Ringing In The New Year

As you can imagine it has been a cold and dreary week here at Creekmoor. We have been under snow and ice for at least 7 days and the temperature has been cold and windy. My staff has been confined to working on inside projects in our maintenance facility and everyone is getting a little antsy to get outside again. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the weather is going to allow that any time soon. Nonetheless we will continue to get our inside projects completed (tee markers, equipment rebuilds, painting, and cleaning). We weren't able to get equipment out to go to #6 to work on the tree. My hope is that next week sometime the cart paths will melt off and allow us to get equipment out. Right now they are iced over with snow drifts at least 3 to 4 feet in some spots. I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year. My staff and I have been truly blessed this year here at Creekmoor and are looking forward to a prosperous 2010!

Snowy Conditions

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas with family and friends. Over the Christmas holiday we were blessed with some significant snow fall. By all accounts around Creekmoor it seems we received anywhere from 4" to 8" of snow depending on where you were on the property. The worst part of the storm was the high winds that caused some severe drifting and extremely cold wind chill temperatures. The last couple of days we have been shoveling, plowing, and removing the snow and ice around the clubhouse area and our maintenance facility. I have uploaded a couple of pictures that were taken in our maintenance facility parking lot this morning. I hope over the next couple of days that the snow will start to melt a little bit which will hopefully allow us to get over the #6 to remove the big dead tree on the right side of the hole. If we can't get out we will continue to work on inside projects(redoing tee markers, painting trailers, rebuilding reel mowers, and some deep cleaning and reorganizing). I can't believe it is the last week of 2009! Where did it go? Hope everyone stays warm and has a great week.



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Christmas Time Is Here

To quote one of my favorite Christmas carols "It is the most wonderful time of the year". I absolutely love Christmas time and the opportunity you get to spend time with family and loved ones. Here at Creekmoor we have been staying rather busy with some warmer weather. This week we were able to get the drainage on #8 fairway completed just in time before this wet winter storm hits. We were also able to mow the greens and clean them up a little bit on Tuesday. Also we finally got all 18 greens with two cups on them. I would like to still encourage everyone if you play to move the flag stick to the other hole after you complete the hole. This will help move the play around and not wear out one area of the green. The weather over the holiday is somewhat of a mystery. All the weathermen thought they new exactly what was going to happen over the last couple of days. We are suppose to get a substantial amount of rain (i.e. .5- 1") and then it is going to turn into snow overnight and into tomorrow (2-4"). A fun little fact that the last time we had a white Christmas was 1969, so it has been an awful long time here in KC. The Creekmoor maintenance staff would like to wish each and everyone of you a very Merry Christmas. I hope everyone stays safe if you are traveling and look forward to seeing you all again real soon.

Two Cups on Greens

I have been getting several questions about the greens having multiple cups cut in them. I go to this practice this time of year due to the ground freezing and continual play. If I was to leave a single cup on the greens the areas around the cups would get worn out and start to show signs of stress. By putting two cups in the golfers can rotate the flag between the two cups helping to spread out foot traffic and wear and tear. The greens that we have yet to change are showing this now as we have been having some nicer days allowing there to be some golf played. We are in the process of trying to get two cups in every green. However we have been having a hard time doing this as the ground ended up freezing earlier then I anticipated and has delayed this process. I hope to try and have them all done by the end of this week. We also have been working on the drain complex on #8 fairway. I hope to have this completed by mid-week. This should help us out tremendously in being able to control the moisture and water run off in this area. I hope everyone had a great weekend. It is going to be a short work week this week with the Christmas holiday. I hope everyone has a very safe and Merry Christmas. If you are traveling make sure and check the weather status before you go. It looks like we are going to have a pretty significant winter storm front coming in over the next couple of days causing some major travel headaches.

A Little Balmy

I hope everyone has had a great week. The week started off in the deep freeze and has since bounced back and warmed up on Wednesday and should continue into today. I know my staff is appreciating it tremendously as we are continuing to work on some of our projects. We have continued to install drainage in the fairway on #8. The crew has completed half of it and will continue to work on it today and tomorrow with the hopes of completing it on Friday. We are also continuing to work on the rock work along the cart paths in the high traffic areas. I am hoping that we will be able to mow the greens today at some point. We will have to wait on the ground to thaw out a little bit before we can do this. It is not preferred to mow the bentgrass when the ground is frozen as the mower tends to cause some damage and doesn't seem to mow as even and at the high quality we look for. Also we will hopefully be installing the rest of the two cups on each green so that we can rotate play around the green during the winter months while the greens are frozen. This practice keeps us from wearing out one area of the green and also provides a variety of hole locations for the golfers. During the freezing cold mornings and days we have been able to work on a variety of projects inside the shop. We have been redoing our tee markers, enter/exit stakes, and ball washers. We also have been continuing our annual equipment rebuilds on our reel mowers and trailers. I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and I look forward to seeing you all real soon.

