Course Conditions

The sun came out over the weekend but the humidity has also come back leaving the greens soft thus causing our mowers to continue to scalp. On greens 3,6, and 9 this is most evident because they are comprised mostly of the newer bentgrass variety a-4 which is a great fine leaf bentgrass that most new courses use on the greens, only down-side is that it produces alot of thatch. I topdressed the greens again yesterday which will make them messy for the next couple of days but it is very important that we get as much sand into the canopy of the turf to prevent this scalping. I received many questions about why the greens were slow this weekend for the President/Vice-President tournament and the simple reason is that it rained for four days and we didn't see the sun for 5 days last week. When the greens are soft they are going to be slower, we mowed and rolled the greens both Saturday and Sunday to gain as much roll as we could. The 8th green is still struggling from the winter damage on the left side of the green. The winter damage was cause by ice formation from the freeze thaw cycle that we receive in that low lying area of the course, as the water drained toward the left side of the green it would freeze again causing ice, suffocating the plant. This damage was not caused by sleigh riders on the course during the winter. I was trying to establish seed in the damaged areas but that just didn't work with the weather we have had so I have turned to installing sod plugs from our nursery green. We have installed over 225 plugs now but still have a ways to go. I am topdressing the green twice a week to help smooth the area that we are plugging. The cool wet weather has also caused the rough to grow very fast the few days so I will have an operator on the rough mower 8 hours a day until we are caught up.

Junior Tee Markers

The Black tee markers in the fairway are the Junior Tees. Please see the pro shop for the Junior Scorecard
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Irrigation Update

Many of you have seen the pipes and flags around the golf course for our small irrigation project so I thought I would bring you up to speed on what we are doing. Our irrigation system is some what new about 11 years old and runs very well except for one major flaw, I can not irrigate the rough around the greens without irrigating the green itself. So what you might say. The rough requires 3 to 5 times more water then the green surface especially on our sloping bunker banks. Our project this year was to irrigate the all the rough around the practice green, the rough along the cart path at the practice green, the rough between the porch and 1st tee, and the rough around the third green. These projects will be finishing up today and totaling 7 new zones that can all be controlled separately from each other through our main irrigation computer, my hand held radio, or locally from the valve itself. This is the second project upgrading our bunker irrigation, the first was the 7th green. We will continue to do these types of projects every year until all of our green surrounds can be irrigated separately from the green surfaces.

Fog

Please yell fore when hitting balls in fog like we had this morning. We had a maintenance worker get hit this morning in the fog.
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Irrigation

The irrigation for the rough around the putting green is starting today. More on this later in the week.
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Topdressing

Those of you that played this weekend might have noticed the scalping on the greens. This was caused by the large amounts of rain we received followed by the humidity. Today I am topdressing greens to help smooth these areas and create a faster recovery.
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Testing

Since I started at MGC I have done soil testing to see what nutrients are deficient in the soil and what types of fertilizer would be most effective. These tests are done twice a year and I am able to watch trends as well as see if our deficiencies are improving. This year the supplier of our greens fertilizer program has offered tissue testing at no additional cost to the club. These test actually using clippings from the greens to determine what the plant is using from the soil. By combining the information from both tests I can determine not only what is needed in the soil but if the plant is benefiting from these applications.

US Open - The nuts and bolts of the maintenance at Congressional

                                             Congressional Country Club

Course Fact Sheet

Fairways:  

Width:  Ranges from 18 to 35 yards, averaging 25 yards wide in the primary

landing zones. 

Grass Type: Predominantly Penncross creeping bentgrass along with other

varieties interseeded over the years.  

Mowing Height: 0.345 inch  

Tees:

Grass Type: Penncross creeping bentgrass

Mowing Height: 0.345 inch

Greens:

Grass Type: Greens were rebuilt in 2009 to USGA Guidelines for Putting Green

Construction and established with a blend of Penn A-1 and A-4 creeping

bentgrass.

