Fall Is On It's Way

Cooler temperatures and high winds has been pretty much the norm around Creekmoor lately. The seasons are changing and the weather is showing it. We are suppose to have temperatures in the upper 30s for lows and highs in the high 50s to low 60s in the upcoming part of the week. My staff numbers have started to decrease with the cooler weather as we have had to make some tough budget decisions. It is not one of my favorite parts of my job, but unfortunately we have to do it each year. The crew that is staying here have been extremely busy this past week. We have installed some rock along the cart path next to #11 green, installed some new fescue sod in isolated areas on #1,2,3,6,9,18,10. These are some areas where the seed didn't take long or areas that were to small for the seeder to hit. I was hoping to have some photos of the nursery green we seeded and show you all how good it is doing. Due to the high winds and that we have it covered to keep the frost off of the new seedlings, I have been unable to pull the cover. Those covers act like sails in weather like this and they will pick you up off the ground and become somewhat of a dangerous situation. I hope later in the week I will be able to get these for you. I know last week I told you I was going to post some. When I got back to my office you could barely see any of the seedlings. Well this week it has really taken off and looks good. We are now on our winter mowing schedule which is mow it when we need to. The turf has really started to slow down so the mowing practices are changing. We will be on a as needed basis for the rest of the season. I anticipate we will try and get the golf course mowed on Thursday and Friday for the weekend. I hope everyone has a great week and weekend. Below I have posted some photos of the newest members to the Creekmoor Maintenance family. Take a look they are some beauties.


New Fairway Units

New Walking Greens Mowers

Nice Weather Continues

Mother Nature has continued to give us the perfect weather over the last couple of weeks. Warmer temperatures and not much wind or rain. You couldn't ask for anything better this time of year. A year ago the month of October was terribly cold and wet and not much golf was being played. What a difference a year makes. My staff is continuing to stay very busy here at Creekmoor. The turf grass growth has started to slow down a little bit, however we are still mowing on our normal schedule. I anticipate over the next week or so the growth patterns of the turf will start to slow more rapidly and we will start to make adjustments to our mowing schedule. Today we have started mowing some of the isolated areas in the native grass that were overtaken by weeds from the flooding creeks or runoff from the undeveloped surrounding properties. The weeds in the areas have been sprayed and now we are just knocking them down to give it a cleaner look. We also have started installing some rock along some of the high traffic areas along cart paths where some rutting has occurred over the season. These areas are predominately around the tee boxes where golf carts are often parked and maintenance traffic has to get around them. This will be an ongoing process over the winter. Our nursery green has started to show some signs of life finally. After about 8 days of patiently waiting the seed finally popped and the bentgrass is growing like gang busters. We are covering it at night which is helping to protect it from the cooler temperatures and frost and will also help keep the soil temperatures warmer allowing more growth. Everything looks great so far. I hope to have some pictures later today to post of the rocking and the nursery. I hope everyone has had a great week. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Crazy and Busy Week

Wow where has this week gone. It seems like just yesterday it was Monday and the start of the week. We have had a lot going on here this week and when you are busy time flies. I wanted to give everyone an update on the gentleman that went through the horrific slide down the sewer line that was found here at Creekmoor. As of Thursday afternoon he was still in ICU in an induced comma which is helping his body recover faster and is helping reduce his body from having to work extra. All the doctors seem to think his recovery should be good, but it is going to take some time. What a blessing this is and truly a miracle. We all wish him the best of luck and hope for a speedy recovery. On the golf course we have had a great week. The weather has been awesome and we have stayed busy. The KGA Senior Championship on Tuesday and Wednesday went great and I have heard nothing but positive comments from the players about the golf course which is great. My staff worked very hard in getting the golf course ready for the event. We have been able to stay on our normal mowing schedule and should be able to finish mowing everything by the end of today. It looks like the temperatures are going to continue to be nice so the turf should continue to grow at a pretty good clip. We have started to see some isolated areas where grubs are starting to pop up. This is common especially after all the moisture we had this year. The grub treatment we put down for prevention earlier in the year could have been washed through the profile a little faster then normal so grubs could be present in some areas. We are just spot treating as we see them and they are gone within 2-3 days. So everyone might want to keep an eye on your lawns and if the turfs starts to look a little dry you might want to check under the grass and see if you have any grubs feeding. Some projects we will be starting in the next couple of weeks will be some rocking along cart path edges, isolated sodding in the roughs, bunker repair on #16, and some hand topdressing on #2 and #10 greens. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Golf Course Employees Race To Aid Search - Video - KMBC Kansas City