Frosty Frosty Frosty

The last couple of days has been nothing short of cold and frigid. The ground has been full of snow and frost the entire week. It has been somewhat a shock to my system, as I wasn't ready for it to go from 50's & 60's over Thanksgiving weekend to 10's & 20's for highs this last week. Needless to say our opportunities to get out on the golf course this week has been rather limited due to freezing temperatures and the snow fall that is on the ground. However we were able to get the drainage complex in #1 fairway completed on Thursday. We are looking to go to #8 hopefully sometime next week if the weather cooperates and install another drainage complex. My staff also had the opportunity to do a major cleaning of the shop. We pulled everything out and completely cleaned and reorganized it to make it more efficient and presentable. Also we have been working on redoing our bird houses, enter/exit stakes, and ball washers. It looks like the weather is going to rebound a little bit over the weekend. Hopefully the temperatures will rise enough to allow the snow to melt so that some of the die hard golfers can get out and play. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

First Winter Storm

It looks like we are going to have our first winter storm for the year. Depending on how the storm moves we could get anywhere from 2-11" of snow. The weathermen at this time are unsure of how the front is going to move across the state. It sounds like we should be on the southern edge and hopefully won't get the brunt of the storm, but we have a 100% chance of getting rain or snow. We have been continuing our work on drainage projects. My staff has moved over to #1 fairway and are in the process of installing the drain complex in the enter area of the fairway. As long as the temperatures and windchill hold steady above single digits we will continue to work on the drainage and rocking of the cartpaths. If temperatures and windchill's are in the single digits we will be working on some inside projects. We will be refinishing our bird houses, Enter/Exit stakes, and tee markers. We are also going to be continuing our rebuilding of our reel mower equipment and all other equipment needs. I hope everyone had a great weekend and stays warm over the next couple of days.

Colder Weather Continues

Temperatures have continued to stay cold and windy. It sounds like we are going to have a pretty good chance of seeing some snow by the end of the weekend or the beginning of the week. We were able to get the drainage complex completed on #9 fairway this week. This will be a huge advantage for us as we move in to periods of wet and cold weather. The drains should go a long way in helping us eliminate some of the winter kill that occurred in this area last year. We are continuing to work on installing the rock along the cart path areas. We have finished #11 and are now working on the area next to #10 green. This is a heavy traffic area and the rocks will hopefully provide a spot for the golf carts to scoot over and park and let other traffic get by them easier while the golfers are putting on the green. I hope everyone has a warm and enjoyable weekend.

Winter Is Finally Here

Well it looks like temperatures have started to turn colder and possibly our first chance of snow is in the very near future. As the weather people around this area typically try and be the first ones to predict snow, I will believe it when I see it. My staff has continued to stay very busy working on projects and doing some occasional mowing. Warmer temperatures over the holiday week and weekend continued to make the bentgrass on the greens and tees continue to grow, thus we have been doing our every other day mowing on these surfaces. It looks like the temperatures are really going to dip over the next couple of days which will cause the cool season grasses to really start to slow up and almost stop growing. We also started on one of our major drainage projects in #9 fairway. I have enclosed a photo of the project below. This is our worst area for standing water and was the area we lost most of our zoysia in a year ago due to the excessive amounts of moisture and cold temperatures. We will hopefully complete this project this week and will look to get started on hole #8 as soon as possible. I also have uploaded a picture of our cart path project we have been doing since last year. I used a lot of the native stones that are here on site and have installed them along the edges of the cart paths to help with rutting and excessive traffic. It went over very well and I have received several compliments on it. We are continuing to do this in some of the high traffic areas again this year. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

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!!!

Rain Again!!

The rain just keeps on a coming! We received about 1.8" of rain on Thursday. Course conditions are very wet and carts will be on paths until conditions dry out. Today we will be starting on repairing the bunkers and getting them put back into playing shape. We are also going to be mowing greens as well. The bridge crossings were completed prior to the storm and really seemed to hold up well with all the water flowing through the creeks. This is a tremendous improvement over what we have been dealing with when it comes to the erosion factor around each bridge. Hopefully this will help extend the life time of the bridges and will keep them sturdy for a long time. I hope everyone has a great and safe Haloween!

