly mowing shcedule will be spiking of the greens, topdressing the greens, trimming some tree limbs on #11 and #13, and finishing up spraying in the native areas.

Summer is Here For A Few Days

I guess we are finely going to have to put up with a little summer weather for once. Temperatures are suppose to be close to 100 degrees this weekend along with heat index values over 105 degrees. My staff and I will have our work cut out for us this weekend staying on top of the watering. As I have mentioned before the turf isn't used to these temperatures and it hasn't had a real good opportunity to harden itself off with the cool temperatures and timely rains we have been saving. You have to walk a fine line and make sure you don't over water as well as not watering enough. Over watering will cause you problems as well with disease development, scorching of the turf, and scalping issues when you mow. We were able to get all the rough mowed twice this week even with the rain day we had on Tuesday. We are currently putting the finishing touches on weed eating, edging, and trim mowing for the week getting ready for the weekend. I hope everyone has a great weekend and stays cool.

Another Rainy Day at Creekmoor

Well once again the weather threw us a curve ball this morning. So much for only a 20-30% chance of rain depending on which weather service you looked at. Anyway we received a little over an inch of rain and it has caused rather sloppy conditions around the golf course for today. Carts are on paths and we were unable to get any mowing done due to the wet conditions. We worked on getting the 65 sand bunkers back in order, mowed greens, and changed the hole locations. We were able to get 9 holes of bunkers repaired and plan on finishing the rest tomorrow. Hopefully on Wednesday we can get back on our regular mow schedule if things dry out the rest of the day today. This rain is going to make things rather interesting for us. A lot of moisture and then high temperatures right after are hard on turf grass and breed disease rather quickly. My staff and I are going to have to be extra cautious the rest of this week in monitoring turf conditions.

Well Summer is Here Today

I guess Ol' Mother Nature decided that we needed a little taste of summer this week finally. Temperatures are going to be in the upper 90's for the rest of the week. This will pose a challenge for my staff and I as the turf grass hasn't really been pushed this year and all the root structures are at the surface due to the amount of rainfall and cool temperatures we have been having. Every chance I have had I have been trying to harden off the turf a little and make it stress with water management, which will help it's roots to grow down towards the moisture and not stay at the surface. We were able to get all the bridges completely staind this morning. I have had some ask me about the bridge between #7 and #8 and the bumps. The bumps are there due to the cart path settling after construction. The only way to fix this permanetley is to rip out the concrete on each side fill it up and level it and then repour the concrete. I have tried to use a more economical approach and have installed some boards to help absorb the bump a little bit. As you can imagine the expense to fix this bridge and the amount of construction it would cause would be a big issue at this time of year. We will continue to monitor this area and the settling. I have installed several concrete sacks and poured some additional concrete around the bridges to help slow down the erosion and settlement. Thanks for the comments.