Course Update -July 1st

The course went 18 days with no rain in the month of June with warm temperatures, low humidity, and at times breezy conditions, perfect weather for golf but the turf requires plenty of moisture during periods like this. A lucky string of events started this week with verticutting the greens followed by a wetting agent spray Monday on greens, approaches, tees and fairways followed by two tenths of inch of rain Monday night then 2.2 inches of rain Tuesday night. The greens were flushed of all the sodium build up thanks to the deluge and the women were still able to have their member guest tournament with no delays on reasonably smooth putting surfaces. Areas of the rough and bunkers that have weak or no irrigation are bouncing back thanks to the rain and we have been able to keep the irrigation system turned off for the past 4 nights after relying heavily on the system for most of June. I was thankful every morning to see the system running at full capacity thanks to the capital investments on both of the club's pumping stations and wells implemented over the past two winters.

			Madison Golf Club
			Rainfall Month to Month
Year	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	Total
2011	6.75	6.1	4.05	3.6	17.95	8.3	3.05	4.6	54.4
2012	3.75	6.45	3.35	2.3	4.45	4.95	5.2	0.7	31.15
2013	2.35	7.25	9.4	5.9	5.05	2.75	0.8	0.95	34.45
2014	5.78	6.15	5.05	6.85	2.5	3.1	4.05	1.8	35.28
2015	1.38	1.7	7.4	1.8	2.35	4.6	4.8	2.1	26.13
2016	1.75	3.6	3.8

I recently found an interesting map of the past few years showing the rain deficit for the east coast and it matches up to my records fairly accurately.

Our irrigation water has higher levels of sodium and calcium then we would like but that's the cards we are dealt. The issues begin during long periods without rain and large use of our irrigation water like we had in June. Sodium is predominant to potassium and the turf is attempting to substitute sodium where possible creating weak stomates increasing water consumption, decreasing leaf thickness and suppressing growth. The chart below shows our in-ground sensors picking up the sodium being flushed from the recent rain events.

The two pictures below are from wednesday morning after the 2.2" rain event. The bunkers on the 8th hole do not have liners and they washed out yet the bunkers on 9 fairway with liners had no washouts. The liners are working and keeping the bunkers free of contaminants.

8 Greenside Bunker Washed Out

9 Fairway Bunker no wash-outs