Busy Busy Busy

Course conditions here at Creekmoor continue to stay wet. We received about 2.75" of rain since last Thursday. The course is going to take some time to dry out as temperatures are going to be good, but the ground is so saturated that the water has no where to go right now. It looks like we have more chances as the week goes on for more rain, so we will have to continue to monitor the situation. As the weather is changing some people probably assume that my staff and I get the opportunity to relax and slow down. Actually it is the direct opposite. We get the opportunity to start working on some of our bigger projects of the year without having a lot of golf balls flying on the golf course. We have been working on repairing a couple of our underneath sides of our bridge crossings due to high water flow and some erosion issues. The creeks have been washing out the back fill around the bridges which could lead to some serious problems down the road allowing the brides and cart paths to settle. We have made a tremendous amount of progress and should be finishing up on these in the next day or two. As soon as conditions start to dry out a little we will start some drainage work in the fairways. I would like to get some of these areas done as soon as I can so that the water doesn't sit there and freeze and cause winter dessication to the dormant zoysia grass. My staff has also been working on keeping up with the on-course mowing as the course conditions allow. We have also been spot spraying broad-leaf weeds in the rough and fairways and cool season grass in our fairways. Not only is my staff great at growing grass, but we can do some handy man work as well. We have been having some issues with water leaking into one of the turrets on the North end entrance area and causing us some issues on our entrance fountain. The issue has been corrected as we were able to re-shingle the roof and correct the problem. Speaking of the fountain it was drained and winterized yesterday to get it ready for the winter months ahead. I hope everyone had a great weekend. If you have any questions feel free to contact me at any time.

Wet and Chilly

Once again the weather has switched and made conditions wet and cool. We received about 1.75" on Wednesday and Thursday. Course conditions are very wet and the temperatures aren't going to warm up much today. However I think temperatures over the weekend are suppose to be reasonable and the highs should be in the mid to upper 50's or low 60's. However the mornings are going to be in the low 30's, so it will have to warm up a bunch throughout the day. Despite the weather we have had a great and productive week. We have made a lot of headway on the bridge repairs on #8 and #12 by stacking rock in the eroded areas and then capping them with concrete. This should go a long way in helping to control the erosion in these areas due to the amount of water that flows through these areas. Luckily we were able to get the golf course completely mowed out prior to the rain and damp conditions that we have currently. Today we are mowing greens and cleaning up and raking the bunkers after the storm. My staff seems to be on the minds from the flu as we are finally at full strength today for the first time this week. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Projects and Flu Season

Well the weather finally gave us some sunshine and warmer conditions for a few days. I hope everyone was able to get out and enjoy it while it was here. It looks like cooler conditions are going to be moving back in over the next couple of days along with some rain showers. This week we have been able to get the golf course mowed out (rough and green banks)on schedule. We are currently mowing greens and tees about every other day right now due to the growing pattern of the turf. Along with our normal golf course maintenance we are working on some projects around the golf course. One of those is spraying fairways for cool season grass control and broad leaf weeds. We are also working on repairing some of our bridge crossings due to some of the creek banks washing out from all the rain fall. We are rebuilding these areas and stacking rock and concrete around them to help control the erosion. Another project we are working on is trimming around irrigation heads and valves. The grass starts to grow up around the heads and valves and makes it hard to see the yardages on the heads and impedes us from seeing them when we start to shut the system down for the winter later in the year. The flu bug has started to hit my staff over the last couple of days. We have been averaging at least one to two guys being sick from work this week. I hope everyone has been able to stay healthy and have had a great week.

