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.