Mowing Height: 0.10 inch

Mowing Height for collars and approaches: 0.310 inch

Target Stimpmeter Reading: 14-14.5 feet

Irrigation Practices: Only hand-watering on the greens. The goal is to achieve

firmness without compromising the health of the grass. Soil moisture levels are

constantly monitored with hand-held testers and in-ground sensors. Fairways

and tees are irrigated on an as-needed basis. Wetting agents have been applied

due to sand topdressing of both fairways and tees. The goal is to achieve even

wetting when irrigation is applied.  

Roughs:  

  Grass Type:  

o  intermediate rough – primarily perennial ryegrass

o  primary rough – predominantly turf-type tall fescue.

  On each side of the fairway, a 6-foot wide swath of intermediate rough

running the length of each hole will be mowed at 0.875 inch. The same

mowing height is used for the bunker tie-ins.  

  On greens with a primary rough, the mowing height is 3 inches.

For the sixth consecutive year, the USGA will use graduated primary rough. This

setup creates a tougher and more challenging recovery shot for those who hit

their drives farther off-line.  

  The first cut of primary rough is 6 yards wide and mowed between 2.75-3.25

inches, depending on the length of the hole.

  The second cut of rough is mowed to 4 inches, depending on the turf growth

rate. This height extends to and beyond the gallery rope lines.  

Bunkers:

Maintenance: New sand has been added to all bunkers. All bunkers are hand-

raked.

Maintenance Crew:

Congressional C.C. crew size: 55

Number of mechanics on staff during the Open: 3

Number of volunteers: 120. Most are experienced golf course superintendents

and assistant superintendents who volunteer their time for the week.  

Where the volunteers are housed: Nearby in housing at American University.

How the maintenance crew and volunteers are fed: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

are prepared by the Congressional C.C. chef for the entire maintenance staff and

volunteers.  

Typical hours worked during the championship: Morning shift 4 a.m. to 8 a.m.

Afternoon shift 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Staff is on property throughout the day in

case of rain. 

Miscellaneous Maintenance Points:

Amount of extra equipment on hand: Six walking greens mowers, four walking

collar mowers, eight turf rollers, four walking tee mowers, 19 five-plex fairway

mowers, three rotary rough units with 9-foot cutting width, two rotary rough units

with 6-foot cutting width, one reel rough unit with 6-foot cutting width, two

mechanical bunker rakes, 22 maintenance carts and 36 squeegees.

Typical mowing schedule during the championship: All principal in-play areas will

be mowed every day. Greens, tees and fairways are mowed twice a day.    

Soil moisture: Monitored by in-ground soil sensors and hand-held soil moisture meters. The greens are also equipped with an underground water evacuation

system. 

Soil Firmness: The firmness of the greens will be measured each day (morning

and evening) using the USGA TruFirm system to monitor soil firmness. A relative

range has been determined for each green to gauge the receptiveness of the

green in holding an approach shot.

Course Update

I vented the greens yesterday to help alleviate the stress the greens were under following the two-day member guest. This process will effect ball roll on the greens for a few days but is important for the long term health of the greens. I found some hyperode weevils over the weekend in a few collars so I applied the appropriate products to the greens on Monday in conjunction with our monthly summer patch protection application. My monthly sodium flush on the greens was also applied at the same time consisting of calcium and potassium. This flush is necessary due to the condition of our well water. The greens are on the soft side due to the venting as well as having to water in the plant protectant application. The weather looks good this week so the greens should heal quickly.
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5 Tee

We have had Greenwood Tree prune the wild cherries and white pine hedge in front of the 5th men's tee this week. We waited until now so that the spring flush would be finished thus allowing plenty of visibility for the entire season.
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Sprinkler Upgrades

As most of you know MGC drains very well which is great during periods of rain like last month but it also means we dry out very quickly as well. We have been irrigating the last few nights to keep up with the dry weather so I thought it was a good time to tell you about our irrigation upgrades. The irrigation system is ten years old now and parts are wearing out. Last year it was very evident that 9 fairway was not getting good coverage anymore so I have replaced all the insides of the sprinkler heads this spring. We used the newest heads from Toro that should give us more even coverage especially around the irrigation head itself. We will continue to upgrade the sprinklers around the course each year evaluating which areas need the most attention.
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More Paving

Another picture of the paving.
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Paving

Paving the maintenance driveway today.
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