The Expected Winter Question

Yes it's that time of year for most golf course superintendents, even those in Florida, I remember when I was growing up and working in Florida we were occasionally asked what we did in the winter.

Well during a training session that was put on by my employer a week ago, we had to say who we were, what department we worked for, what our job title was, and then comment on a question.  After I gave my answers, and being the only golf course superintendent in the room, (and one of the few who regularly work outdoors) I heard the question from the instructor, "So what do you do in the winter"?  I certainly didn't answer keeping up with my blog, which of course I haven't.  So after that training, I thought, what a great way to get myself back on track, and talk about some of the things we are doing this winter.

What follows is what we have been doing this winter.  While we have had our share of mild days all the way through most of December, we really didn't do much in the way of projects, since we were continuing with setting up the course for play, and still doing some watering due to the dry November and December weather.  We didn't drain our irrigation system until right before Christmas, when the weather took a downward spiral into some brutally cold days and nights.

We did get all of our landscape beds cleaned out and mulched.  But when that cold weather hit, most of our projects moved inside.

The first project we tackled was repairing our small equipment trailer.  Repair might not be accurate, more like rebuild.  The wood on it had rotted out and was just falling apart.  The old wood was removed, the frame was sanded and then repainted.  New  wood decking was added, along with new sides were installed.  The wood was all stained to provide protection from the elements.



Our next project consisted of repairing and repainting our ballwashers and garbage cans.  Certainly a project I have shown before.  This would be this year's version.

The ballwashers were cleaned out, sanded down, and then repainted.  The parts were checked and worn or defective parts replaced.  Then the ballwashers were reassembled, checked to make sure they worked properly, then stored to await the spring.



Garbage cans were cleaned, repaired as needed, painted, then put back out for golfers to use.




Another project we worked on was fixing and making a more user friendly bed on our old golf carts we use to get around the golf course, mainly for small jobs and transportation.

These are some of the projects we have completed.  We are still working on some more and hoping for some warmer weather, as our to do list includes many items out on the course as well.

As the winter continues and we finish up some more of our projects, I will share those too.

Many thanks for reading!

Mel

October Monthly Report

This post I would like to share a monthly report I send to my supervisor who compiles reports for our Park Board's monthly meeting.  While I have been getting positive feedback, I always wonder, could I improve my reports?  Is there something I'm leaving out?  I do find some of the research such as weather, rounds, irrigation use, comes in handy when comparing with previous years, I get a better understanding of how the month went.  Would love to hear some feedback from you my readers.

                                                 Horton Smith Golf Course

Monthly Report

October 2017

Activities:  This October we hosted 2,000 rounds of golf.  We hosted the last of the Jr. PGA League matches, and 2 outings.  Numbers were a little lower than last October, but weather was average this year, where in 2016 temperatures averaged 6-7 degrees above average with only a couple of minor frost delays.  We have already had three 2-hour delays this year, and have had 3 days where the temperature hasn’t got out of the 40’s.        

 

Weather:  This month we saw average temperatures.  Our average highs were 70.7 degrees, which is 1.7 degrees above the average of 69 degrees in October.  Our monthly average lows finished at 48 degrees which is 1 degrees above the normal average low of 47 degrees.  Precipitation was below average for this month, we had a total of 2.59” of rain for the month, 1 inch below average.  Rains were evenly spaced. 

Maintenance Practices: While we did continue to set up the course for daily play, this month we noticed a big decrease in our mowing practices.  Greens still were mowed or rolled daily.  As the month cooled off, we went out to mow less and less, especially the warm season grass.

Cultural, Fertilizer and Pesticide Practices: We did verticut and topdress early in the month, but due to cooling temperatures, we did not topdress later in the month, since topdressing is based on growth of greens.  We did get in two more Primo applications and one fungicide application on greens.  We also put a pre-emergent herbicide application on tees.  We sliced and seeded the upper range tee again along with the approaches on 1, 3, 7, and 9.  We seeded collars with bentgrass. 

Equipment:  Equipment has been running well, but we still need work on our large area rough mower.  Luckily this month, this rough mower became a back-up as we received our new large area rough mower, a Jacobsen HR600.  After having it out for a couple of weeks, we felt we could lower the height of cut from 3” it was set to, down to 2.5”, with still good results.  We have also noticed that the new mower is burning ½ gallon less fuel per hour.  The mower averages about 700 hours per season, so we will save 350 gallons of fuel per season, and it also has an extended service interval compared to the old mower.  The new mower allows for a longer service interval, we will service the new mower every 200 hours compared to 100 hours on the old mower. 

