Vandalism

Saturday night we had some party-goers vandalize the second green by taking divots from the putting surface, leaving beer cans, and numerous golf balls were all found early Sunday morning. Due to the turf nursery being under reconstruction grow-in the damage plugs have been placed along the rightside of the green as close to "out of play" as possible. I am sorry for this inconvenience but we have not other choice at this time. Hopefully the plugs will recover in 6-7 weeks and won't be noticeable.

Divot vandalism 2 green

Memorial Day Weekend Update

The course is in good shape heading in to the unofficial start of the summer season, Memorial Day weekend. The cool and dry temperatures have the course playing firm so expect the ball to run out a bit in the fairways. We had Helena Chemical at MGC this week with their Rx360 Veris machine that sampled the nutrients in all the fairways using GPS and Veris technology. Helena will now provide us with a GPS map of all the different nutrients found in the fairways. The goal here is to combine this technology with our traditional soil testing and only apply nutrients where they are needed. Our mechanic was also busy this week grinding all the reels on our mowing equipment to be ready for the busy weekend. The mowers are checked and adjusted on a daily basis and are ground when small adjustments no longer provide a sharp cut.

The American flags will be on the flag sticks for Monday along with stands to hold the flags next to the greens. Please do not put the flag stick on the ground while the American flags are on them. Our club will be celebrating the weekend with golf and a BBQ but lets not forget what this weekend is all about, those that fight for our freedom so lets show them some respect and keep the flags off the turf. The Junior Tee Markers are now out on the golf course, so bring the kids and play a round.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and can get out to MGC for some part of it, hopefully with the family.

Helena Chemical Rx360 Veris machine

Reels being ground

3 Green ready for the weekend

Well Project Update

In fitting fashion the new Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) project installation and testing was completed on Tuesday just as the warm weather broke. The dry weather continues though as we approach 25 days without measurable rainfall but we are now back to our full capacity of irrigation water. The VFD project was a very important step in safe-guarding our irrigation infrastructure. We now have  the ability to run each well separate from each other without causing any damage to the system. In normal nightly watering scenarios both wells will still provide water as before but the wells can operate separately from each other allowing for continuous watering if one well should develop an issue. All that's left to do is re-build the wooden structure around the new VFD.

Flowtronex technician calibrating new VFD

Sunrise on #6

Course Update

The weather plays a significant role in everything we do in turf maintenance, snow, ice, rain, heat, humidity, evapotranspiration, etc. We have been in a a very dry spell currently going 18 days without measurable rainfall with above normal temperatures. The month of April 2014 saw 5.78 inches of rain at MGC versus 1.38 inches in 2015. The warm weather has helped with turf growth while some wilt is present on knobs and in areas of the fairways and rough with weak irrigation. We use wetting agents on all the short grass to help retain water in a uniform profile and use wetting agent pellets in a hose applicator for spot watering the rough. The seed we planted in the fairway ice damage spots has germinated but will take some time to establish and fill in those areas.

We are using a lab to conduct tissue testing of the greens on bi-weekly basis this season. So what right? It's actually pretty interesting. Any of you that garden or manage your home lawn have most likely had a soil test analyzed as we do on the course routinely. Tissues testing analyzes what nutrients are in the clippings from the greens, thus tell us what nutrients the turf is actually using or deficient in. We then base our foliar fertilizer applications on those results instead of a standard program only providing needed nutrients in exact quantities. I continue to update you on this new program at MGC as the season progresses.

Lastly I want to wish all the mom's at MGC a Happy Mother's Day from grounds staff.

Spring finally arriving on the 2nd hole

Course Update

Following a frosty opening day on Saturday with morning temperatures at 33 degrees its looks like spring has arrived with temperatures predicted in the upper 70's for the next 5 days. Now that the soil temperatures will consistently be over 55 degrees the turf will really start to grow and we will be in full maintenance mode. I get asked many times what types of turf we have on the greens and the answer is annual bluegrass (Poa) and bentgrass. Due to last weekends frost the bentgrass has a purple color so take notice this weekend especially on greens 2,3,6, and 9 and you will see the difference very clearly between Poa and bentgrass. The bentgrass will quickly green up with these warmer temperatures.

After waiting over three weeks for our bunker sand to be delivered we were able to add sand to certain bunkers this week that were low. These bunkers will be a little softer until the sand settles. The rough sod around greens 3,6, and 8 has all rooted. We mowed these areas and have removed the ropes. The fairway sod work on the 5th hole needs another week before we can remove the ropes. The areas in the fairways that were aerifed and seeded will be germinating now that we are irrigating and the temperatures have warmed.

I hope you can enjoy the weekend on the course and hope to see you out there.