Golf Course Employees Race To Aid Search - Video - KMBC Kansas City

Worker Swept Away In Sewers Rescued - Video - KMBC Kansas City

Worker Swept Away In Sewers Rescued - Video - KMBC Kansas City

Much Needed Rain

We finally received a little rain shower overnight and this morning. Things were starting to get a little bit dry over the last week and half or so do to warmer temperatures and low humidity. As I am writing this we have received a little over .4" of rainfall. Course conditions are a little damp. However we are still able to get out and get some of our regular mowing done in front of the Kansas Golf Association event that is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. As I mentioned last week we were able to get our nursery green reseeded and are in the process of waiting on the seed to pop. We will hopefully see some new seedlings in the next couple of days. All of our over seeded areas in the roughs continue to grow and fill in nicely. There are a few areas that aren't taking the seed as well due to foot traffic and cart traffic. We will be doing some isolated sodding on these areas later in the week after the KGA event. The greens have started to really roll out nicely and get a good pace to them. We have been working hard on getting them as consistent as possible and keeping them hydrated at the same time. Several days of low humidity can really start to dry them out and you have to stay up on your watering practices. We have officially put the zoysia to bed for the winter. I was debating about mowing it one more time, but with the temperatures cooling off and the nice mat we have on it I decided it was best to not mow it and let the leaf tissue protect the plant over winter. I hope everyone has a great week!!

First Frost

The cooler temperatures and shorter days have started to really slow down the growth of the turf. We had our first rounds of frost on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday mornings which is what really started to slow growth down. Our third annual Ladies Member/Guest tournament benefiting Breast Cancer Awareness over the weekend was a huge success once again. Besides the cooler and windy weather it sounds like everyone involved had a great time. Congratulations to Sandy Dolence and all the ladies that participated and helped coordinate this event for a great cause. My staff has continued to stay busy finishing up some spot seeding and working on some small projects behind some of the new home construction sites for 2010. We have completed most of our over seeding and will hopefully start to see some seed popping in the next couple of weeks. Another item we will be working on over the next couple of days is re-seeding our greens nursery. We finally were able to use most of our nursery up and will get the opportunity to seed it again and start over. I was hoping this would be the case as our nursery was needing to be improved and redone. My hope is to get it seeded this week so we can get some decent growth on it before the cold weather hits for good. Several have asked me if I am going to mow our native grass areas any this winter? I am planning to do some isolated spot mowing in the areas where the water set and the weeds took hold this year. As we have talked through out this year the weeds were really popular with the wet and hot conditions we had. It was a banner year for them and it was a dog fight to get rid of them and keep them out. Mowing will help eliminate them for the most part and if the native area is weak we will re-seed it so that it will thicken up next spring. Along with all of these items we will stay on our normal mowing schedule adjusting it as turf growth dictates. I hope everyone has a great week and GO WILDCATS!!

Preparations for Ladies Member/Guest Invitational

The weather has continued to be awesome this week and is providing my staff a lot of opportunities to get a lot of work and projects completed. We have finally been able to get back on our regular mowing schedule after several weeks here of weather interruptions. The rough is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. We have been able to stay on top of it and are going to be able to mow it twice this week, which we haven't been able to do for the last couple of weeks due to the rain. My staff also has started reseeding a few areas in the native grass that were damaged from home construction. These areas should start to grow a little bit over the next couple of weeks. However it will really start to grow and fill in next spring so please be patient. Greens have continued to improve after aeration and seem to be close to 100% today. They have gotten better and better each day and my feeling is they are finally back to rolling and putting like normal. If you didn't know that the tees were aerified and top dressed you wouldn't know that we did it. They healed very nicely over the last week and half and are back to normal playing conditions. Today my staff is in full preparation mode for our Ladies Member/Guest Invitational. It looks like the weather is going to be fantastic. A little chill in the air to start the mornings off, but then it is going to be in the mid to lower 60's. I hope all the ladies and their guest enjoy the golf course and have a great time for a great cause with the Susan G Komen foundation benefiting. Have a great weekend!!