        

   
          

G6-008 as it arrived at our shop.          G6-008 out mowing.

Irrigation:  We did use 1,146,645 gallons of water this month.  This was almost identical to what we used in 2016, (1,464,746 gallons).  We ran 7 different green cycles, 3 tee cycles, and 3 fairway cycles.  We had to replace one coil on a head.  We had to replace one case that the head was weeping. We had to repair a plug in a controller.  And the main project was to replace the old electro-mechanical clock in # 10 green control box with an updated retro kit.  The new kit will allow us to water multiple areas which we couldn’t do before.  We can run a couple of # 10 green heads, while also running some heads on # 11 tee.  The old electro-mechanical SBM clocks are not that reliable, although they will usually work off the computer ok.  But if we lose that connection, the timers don’t always work, the station timers could be off up to maybe 5 minutes or more per station, the hour clocks might not work and start irrigation cycles on time, or the day dials might not switch over to the next day.  We have about half of the old electro-mechanical clocks that cannot run by themselves if we were to lose communications with the computer.  Even when those run ok, we run into issues with the bottom station control panel with loose plugs.  (the clock we did replace is working well and will become a back-up to other old clocks until we get them all replaced with the newer Par+ clocks).    

                 

The picture on the left shows the old wire set up.  The picture on the right is the clock.  It can only turn on one station at a time.  The newer clocks can run multiple stations and the newer electronics are more reliable.

                            
                                    

     

Other Projects:

We did the following projects:   

·         Removed a landscape bed on 12/13 and planted grass seed.  Many balls from 12 tee would find their way into this bed.

·         Installed a new bench on # 18/4 tee.

·         Repaired the wood on other benches.

·         Fixed 8 cart path where roots from a pine tree had heaved the asphalt.

·         Fixed the equipment wash rack drain, and cleaned up the area around the wash rack.

·         Mowed down the natural areas.

·         Winterized the irrigation pump house.

·         Winterized some of the ball washers, brought the rest inside.

·         Wrapped the pipes on the outdoor restrooms to help protect them from the cold temperature, without having to close them down too early in the season.

·         Install new lids for irrigation heads with yardage engraved on them.  The heads needed lids anyway, and these were cheaper then OEM heads.   

           

            

 

The Path on # 8 where the pine tree roots had damaged the path.  We removed the roots and asphalt, and backfilled with dirty base rock.  We will let cart and equipment traffic pack it solid over the winter and will then come back in and put a layer of concrete over the patch. 

Wash rack improvements.  It will allow wash water to drain away, yet we can lift the grates up and scoop up excess grass clippings. 

       

Well that was our October report.  Some of the projects mentioned I want to expand more on in future posts.

Hope I can get some tips to make it better.

Thanks for reading.

Mel

    

    

Leveling Tees

Every season we make plans to level and install new sod on 3 tees.  One forward tee, one middle tee, and one championship tee.  We choose 3 different tees so we make improvements for all of our clientele.  It also fits into our operational budget better, since the middle tees tend to be larger, renovating 2 or more, would be stretching our budget for these projects, and lastly, we don't disrupt more than one tee station per golfing group.  While most courses would consider projects like these capital projects, since ours is such a small scale, we just have the funds in our regular operating budget.  

This year we renovated our # 14 middle tee, that was only useable for half the teeing surface, the back sloped away to severe for a proper level stance.

  On the left is the before picture.  Where the white markers are is about the back of the useable space on this tee.
On the right is the tee with the sod removed, which we did save as much as possible for a nursery area. The guys were moving some dirt around to level it.

The picture on the left shows how resourceful the crew were, using a level and long 2x4 to level off the tee top.  Courses and/or contractors that do this work a lot will use laser levels hooked up to their equipment to level out the top.

The picture on the right shows the tee is awaiting sod.

This picture shows the tee with the new sod installed.

The boys were proud of their work.  Typically most courses might do these type of projects during their slow seasons.  We tend to do these projects during the summer months because that is when we have the most staff present.












We also enlarged our forward tee on # 16.  The turf on it was thin, as the teeing space wasn't big enough to handle the extra play when we had added senior tees to this tee.

