Warm and Windy

Our staff here at Creekmoor has shrunk in size, but we haven't slowed down any on the golf course. My staff has continued to work hard and so me why they are the best golf staff around. Often times I don't mention them as often as I should, but these guys are the ones that make me look good. The growth pattern for the turf grass has slowed down tremendously over the last week or so with the cooler weather we were having. Our mowing schedules have altered according. We are mowing the greens about every other day right now on average. My staff and I are keeping our eye on it and we mow the greens when we start to see the turf getting tall and not giving a good smooth ball roll, which is about every other day right now. Our tee boxes and rough are getting mowed once a week as well. We have continued to work on the rocking project around the cart paths that get an extreme amount of traffic on holes #11 and #12. The nursery green continues to grow and fill in very nicely after we re-seeded it. It was moving at a very rapid pace prior to the cool weather last week, but hopefully the cover we have will help it to continue to fill in and grow somewhat over the winter months. Once spring is here the bentgrass will really take off and it should fill in very nicely and quickly. Another project we have been working on is leveling some of the step cut areas around the greens where they settled out and have caused an uneven lie for your ball when it rolls into these areas. This is very common after construction and is an ongoing problem. Hopefully I can get some photos for all of you to see along with some of our nursery green today and I will post those later. I hope everyone had a great weekend.

Cooler Week Ahead

It looks like our week is going to be a cool and brisk one. The temperatures have started to lower and the breeze has picked up a little bit causing conditions to be a little cool and brisk. As you can imagine the turf has slowed down significantly over the last week or so. Our mowing schedules as I have mentioned before are on a as needed basis besides the greens. We are still mowing the greens on a regular basis except for Mondays as that is their day of rest. I expect the next week or so our mowing schedule on the greens will start to change and we may go to an every other day schedule depending on the weather and growth. My staff will be switching into project mode in the upcoming weeks. Some of our projects we are going to be working on are rocking of the cart paths, drainage work in fairways, tree work around some creek areas, and installing a few more irrigation heads in the roughs. We have one more fertilizer application to make on our roughs for the winter. This should take place later this week or the following week depending on when the product shows up at the maintenance facility. As most of you already now from our monthly newsletter we will be going into our winter cart rules starting on November 15th. The rule consist of restricting the carts to paths only for the winter months. This is done to help protect our zoysia grass from any winter kill and hopefully minimize any expense next spring on sod to fix fairway areas. Continual cart traffic on the dormant turf can open the turf for winter damage. We have had pretty good luck since implementing this program and have minimized our damage repairs in the spring. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween.

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