The Mow Days of Summer

Notice the difference in height!

Ah, summer in South Florida. The heat, the rain, and the constant threat of being messed up by a storm that comes with a name. Did I mention the heat? For a period considered the “slow season” every year, those of us here at GCM consider it anything but “slow”. This is when the turf grasses that make up our facility are at their most active.

TPC Eagle Trace is made up of 212 total acres (A) of turf. The “inside” or in-play areas, greens, tees, fairways and rough comprise 91 A and are considered the high priority areas. The “outside” or St. Augustine areas on the home side of the cart paths comprise the remaining 121 A of turf. The inside areas are all made up of a type bermudagrass, ultradwarf Tif-Eagle on the greens and 419 hybrid bermudagrass everywhere else. The outside areas are made up of St. Augustinegrass. Both bermuda and St. Augustine are warm-season grass types.

#5 right side after just 6 days

Warm season turf finds the hot, wet summers very agreeable and all types are at their most active during these times. We are able to check some of this activity on the short grass areas with the use of PGR’s or plant growth regulators. The roughs on the other hand are a little different story, it is not economical to use PGR’s and the only practice we have to keep these areas in check is mowing. We are constantly mowing roughs during these times but sometimes we face issues that will cause us to fall behind with our cutting frequency. A few issues are Mother Nature related like excessive rain during work hours. A few are of the man made variety like when machines break down (this happened a week and a half ago to the machine that mows the St. Augustine). Rest assured when things like this happen we do our best to keep the mowers running.

We are always aware of the playing conditions here at TPCET and when things might seem like they are too long or neglected you can know that we are doing whatever it takes to rectify any situations that arise. Our weekly goals for mowing the inside rough is one and a half cycles around the whole course and for the outside areas, two full cycles. Please bear with us when situations arise that might put us behind. I will update the web page when these circumstances come up to keep everyone in the loop. I have included some photos of the “Outfront” machine mowing the outside rough for you to enjoy.     

A word from B. Stone, General Manager, TPC Eagle Trace

Dear Members,


Our major 5/8-inch core aerification went exceptionally well.  The weather cooperated resulting in a relatively painless cleanup and fast recovery.  As such, we have decided to adjust our second aerification to a far less intrusive procedure with ¼ - inch tines that will barely be noticeable on the putting surfaces.  Therefore, the club will reopen for business as usual on Tuesday, July 17 rather than waiting for previously necessary healing through Friday, July 20.  Contact the golf shop regarding starting times for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Anyone who has played here at the club recently has undoubtedly noticed the excessive rough around the golf course.  Directly following aerification, our rough mower used for areas outside of the cart paths (St. Augustine) was broken and could not be repaired due to a backorder of the necessary part for nearly 7 days.  As you can imagine, this time of year, that delay put us two mowing cycles behind.  We are pleased to report that we have completed our first cycle in an effort to catch up, and are approximately half way through the second cycle that will return us to ideal length.  In addition, Skip has lowered the cutting heights for tees, fairways, and outside rough with the intention of lowering the Bermuda rough as well sometime early next week.  Finally, our intention is to start the re-sodding process of the damaged areas on holes #5, #12, and #15 green on Monday July 2.
Thank you,
Bryan Stone
General Manager

This is a great shot of where I grew up, Michigan's Upper Peninsula and my favorite lake, Lake Superior. A beautiful albeit secluded place to grow up.

http://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/modis/modis.php?region=s&page=1&template=sub&image=a1.12177.1804.LakeSuperior.143.250m.jpg

1.0" of rain overnight

We received another inch of rain overnight and that has rendered us Cart Path Only to start out this gloomy Sunday morning. We are receiving some of the straggler bands from TS Debby and hopefully she will clear out before too long. Until then try and stay dry!

More Rain

Great article from USGA

This is some good reading from the Green Section Record.


http://gsr.lib.msu.edu/article/bevard-self-6-22-12.pdf

Cart Restrictions 23 June 2012

After receiving 1.25" of rain last night we are using the 90 degree rule for carts today. Please check with the Golf Shop as this is subject to change, there is a 50% chance of more rain today. Enjoy your day here at #TPCEagleTrace!

