A Break In The Weather

What a great time for a break in the weather. This week has been a delight for us here at Creekmoor. The turf was really starting to show signs of heat stress of last weeks temperatures and heat index values over 100 degrees. We came through that stretch relatively well. We had a few areas where water ran and sat in the rough and step cut that really took it on the chin. My hope is that these areas will recover over time, however there are probably a few like on #10 that we may have to address with some sod in late August or early September when the temperatures are more conducive to sodding. We also have a few collars around the greens where water pooled that are showing signs of stress most notably #2 and #10. These two collars have started rebounding nicely and should continue especially with the cool night time temperatures these next couple of days. We have started fairway aerification and have been having great luck with the weather conditions and all. We have completed 1-5 on the front and 10-14 on the back. We will continue to get 3 or 4 done a day depending on play and weather and my goal is to finish either by this weekend or early part of next week after the holiday. I hope everyone has a very safe and good holiday with family and friends. Please remember to not light fireworks on the golf course property as the native grass areas are highly flammable and it leaves a mess for us to have to clean up ahead of play the following day.

Heat Is On

The heat has come and has made quite an impression right out of the gate. After we went through the stretch of rain fall we had these temperatures are just what us Superintendents don't want to see. It is a recipe for disaster and can catch up to you if you aren't ready for it. The disease pressure has been extremely high and we have been very busy this week treating our tees, greens, green banks, and tee banks for disease and insect control. We unfortunately had some low areas that held water and developed disease that we have treated and am hoping will rebound over the next couple of weeks. We are looking to start fairway aerification on Monday and it should take us until Thursday or Friday to complete depending on weather and the amount of golfers. I would like to ask for everyone's cooperation with staying out of our native grass areas behind your houses. These areas are very sensitive areas and took my staff and I four years to establish. Please do not mow,weedeat, or create walk through areas in the grass to our cart paths. We have a no walking rule on the golf course due to liability reasons and would like to ask everyone's cooperation with this. When those native areas are mowed down it will really set the native grass back and even might kill it causing unwanted weeds to grow back. So please stay out of it and enjoy it's natural beauty. Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Disease area where water set after rain.

Low area where water stood after the rain storms and caused the grass it get infected with disease and scorched the grass with the warm temperatures

Sunny and Warmer Weather

It has been a great relief over the last couple of days to have some much needed warmer and drier weather. The golf course is finally drying out and getting back to what it should be. We finally got all the bunkers put back together Sunday morning. It literally took my crew the entire week to get them back into playing shape. I have never seen anything like it before in all of my experiences. We also have been able to get a pretty good push on getting caught up with the mowing of the roughs. We should be over the entire golf course today for the first time this week. That is saying something, cause in the past couple of weeks we have been lucky to get it all mowed one time in the week. If the weather continues to cooperate we are hopefully going to start our fairway aerification. This is a pretty invasive process that is very important to keep our fairways in good shape. We will try and do 4-6 fairways a day and hopefully won't disrupt play very much if at all. My hope with the drier weather is to get started also on spraying the clover, nut sedge, and thistle around our property. With all the rains and wet weather these weeds have really taken off and started to grow at a rapid pace. I hope all the dads had a great Father's Day! I know I did!! Have a great week and I will give everyone an update later in the week.

Golf Course Update

I just wanted to follow up and give everyone an update. Since my post on Monday we have been continuing to get hit with severe thunderstorms and high amounts of rain. We received another .5" of rain in 20 minutes on Wednesday and then last night received another 1.75". This brings the 10 day total to about 13.25" WOW!!! Needless to say the golf course is beyond wet and the bunkers are once again a mess. One good thing is we were able to get out yesterday afternoon and mow green banks and six holes worth of rough, which was marginal in itself. My hope is that the rain is finished and we can start to get caught up with the mowing of the roughs and fairways. The fairways and roughs are extremely tall and will take us a couple of mowings to get them back to where they need to be. We will continue to work on bunkers and get them done as fast as we can. I hope everyone is patient as we work on getting the golf course back into shape. On top of all of this Mother Nature is throwing in some 90+ degree days with heat indexes over 100 degrees. This will present a huge pressure of disease and stress on the turf as well. I will check back tomorrow and give everyone an update.