 


















On the left is the before picture, the left side of the tee is not raised much, due to the terrain.

On the right side, we are spreading out the dirt that was added to widen this tee.  It will give more teeing area and aligns the tee closer to the middle of the fairway.

The picture on the left is the tee waiting for sod.

The picture on the right is with the new sod installed.












We also installed new sod on our # 1 championship tee, which does suffer from excessive winter shade.  We are investigating the possible interseeding of low mow Kentucky Blue grass, a practice that is being used on sports fields in our area, to help extend a good playing surface into the fall, when most warm season grasses, whose growth has really slowed due to the fall temperatures, struggle to handle the traffic.

The picture here on the right shows our # 1 championship tee awaiting sod.  The two tall pines behind the tee block the winter sun, making the tee weak.

Mowing with a triplex where the mower doing a tight turn on the back of the tee also caused wear issues.

I can't believe I do not have an after or before picture.  I guess that happens when we have a few projects going on, along with continued course maintenance work, pesticide applications, and irrigation work.





This year we also made an extra tee installation for our Junior PGA League players on our one par 3 where there was no fairway and a long carry for the younger kids across a drainage ditch.  This tee made the hole a little easier on them, and more fun.

The picture on the left shows where we removed our fescue sod that is in our roughs, and on the right is the tee with the new sod installed.  We thought it added an extra touch for the team, plus it was easier on our mower when we were mowing Bermuda and not fescue.

The golfers seemed pleased with the improvements we made, and the crew seems to enjoy the challenge and the satisfaction of a project well done.  It really seems to break up the monotony of the daily grind that goes into preparing the course for play everyday.

As always,

Thanks for reading!

Mel

Bunker renovations on the cheap

August was a busy month for us, and it went by so fast.  We blinked our eyes and have found ourselves in the middle of September.  Of course we spent that time working on our summer projects before we were to loose some of our staff.  We lost 3 seasonal staff members, 1 seasonal staff had to cut their hours back to 20 hours from 40 hours for class schedules.  We had one temporary reduce their hours from 28 to 24 hours for their class schedule.  In total we lost 144 hours per week out of our 408 scheduled hours.

Every year we set money aside for projects into our normal budget.  We strive to re-level and sod a forward tee, middle tee and back tee.  We also plan on renovating one bunker during the summer.  We have some irrigation projects, but those we tend to do in the fall.

This update will deal with our bunker renovation.  My first 9 years, we had done little to our 14 bunkers, (12 greenside, 2 fairway).  Starting in 2012, we had a bunker holding water, (well we had more than the one bunker holding water) but started on this project of removing sand, repairing and/or replacing drainage, and then installing new sand.  That first year, the project went well, and we put the plans of replacing one per year into place.  Cost wasn't much, it would take typically one load of sand, which would cost us about $600, drainage parts would probably run between $50 - $150 dollars depending on the needs, and labor was about 90 hours.  We would start on a Tuesday and would usually finish up on that Thursday.  We would budget $1,000 for the project.  For our sand we would use our topdressing sand, since it would be splashed up onto the greens.

In 2013, we renovated a second bunker, and in 2014, we started a third.  After finishing that bunker, our two bunkers on our par 3 8th hole had deteriorated into 2 mud pits, so we went ahead and renovated those 2 bunkers in 2014 as well.  Well the positive responses started rolling in and we were asked when we would do the other poor bunkers, so in 2015 we renovated 4 more of our poor bunkers, which at that point left us with 5 bunkers we hadn't done.  In 2014 and 2015 we held off on any of the tee renovations.

In 2016 our 5th hole started holding water, so we renovated that, but we had heard of some other courses using a different type of sand and after some investigation, decided to use this sand (Osage Bunker Sand) in 2016.  It seems to hold in place better in heavy rains.  We used the same sand in the bunker we did this year as well.  The real test will be when we try that sand on one of our more sloped bunkers.  The picture on the left shows how little the sand moved after a very hard and fast rain.  If I remember this storm, it was 1" of rain in under an hour.  The picture on the left shows the crew cleaning up some of the Bermuda runners that are seen in the first picture, which was a little embarrassing with all the runners in it.  

                             


We don't have a lot of tools and staff to work on these projects, but with the limited resources, the crew did a very nice job.

 This is a before picture of the greenside bunker on our 13th hole, it had been a little dry so the support we used to pick this bunker is not visible.