Greens are 90% healed

The holes here on #18 and all the others are almost completely healed from the 5/8" hollow tine aeration.

Today we are making our second curative application to control the fairy ring. Weather conditions have been good for the formation of the disease and we had to use the short application window that was lined out in the product labels.

While we used a different product for this treatment, we did combine it with a wetting agent like the application we made after the aerification. Hopefully we will start to see results by the end of next week.

Here is a link to an article on Fairy Ring by Todd Lowe of the USGA:

http://www.usga.org/course_care/regional_updates/regional_reports/florida/Recurring-Nuisance-Fairy-Rings---October-2011/

17 June 2012

Hello Everyone,

Thank-you for visiting Adventures in Babysitting…Turfgrass! The official blog of the TPC Eagle Trace Golf Course Maintenance Department. We are looking forward to bring you behind the scenes access to the Maintenance Facility and insight to our programs and practices. We will try to post at the minimum, once a week, with a goal of 8-10 posts a month. We will also be commenting on events and other things going on around the club, the world of golf and the "real world". 

Please feel free to follow this site and you will be linked automatically to any new posts. I have to ask that everyone be patient with us as this is our first try at running a blog but we hope to get the hang of it quickly. Our first “action” post has to do with everyone’s FAVORITE subject…Aeration! Anyway, I hope you enjoy the content of our little blog and do not hesitate to comment on anything you see here or out on the course, we just ask that you keep it family friendly. We understand some of the things we do here in our world are a mystery to anyone not familiar with agronomy or turfgrass care and we have made it our goal to inform and keep everyone abreast of what and why it is we do what we do. Who knows, maybe we can learn a thing or two and have a little fun while we are at it.

Thanks for reading,

Skip Connolly | Golf Course Superintendent
TPC Eagle Trace

wconnolly@heritagegolfgroup.com
www.tpceagletrace.com

18 June 2012

We are two weeks removed from our first aerification of the summer and things are healing up nicely. We are currently over 85% healed and we will be close to 100% by the end of this week. I have included some pictures to show a few of the practices involved in our aerification procedures here at TPC Eagle Trace.

This years Spring aerification went off with out a hitch and we were able to punch holes in all the in play areas except the roughs. The tees and approaches were aerified with ½” hollow tines (Small Machine) and we drug the tee surfaces with our steel drag mat then blew the remaining debris with our Buffalo Blower. We will be applying a granular fertilizer on Monday (25 June) followed by an insecticide application later in the week.

The fairways were punched with our tractor-mounted machine (Big Machine) coupled with ¾” hollow tines. We then dragged and blew the fairways like we did the tees and approaches. We also used the “Big Machine” to punch some of our special needs areas, like the approaches on # 2 and # 14.  We will have some future posts in regards to these “intensive care” areas so stay tuned to the TPC ET blog to keep up with our on-going adventures.

We did things a little bit different this year on the greens and we are very pleased with the results. We were able to remove a lot of material and they showed an immediate response after we punched them. The greens just love a good aeration as it opens up the pore space in the soil profile allowing air and water to penatrate the soil and get to the roots which in turn leads to healthier turf. We also applied a product for the fairy ring that has shown up on some greens. Since fairy ring is a soil-born disease, the product is more effective when we spray right after aerification. When coupled with a wetting agent, the holes allow the product to reach the areas of the soil where the disease is active.

Again, we are looking at the end of this week before the holes are 100% closed. We and the turf appreciate your patience during these times of year when we need to perform these much needed agronomic practices. Rest assured we could not provide the tournament ready conditions we all enjoy without executing these “intrusive” exercises a few times a year.

Skip Connolly | Golf Course Superintendent
TPC Eagle Trace
wconnolly@heritagegolfgroup.com
www.tpceagletrace.com

Summer Aeration 2012

The guys from #AerationTechnology punching away.

Using an irrigation flag to gauge the depth of the holes. Roughly 3.5" .

Our foreman Saul applying our 90/10 mixture of  regular greens topdressing sand and Maxand.

The Greens right after the heavy topdress.

Aeration holes on the PG 6 days after punching.

Another shot of the holes on the PG after 6 days.