Course Update

Conditions here at Creekmoor continue to be damp and wet. We received .6" of rain on Tuesday night, and then received another .25" of rain last night. Needless to say course conditions are very wet. Carts will once again be on cart paths today and hopefully the golf course will start to dry out in the next day or so. We are going to be spiking the greens this morning in front of the mowers. This process is necessary due to the fact that we have received so much moisture over the last couple of days and the greens need to dry out a bit. The spiking will help speed this process up while helping the green take in some oxygen which will continue to help the greens be at their top form. Bunker work is also going to be a high priority today after the series of rain the last couple of days. My staff also is working on a few projects around the golf course. We are currently working on some cleanup work in the creek beds on #4 and #8. We are just cleaning out some of the brush and undergrowth that has built up over this season. Another project we are working on is repairing the bridge on #12. With all the rain we have been having the water in the creek has started to erode the soil underneath the bridge on #12 and could cause us some real issues if we left it unattended. Our goal is to refill the area with some topsoil and then stack rock around it to try and hold off the erosion from happening. We have had good luck with this process on another one of our bridges so hopefully it works this time as well. The rough has really slowed down on it's growth over the last couple of days due to the cooler temperatures. We mowed all the rough, green banks, and tee banks on Monday and Tuesday and I don't feel like we will have to mow again this week due to the lack of growth we are getting right now. If temperatures turn around we may have to go back to our typical mowing schedules. Hope everyone has had a great week.

Continued Cool and Damp Conditions

Cool and damp seems to be the weather of choice for good "Ol' Mother Nature"! Temperatures have stayed below normal over the weekend and it doesn't look like they are going to come back up until the end of the week. The golf course is trying to dry out, but with the slow mist all day today and the little shower we got overnight it has not allowed it to do it very good. Course conditions continue to be very damp. Most of the major weather services are calling for a 40-70% chance of rain Tuesday and Tuesday night, so the drying out process is probably going to take a little bit longer. Today we were able to get most of the rough and green banks mowed. The turf has really started to slow down its growing pattern. However if the temperatures rebound again soon it will start to grow again as long as the soil temperatures stay above the 50-60 degree mark on a consistent basis. As soon as dryer weather moves in we are going to be starting on spraying some broad leaf weeds (mainly clover) in the dormant zoysia along with some of the cool season grasses that have germinated this fall while the temperatures are still somewhat on the warmer side. I hope you all had a great weekend. I hope to see you all or talk with you soon.

Cool and Damp

The weather has once again provided us here at Creekmoor a bit of a challenge. We received a little over 3.25" which started yesterday morning and finally stopped sometime overnight. Course conditions are going to be extremely wet. Today my staff is going to start working on repairing the bunkers and trying to mow the greens and tees depending on how soft they are. Carts obviously are going to be restricted to cart paths only as we wait for the conditions to firm up and dry out. We where able to get the roughs mowed earlier in the week prior to the storm moving in. My hope is that with the cooler temperatures that the roughs have slowed down and won't be out of control by the time the course conditions are dry enough for us to mow. I hope everyone has a good and warm weekend. It looks like the temperatures are really going to dip down over the weekend. Stay warm and we will see you all soon.

Frost Is Here

I guess "Mother Nature" has decided it is time to have some frost in the mornings. As I am sitting here writing this post we are waiting on the frost to break so that we can get out and get the golf course ready for the day. This time of year it becomes a pretty big battle as we are battling less day light and more frost delays. Please be patient with the frost delays. There isn't a whole lot we can do to speed them up when the temperatures are in the low 30's . If the temperatures are in the mid to upper 40's and we have a light frost we can sometimes water it off and speed up the process. However if it is in the 30's we are at the mercy of the sun and temperature to help us out as the water will just freeze back and cause an even longer delay. The grass is definitely starting to slow down on it growing cycle with the cooler weather. We have stopped mowing fairways for the year in an attempt to let the zoysia grow and get some insulation for the winter which will hopefully help it survive the winter months with more leaf tissue to help it store food and insulate the crown of the plant. We are going to be slowing down on some of the other mowing as the weather dictates. As soon as the mowing slows down we will be starting some drainage projects in some of the fairways. The weather forecast for the rest of the week doesn't look very good at the moment. They are calling for 2-4 inches of rain to fall between tonight and Friday morning. Hopefully it will be a nice slow steady rain and not cause us a lot of cleanup and repair. I hope all the women that participated in the Creekmoor Ladies Member/Guest tournament over the weekend. It sounds like you had a great event and raised some money for "The Cure". I hope everyone else had a great weekend as well. Cross your fingers on the rain. I look forward to seeing you all soon.