This is the front bunker on a short par 5, which protects about 3/5ths of the left side of the green.  A small approach is just to the right of it.

The bunker does set out from the green maybe about 15', so it isn't really that tight on the green, but for those trying to hit the green in two is when it really is in play.  3rd shots with wedges aren't as much of a challenge.



                                                                                                                                                               



These pictures show us removing the old sand to get to the base of the bunker and exposing the drain.  We at that point will try to flush the drain if possible.  The old sand is taken to our nursery area where we are trying to establish different turf plots.    

                                     


In the picture on the left we had exposed the drain and found the pipe crushed.  On the original renovation done in 1993, the contracted used sewer pipe for the drains.  When we've been able to clean them out we do, but in this case with the crushed pipe, we replace with corrugated pipe, installed the pea gravel and cleaned up the base of the bunker.

                              

As seen in the pictures below, new sand, the Osage Bunker sand, with it's orange tint is being installed.  We dump it into the bunker using a dump truck and large utility vehicle.  We spread it out with our front bucket on our tractor, and eventually start pushing it around with our bunker rake.  The photo on the right shows the finished product.  And a golfer actually raked their footprints out of the bunker.

          

I hope you enjoyed reading about this project.  We will be keeping our eye out for next year's bunker candidate for renovation.

Thanks for reading!

Mel

University of Missouri Turf Field Day

It was that time of year again where I made my annual visit to the University of Missouri Turf Field Day.  I always feel it is important to support the work that these fine researchers are doing, but also it is my duty to my employer, our customers, my fellow colleagues and coworkers, and myself, to find out what avenues to better conditions might be available to us in the future.  As always I wasn't disappointed.  

Probably the most intriguing research I am looking forward to seeing the end results for, is, "Advancing our Knowledge of Soil Hydrophobicity and Use of Wetting Agents".  It is a USGA sponsored research project and what I find interesting is one of the items they will be looking at closely is the different particle sizes and how the different wetting agents react to them.

They have started the research by taking soil samples from 3 different sites/greens that meet the USGA guidelines for particle size, yet have found that while meeting USGA guidelines, each location was different.  One site had more course soil particles, while another site had a much higher percentage of fine particles.  They will be looking how each of the different wetting agents in the study react to those particles size differences.  Usually we ask our fellow superintendents what wetting agent they are using, and then we try it out for ourselves.  This study might show the fallacy of that approach, unless we are to have the same soil structure.  I can see in the future, we will have a better idea of what wetting agent is going to work the best for us due to our soil structure and also depending on what our needs are at that time, such as a seasonal basis.  Do we want to use a penetrant to push our water down through the soil, such as during the rainy season?  Do we switch up to a retention type wetting agent during the drier summer months?  All ideas that I find very interesting, and the answers might provide the best use of our dollars, while providing the best playing conditions during the season.   

One of the other stops that I felt of some great interest had more to do with sports fields, but it had me think about possible uses in golf.  The research was titled, "Implementing the 'Bluemuda' Concept of Sports Fields for Zoysiagrass use."  The research was just started this year on plots that had previously been inoculated with Large Patch, a problem in zoysia that we will see on golf courses as well.  The introduction of the Bluegrass into the warm season grasses as I understood it was to help hide the disease issues as the warm season grass came out of dormancy.  The other benefit is helping fields have better playing surfaces in the early spring and late fall, while the warm season grasses are coming out or entering into dormancy,  I imagine this could be helpful in small heavy traffic areas such as small tees or driving range tees.  Also part of the research is a new mowing procedure for warm season turf called Fraze mowing which removes a lot of the thatch from the top layer of warm season grass.  I don't see much use of it for golf courses, but in sports fields where there is some down time, research seems promising.  

 

 I picked up some tips to help improve our native landscapes to help support butterflies, native pollinators, and bird habitat.  I also showed pictures of our wildflower areas and received some positive feedback.  It just takes some time and patience .

I also checked out even if it was just for pictures what ornamentals were thriving this year in the summer heat.  

 
 

These Pepper Flowers were pretty interesting.  

 As always a great day spent learning and networking with colleagues.  While sometimes the research doesn't address each and every situation or issues we deal with on a daily basis, never the less, it does encourage critical thinking and experimentation on our end.  Hopefully they will continue to receive support from our green industry and state lawmakers.  Research is a huge benefit to our industry.      

Hope you enjoyed reading.

Thanks!

Mel