Thanksgiving Is Here

Man where has the time gone? It seems just like yesterday that we were full blown mowing the golf course and applying our spring fertilizers. The weather this week allowed us to get all the rough, green banks, and tees mowed on their regular schedules. The greens have gotten a little bit of a surge of growth in them this past week with the warmer conditions. We are back to mowing the them every other day right now. This is going to be a rather short work week for my staff with the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. We will however be back at it on Friday and continue our normal week. I hope to begin some of our drainage projects as soon as I receive all the materials I need. My supplier has been a little backed up and it has taken a little bit to get them to me. It looks like the weather is suppose to rebound a little bit over the weekend and give us some decent golfing weather. I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend.

A Little Bit of A Warmer Trend

We have continued to be blessed with pleasantly warmer weather over the weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed participating in the annual Creekmoor "Beat The Staff (Turkeys)" event. I am very sorry for not being able to participate this year. I had a scheduling conflict along with a little back injury that I have been battling the last couple of weeks. It sounds like the Creekmoor staff was upgraded without me and shot a great score of 61. Congratulations to the teams that were able to shoot better then 61 and won a free Thanksgiving turkey. This week will be a rather shorter work week for the maintenance staff with the Thanksgiving holiday. We will hopefully get our weekly mowing completed weather permitting, and continue to work on some rock work around the cart paths. My staff will also be working on finishing up the weed eating of the bunker edges, curbs, and tee signs as well. These warmer temperatures have kept the cool season grass on the roughs, tees, and greens growing at a fairly decent clip. We will continue to mow and maintain these areas as long as they are actively growing. The fairway spraying has been going rather well, but has been a slow process due to the timely rains and windy conditions. Fairways that are left to spray are #4-7 and all the other par 3's. We will hopefully complete these this week if the weather permits otherwise we will hopefully finish them the following week. Thanks again for all the great comments about the golf course over the last couple of weeks. Your kind comments go along way!

Weekly Friday Update

Temperatures over the last couple of days have rebounded a little bit. Instead of highs in the 40's we have and are forecast to have highs in the upper 50's. Course conditions have continued to stay wet. We have been able to get the green banks mowed, but have been unable to get the rough mowed. Fortunately the turf's growth has slowed down considerably with the cooler temps. We were able however to get our winter fertilizer down on our roughs and tees. Today we are finishing up working on the bunkers and spraying the front nine fairways for cool season grass that has encroached the zoysia grass. Since the growth of the bentgrass on the greens has slowed down considerably we are mowing them on average of 2 to 3 times a week. When we don't mow we are either letting the greens go or putting the roller on them. We don't roll them everyday due to the compaction issues we would face with continued traffic from the roller. However rolling them once or twice a week is very beneficial and keeps our greens in championship shape during the winter months. I hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoys the warmer weather. It looks like the weather is going to be great for the annual "Beat The Turkeys" tournament. Hopefully everyone can play well and win a Turkey!

Front Still Hanging Around

We are continuing to feel the effects of the storm front that rolled in at the beginning of the week. Temperatures are continuing to hover around the 40 degree mark for highs and lows are getting down into the low to mid 30's. The cooler temperatures have really slowed down the growth in the bentgrass and the roughs. On top of the cool temps we received a significant amount of rain as well. Course conditions are very wet which has caused us some significant challenges in getting some of our work done. We have been unable to get any spraying or fertilizing done with the current course conditions. My hope is too try and get the spraying and fertilization done or started by Thursday. Today we are out cleaning up the bunkers and getting them back into playing condition after the rains. We are also working on some weedeating around the bunkers and tee boxes.

Cold and Wet

Here are some updated pictures of the creek project on #10. We were able to get this completed just in time before the latest storm hit. We received about 1.25" of rain over night and into this morning. Weather conditions have really changed over the last couple of days. Last week we were all wearing shorts and enjoying the warm temperatures, today we are grabbing the heaviest rain proof coat we can as it is cold and wet. We had a good week last week with the great weather. We were able to get our normal mowing done as well as getting some much needed fertilization and spraying done. We fertilized the greens and started putting down our winterizer application on our rough. Hopefully the weather cooperates this week and allows us to complete this. We are also hopefully going to be starting on installing some drainage in fairways if conditions dry out. My staff will also be working on putting some more rock in areas along cartpaths where the cart traffic has caused some rutting. I hope everyone had a great week and weekend.

A Great Weather Weekend

I hope everyone had an opportunity to get outside and enjoy the weather over the weekend. Who would have thought that the weather in the beginning of November was better then the weather the entire month of October. What a year it has been. The nice weather today allowed us to have a very productive day. We were able to apply a light topdressing to the greens to continue to help the playing surfaces stay firm and smooth. This is an ongoing practice we do about once every month depending on the play and the weather. We also applied a micro nutrient package along with a fertilizer to the greens. It is important to keep the fertility level up on the greens this time a year as it is when the turf grows it's roots for the next year. The entire rough, tees, and green banks were mowed as well. We have continued to work on the rock work on the creek bank on #10. We are anticipating to finish it up in the next day or two. My goal is to finish up the fairway spraying by the end of the week. As long as the weather stays warm and the wind stays calm we should be able to get this done without any problem.

Updated Photos of Bridge Project and Creek Project

Warmer Weather is Here For The Week

I hope everyone had a good and safe Halloween. I know my household did very well and we are now stocked up with candy for the rest of the year! It looks like the weather is going to be very cooperative and on the warmer side for the rest of the week. This is a very welcome site to us all as the cool weather had sort of put a damper on the spirits around the golf course. We have started spraying the fairways on the back nine again for cool season grass control. This process will continue for several days as the temperatures and wind conditions cooperate. Winter cart rules have been implemented and took effect on November 2nd. This practice is done to protect the dormant zoysia from excessive wear and tear from cart traffic during it's dormancy. I know this is an inconvenience for everyone, but I feel that this is one of the most important practices we do. It is not a guarantee that we won't have any zoysia damage this spring from winter kill, but I feel it helps to cut down on the amount substantially. A perfect example of this was last year we spent around $4-5000 dollars on zoysia sod and there were some facilities that didn't restrict carts or can't restrict carts due to limitations on cart-paths that spent well over $30,000 to 40,000 on zoysia sod. Granted it was a bad year for winter kill on the zoysia last year, but I feel we were very fortunate after hearing about other facilities. Another project we are going to be working on is stacking rock along the creek bank by #10 green. The water flowing through the creeks after rains has started to erode the bank and could cause us some long term problems if we left it unattended. I hope everyone can get out and enjoy the weather this week. Go Cats!!!