October is Here

Wow I can't believe it is October already! Man where did the summer go? It has been a very busy, but good week. The greens are looking better and better and most of them are back in shape and are close to being 100%. The five greens I had the aerifier damage on are a still a little behind, but they are healing very nicely. We received about .50" of rain overnight and into this morning. The golf course is going to be wet. As I am writing this I am unsure of the course conditions as we are waiting on the storm to move out so we can get going for the day. We are planning on spiking and mowing greens this morning unless conditions are too wet. With all the rolling and mowing we have done the last couple of weeks trying to get the greens back in shape, we actually have caused the greens to seal off a little bit. We are going to spike them in hopes of opening up the surface a little bit to let them breathe and not hold a bunch of moisture in them after the rain. On Friday we will be doing a light topdressing to try and continue to level out some of the holes that have settled on the greens after aeration due to the settlement of the sand. As soon as conditions allow us too we will continue are normal mowing schedule in the roughs and green banks. We were able to get everything mowed on Monday and Tuesday in front of the KGA Senior Team Championship. If you are going to be playing golf in the early mornings coming up, you better bring your jackets and sweaters. The last two mornings we have had some frost for the first time this year.

KGA Senior Team Championship

What a great weekend we had here at Creekmoor this past week. The weather was fantastic and the golfing conditions continue to improve after the aeration. This week we have a pretty busy beginning to the week. We are hosting the KGA Senior Team Championship Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We will be busy in the mornings prepping the golf course for this event and trying to stay up on the mowing ahead of their 8am start times. The greens are continually improving each day and are healing up rather quickly. The greens we had the aerifier damage on are a little slower in the healing process, but I am confident they will be almost completely healed by the end of this week into the beginning of next week. The plugs in the rough continue to slowly melt away. Hopefully by the end of the week you will not be able to see very many of them. After the championship we will be giving the greens a nice little topdressing to finish off filling the holes in and continue to help them smooth out. We have started on our over seeding in the roughs areas and still have a couple more holes to finish. After we get done with that we will begin on some native areas that are thin or never really got established after construction. I hope everyone had a great weekend. See you soon on the golf course.

Overseeding and Greens Recovery

This is a picture of one of our tractors and our overseeder. We started overseeding today in some of the high traffic areas and areas where the grass has been slower to establish. We don't have a lot of areas so this process should go pretty quickly. We are seeding with an 100% mix of turf type tall fescues.
I am pretty happy with how far the greens have come in just eight days. They are recovering from the aeration nicely.
Here is a photo of one of the greens that got damaged by the aerifier. It is recovering, but all the greens that had damage are about a week behind. These areas will go away, but it will just take some time and good growing weather for them to heal.

Greens Recovery

I hope everyone had a great weekend. The greens here at Creekmoor are recovering rather well and rather quickly. I know the areas we had some mechanical damage will take a little bit more time and care, however I feel pretty good about where we are at right now. We have started to mow the greens and pick up the access sand. We will continue this process for the next couple of days in hopes of getting our walk mowers back out for the weekend. We finally finished aerifying the rough this morning. It is going to be an ongoing practice of my staff mowing and rain that will help break down the plugs in the rough areas. I know this isn't the most ideal situation however it is a very important practice for us in the management practices we do and will hopefully help us to stay at a high level of maintenance here at Creekmoor. Later in the week we will start some of our over-seeding process in some of the thinner areas in the rough and in some native areas.

Aeration Complete

We finally finished up aeration yesterday around 4pm. It was a very busy couple of days, but well worth the work. We had great weather and for the most part we had no major set backs. We did however have some damage done to a few of the greens from an aerator malfunction. These areas will take a little longer to heal then the other greens. I would like to apologize to everyone for this setback and ask for everyone's patience. I don't anticipate it being a substantial amount of extra time to heal, although it will require some TLC from my staff. I posted a picture of the damage below in my Thursday post. We should finish up aerating the rough today sometime. I know the plugs laying around is not ideal, but once again I would like to ask for your patience with this. The plugs should start disappearing over the next week or so as we continue to mow and chop them up. Hopefully over the weekend we will be able to get caught back up on our mowing schedule with the weather permitting and as the plugs dry. We can't mow until the plugs dry out or it causes a huge muddy mess. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Hopefully my beloved Wildcats can get lucky and pull out a win, although that is highly unlikely.

Pictures from Aeration

Had a spectator watching what we were doing. He had to climb up the tree to get a better look!!

Unfortunately I had one of my aerifiers malfunction during the aeration. We had already completed five greens before we noticed the damage. We were able to get the problem fixed, but unfortunately there are five greens (12, 3, 5, 7) that will take a little longer to heal. One of the aerification tines drug a little bit instead of picking up out of the ground totally.
Here we are dragging the dry sand into the holes.
Picture of the holes after the plugs have been picked up by hand and the green then has been topdressed.
One of the aerifiers we used on our greens and tees.
Plugs that are left behind after the aerator goes through.