Wow What a Week of Rain

Well we are up to 11.25" of rain over the last seven days. I can't remember a time I have ever seen this much moisture in such a short period of time. The golf course has reached it max and has taken it on the chin pretty darn hard. I have posted some photos below of some of the amount of water we were dealing with. We lost about a 40' portion of the rock wall by the black tee on #3. We are currently getting it looked at and getting a game plan to repair it. I am having trouble uploading my pictures from my camera so if I can get them off I will attach them to this post. We are currently out getting all the trash, debris, mud, silt cleaned up around the cart paths and in the bunkers. The golf course is closed today to allow us to have the opportunity to get this done. I will follow up this week with the updates and hopefully I can get my camera to cooperate.

Photo of Lake Creekmoor dam (courtesy of Sandy Dolence)

Photo of #2 fairway (courtesy of Sandy Dolence)

Photo of #8 (courtesy of Sandy Dolence)

Photo of the water running over on #3 Fairway (courtesy of Skip and Kathy Karl)

Another shot of #3 creek (courtesy of Skip and Kathy Karl)

(Courtesy of Skip and Kathy Karl)

Member/Member Weekend

The weekend is here and man has it been a long and wet week here at Creekmoor. The rains that came on Tuesday night really messed things up. We received about 3.8" in about a four hour time frame. The creeks all were out of their banks and silt, trash, and limbs were deposited all around the golf course and cartpaths. My crew worked diligently to get the course in shape and ready for our two day Missouri Women Amateur event. Today we are starting to prep for our member/member event that is slated for Saturday and Sunday. We will be mowing fways, tees, greens, rough, and green/tee banks. I am also excited about using our brand new Salsco roller for the first time. I finally got it delivered this week just in time to hopefully help make the putting surfaces as true as possible. The sod that we put down last week has really started to take off and will continue to net down and hopefully by next week we will be able to mow it. The weather forecast for the rest of the weekend doesn't look real promising right now as they are calling for rain starting on Saturday evening and not stopping until sometime on Wednesday. Lets keep our fingers crossed that this doesn't happen as it could be a huge issue for the turf. High amounts of moisture and hot temperatures do not go together. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Warm and Dry Conditions Continue

Temperatures continue to stay in the mid to upper 80's with a few 90+ degree days and the moisture has stayed away for the most part. The sod in the fairways on #13 and 14 was completed last Friday. We are still lacking a few pieces to finish up a few odds and ends areas in 15 and 17 and hope to have these completed by the end of the week. Hopefully we will be able to maintain our normal mowing schedule this week as there are no holidays or big outside events to conflict with it. We started solid tining on our greens this morning and will hopefully complete the rest of them by tomorrow afternoon. As I have said before this is an important agronomic practice that helps us keep the water infiltration rates up and the ability for the turf to breath easier on our greens under these times of high traffic and stress. Depending on the weather and the rain chances this week we might start our aerification process in the fairways. We will be able to get 4-6 holes done a day depending on play and this process will not interrupt play at all and the playing conditions on the fairways should not change that much at all if any. I will hopefully do a better job of posting more often this week as we finally have a normal week and the grass has started to slow down growing a little bit. I Hope everyone had a great weekend and stay tuned for upcoming details here at Creekmoor.

A Great Memorial Day Weekend

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. We sure did here at Creekmoor as many of you and your guest were out enjoying the beautiful weather and playing golf. We have been busy just trying to stay up with all the mowing and clipping management after the wet weather we had a week ago. This weekend however went a long way in drying the course out and I even had to run my sprinklers in the rough last night for the second time all year! This week we are going to continue our normal mowing schedule just a day off since we had the holiday on Monday. We are also going to be getting the last of our zoysia sod and hopefully will be able to get the drain lines on #1 and #14 sodded along with some little areas here and there around the golf course in the fairways. This morning we are mowing rough, tees, fairways, approaches, and raking the bunkers. We are also applying a fungicide to our bentgrass tees to cure some "Dollar Spot" that popped up over the weekend. I am looking forward to speaking to our Tuesday night woman's league tonight and giving them a course update and answering any questions they might have. I enjoy getting these opportunities to share and explain what we do here in the maintenance department at Creekmoor. Enjoy your week and keep your fingers crossed for some nice weather as we have some chances of soggy weather later in the week.