Congrats to the 2009 Golf Club at Creekmoor Club Champions

I would like to congratulate the 2009 Golf Club at Creekmoor Club Champions. In the ladies division Ms. Sheri Rehmer captured her first ever Golf Club at Creekmoor ladies title. In the senior division Mr. Mark Dunlap won in thrilling fashion by breaking a three way tie on hole #18. Last but not least congratulations to Mr. Kevin Handlan on his consistentaly solid play in the open divison on his way to capturing the title. I hope all of the competitors had a great weekend of golf. My staff and I are gearing up for our fall aeration beginning tomorrow. It looks like the weather is going to cooperate and it should be some ideal weather conditions to aerify. Today we are trying to get rough and green banks mowed out as far as we can so that my staff can concentrate on aerification the next two days. We were also able to get fairways, tees, and approaches mowed as well. We applied a fungicide to the greens to control some cool weather disease (Dollar Spot) that we were seeing on them. I will try and update you all with some pictures during aerification the next two days.

Club Championship Preparations

We have continued to have a great week here at Creekmoor. My staff has been working hard and the weather has been cooperating, which has allowed us to stay on our normal mowing schedule. We also were able to get all the starter fertilizer put out on the rough and get the tees fertilized as well in preparation for next weeks aeration. I have been gone the past two days attending an Leadership Academy at the national GCSAA headquarters. I was selected to attend by my local chapter and feel very honored that they choose me. I learned a lot of new things and hope that I will use them and continue to grow as a leader in all aspects of my life. We are looking forward to this weekend as it is our Club Championship weekend. The golf course should be in great shape and hopefully the weather will cooperate. We have a few chances of rain over the weekend, but hopefully they will hold off. My staff and I will be putting the final touches on the golf course today for the weekend in preparation for the Championship. I wish everyone good luck and I hope everyone plays well.

Great Holiday Weekend

I hope everyone enjoyed their Holiday weekend as much as I did. We were blessed once again with beautiful cool and dry weather. This week should be a typical week here at Creekmoor for the turf care staff. We will hopefully get back on our regular mowing schedule by the end of today weather permitting. We have a chance of rain showers later today into tomorrow, so we will have to see what happens. We are also applying our starter fertilizer to the rough in preparations for our over seeding and aerification in the rough that is coming up next week. Also today we are spot spraying broad leaf weeds in the roughs and fairways. The broad leaf weeds have just exploded with all the cool moist weather we have been having. Some of you who have been playing over the weekend will notice some areas in the fairways that look like something has been scratching or digging. These are areas where either skunks, turkeys, or raccoons have been digging trying to eat the grub worms. We didn't pre-treat our fairways for grubs this year in a cost saving move, however we are spot treating these areas and should hopefully keep them under check. If it gets out of control this year we may have to re-evaluate our application for next year. With all the woodlands and open space we have we are a prime candidate for this type of activity. If I get some time later today I will try and get out and take a picture of these areas and get it posted on the blog.

Productive Week

It has been another very productive and tremendous weather week. My staff and I have been able to stay on our regular mowing schedule for the week without any rain interruptions. The spots in the collars that were stressed due to all the prep work for the Member/Guest have started to slowly heal up. They will take a little time, but they should continue to heal in this cooler weather. We also started on some over seeding in some of the outer native areas behind newly constructed homes. This is going to be on going over the next week or so as we work towards green, tee, and rough aeration (September 15 & 16). Once the rough is aerified after the Club Championship (September 12 & 13) we will begin over seeding the thin areas in the primary rough. We don't have a lot of over seeding to do, so it should be a pretty quick process this year. It is going to be a busy holiday weekend here at Creekmoor. I hope everyone has a chance to get out and enjoy it. What more could you ask for great weather and college football starting. It is my favorite time of the year.

A Great Weekend

We had a tremendous weekend here at Creekmoor. I hope all of you that played in the Member/Guest had a great time. We were blessed with great weather and Mother Nature held off the rain. This week we are going to be slowing down on the amount of mowing in the fairways. This is because as the days get shorter and temperatures get cooler the zoysia grass starts to slow down on growing and eventually goes dormant. We want to have the zoysia a little taller then normal going into it's dormancy. This will help the zoysia store up carbohydrates in the taller leaf tissue thus helping it to survive over the winter dormancy. So we will be mowing the zoysia at .750 instead of .500. Also we double spiked the greens and solid tined the collars this morning. After all the foot traffic and mechanical traffic from my equipment in preparation for the member the guest, the greens needed to be opened up to let them breathe and relive some of the compaction. We will be back on our normal schedules of mowing in the roughs and around the greens and tees. If temperatures stay as they are, here in the next couple of weeks we will begin our aeration of the rough and start on our overseeding of some native areas and rough areas on an as needed basis. I appreciate everyone's positive comments on the blog. Please feel free to let me know if you think I can improve it or make it more informative. Again thank you to all for the positive comments during the Member/Guest! It was a team effort, so if you see my crew please express it to them as well. Without them I would not be able to survive and accomplish what we do.

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.

Morning Photos

I have been asked by several people why there are some thin areas in the zoysia on #8 fairway. The main reason this area struggled coming out of the spring is due to the fact it is in the low and it gets a lot of runoff from the surrounding areas above the golf hole. Another one of the reasons the zoysia has struggled in this area is from lack of sunshine and heat. It was set back originally by the moisture and cold temperatures in the winter and then recovery has been rather slow due to the shade.

Here is a picture of one of the bridges that we staind this week. We hope to have all the others completed by next week.

An early morning photo of #1 green on Friday.

Another early morning photo of #1 green on a beautiful cool and crisp 57 degree morning.

Weekly Update

On Tuesday we received about .5" of rain. It was a good slow and steady rain and didn't cause too many washouts in the bunkers or make the course conditions very wet for a long period of time. Here is an update of what has been going on this week. We have been having a great week and have been getting a lot of the planned items finished. My staff was able to get another 8 holes solid tined and we only have four more to do on Friday. This is a monthly practice and is very beneficial in helping the greens breathe, water movement, and root development. We are starting on our second time of mowing the rough, tee banks, and green banks. We should be able to get over these areas twice this week without any major setbacks. The bridges on holes #4 and between #7 & #8 were stained this morning. We will hopefully get the other bridges on the back nine finished either Friday or beginning of next week. Native grass spraying is continuing and we are currently working on the last of the remaining holes. I hope to have holes #2, 3, 4, and 5 finished by Friday. That should leave a few remaining holes on the back nine left and maybe some isolated areas on some other holes that we will come back through and touch up as we see them. I will try and get some photos of the finished product on the bridges put up sometime today. Enjoy the beautiful weather and I will see you all soon.

Nice Week Ahead

As I am writing this update I am sitting in my office waiting on the rain to fall . It doesn't look like it is going to be raining for very long, but it looks like it might drop a fair amount of moisture. If the weather man is correct in his predictions we are going to have another great weather week, which will allow us to get several things done this week that we haven't been able to get too. On Monday we were able to get four more greens solid tine (putting clock, #1, #2, and #3). We also were able to get a lot of the rough, tee banks, fairways, and tees mowed. We will continue to work on getting the rough mowed throughout the week. Recently we have been battling a bit of a problem with our irrigation pumping system. We are currently looking into this and have had some representatives from our local distributor and service men out to take a look at it. I will keep everyone up to date. Luckily the weather has been good and we haven't needed it much lately. Other items we are working on this week will be continued spraying of native areas, weed eating bunker edges, staining of bridges, grinding of reels, and a few other items. I hope you all had a great weekend. See you soon.

Heat Maybe??

It looks like we may actually have to endure one day of summer heat today. They are calling for a high around 94 degrees. It will be warm, but it is still a far cry from where we are normally this time of year and I am very thankful for that. We have had a great week and have been able to get a lot of mowing, weedeating, and spraying done. We also were able to get some out of play areas picked up and cleaned up from home construction. These have been areas that we have known about for a while, but just haven't been able to get to them with all the mowing and spraying we have been doing due to the amounts of rainfall. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

What An Awesome Morning

Man if you weren't up before 7 am this morning you missed one of the most beautiful mornings and sunrises you could have asked for. Unfortunately I wish I had my camera to take a picture of it, but I forgot the camera in my office and by the time I got back to get it it was over. We had a pretty good morning today on getting the golf course prepared for play. We mowed greens, tees, and continued on our green banks. The ground has dried up considerably which has allowed us to release carts into the fairways and get a lot of my equipment out and moving. I hope to have all the rough mowed down today for the first time, so that we can start back over on it tomorrow and have it mowed down for the weekend. We are going to be starting again on spraying of weeds in the native areas as soon as my sprayer gets done spraying our monthly fungicide application on our green banks. Hope you all have a great day.

Timely Rains

This was actually a very timely rain for us. The golf course had actually started to dry down quite a bit over the last couple of days. Temperatures have been pleasant, but the humidity levels have been very low. Low humidity levels cause the moisture in the ground to dissipate very quickly, thus causing dry conditions. We received a little over .8" of rain overnight. It has made the golf course rather soft this morning and we are unable to get any mowers or heavy equipment out on it. We are working on getting the bunkers cleaned up and pushed back into place and are doing some other detail work like weed eating bunker edges, edging tee markers, and changing cups. I hope everyone had a great weekend and was able to get out and enjoy the spectacular weather we had. It looks like the temperatures are going to stay pretty steady the rest of the week in mid to upper 80's which should be very pleasant.

More Morning Photos

Just another beautiful photo of #17 with the sprinklers running. I had to water in some fertilizer that was put down on Thursday. We are fortunate in my opinion to have one of the most beautiful holes in golf right here at The Golf Club at Creekmoor.
Greens mower mowing #8 green
Had some Dollar Spot which is a fungus that appears as little brown spots the size of a silver dollar appear on our tees the last couple of days. We applied a fungicide this morning to control this disease.

What A Start To A Day In July

I thought I would post some pictures from early this morning. I haven't put any up of us mowing and getting started in the mornings to show everyone what goes on bright and early in the mornings. Man what a morning it was. Beautiful weather and cool brisk temperatures. You could not ask for anything better in the month of July.

Course Update

Once again "Mother Nature" blessed us with some morning showers. We received a little over .5" of rain in a short amount of time. We were unable to mow fairways and greens due to the wet condtions. We will spend the rest of the day pushing, cleaning, and raking bunkers to get them back in to shape. We also are pushing the envelope, but are trying to get the rough mowed down to try and stay ahead of the growth. We also applied a fungicide, fertilizer, and nutrient pack to the greens. We have had a little outbreak of "black algae" on our greens. The damp moist and humid conditions have been perfect for the development of the algae layer. Our greens also still need to recover a bit from the verticutting that was performed on them the week before. These areas are good areas for the algae to move in due to the weakening of the turf. The chemical application this morning should go a long ways in helping us remedy this situation.

Great Start to The Week

It is the beginning of another week and the weather looks like it is going to continue to be in our favor. We have been receiving some timely rains and cooler temperatures, and you will not hear me complain about any of that in the middle of July. We will be spending the first part of the week getting the bunkers back in place after the 1" plus rain we got on Sunday. We will try and get the rough and fairways mowed downed as soon as it dries out enough to where we can get equipment out on them without making a mess. We will be continuing to spray the native grass areas weather permitting. I hope everyone had a great weekend. I would like to congratulate my assistant Rory O'Donovan on his new addition to his family. He and his wife welcomed in Liam Andrew O'Donovan 7 lbs 10 oz. on Sunday evening. I hope you all have a great week.

Little Drippy This Morning

We received abut .20" of rain this morning. Just enough to make it a little sticky this afternoon with the warm temperatures they are predicting. I won't complain however, cause getting any kind of moisture this time of year is a huge bonus. I was able to get the greens topdressed yesterday to help them continue to heal up after the verticut last week. My staff was also able to stay on top of all the mowing on the golf course and we should be able to get over the rough for a second time by the end of today. We were also able to get holes 9, 8, 7, native sprayed. We will continue to work on this for the next couple of weeks. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Project Update

It looks like we are going to have another heat wave the rest of this week. I guess summer had to come eventually. Here are some updates of on course projects that we have been working on. We were able to get all the fairways aerated and and cleaned up on Tuesday. The zoysia sodding is completed and the new sod should start taking off quickly with the warmer temperatures. We started spraying native grass areas on Wednesday and plan on continuing this process weather permitting until we are finished. This process will take several weeks to complete. I appreciate everyone's patience with this as we try and get it done as quickly as possible. We finally had a good start to the week and were able to get all the rough mowed out by Tuesday evening and were able to start concentrating on some of the other detail items like weed eating, push mowing, and some minor tree work. I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I will see you soon out on the golf course.

Joys of Early Mornings

This is one of the joys of being up early in the morning. These are some of our golf course family here at Creekmoor. Look closely and you will see some deer and wild turkey. We see them every morning about 6 am.

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.