Summer Recovery

Here is a great link from the USGA concerning this past summer and the transition into winter here across Florida. Our fairway are making great strides and improving from their weakened state due to the rough summer and fall we had. Enjoy!


USGA Green Section

Here come the sun

Some shots of our wonderful sunrises here at TPC Eagle Trace! Click the photo to see more.

Post Issac/ General Course Update

Rough Mower Stuck in a Wet Area between 6/14

Well we survived Tropical Storm Isaac and all he brought with him. We ended up with over thirteen inches of rain when all was said and done and we had only a few branches, mostly smaller sized, which were cleaned up quickly. The worst part was actually after the storm passed and we received most of our rain late Sunday and early Monday. With all the rain, though, we missed two and a half days of mowing which set us back on our rough mowing as we are not able to mow the really wet areas but we are mowing everywhere we can with all three of our rough units. We were able to get the fairways, tees/ approaches and step cut mowed with minimal damage due to wet spots. I was pretty impressed with the drainage on the course overall and aside from some of the really wet areas we came out OK. You will continue to see some mess out there as we move forward from this huge weather event and we ask that you bear with us as we continue to get everything back in order.

Area on the front of 16 green with Bermudagrass Decline

New Shoots coming up along with the fertilizer wetting agent combo
on 18 green

Before the storm we we dealing with some spots on the front of 16 and the back left of 18. We noticed the spots looking like they were dry then the turf started to thin out. We discovered the irrigation heads were clogged and not applying water correctly. We corrected this problem but were left with areas struck with severe Bermudagrass Decline. We started a recovery program last week but the events of TS Isaac set us back a bit as it flushed all the nutrients and the fungicide we used from the greens, that and the lack of sunlight put us a little behind on our recovery.  We got right back to the recuperation of those areas on Tuesday. We applied Insignia fungicide to all the greens then applied granular fertilizer to the areas in need on Thursday. We will be applying fertilizer on a weekly basis to those areas in need, we well be rotating between a quick release fertilizer one week and an Urea based or slower release fertilizer the next week. We are currently on a 14 day rotation with the fungicides. We will continue to use this program until the spots have healed, we are hoping it will be no longer than a month. We have already been seeing new shoot growth in those areas and I have good faith our revitalization program will work out for us.

Area to the right of #2 fairway bunker right after being
brought down to step-cut height

Also some of you may have noticed we changed the area directly to the left of the fairway bunker on three. We decided to mow that area to step-cut height and will be softening the corner a little to make the fairway  a little wider there also. Our hope is to add a little more room in the landing zone while still keeping with the original fairway design. For those of you that don't know that fairway bunker has actually been reduced over the years, it originally extended to the right from where it ends now and there was hardly any grass between the bunker edge and the current fairway! A definite risk reward proposition when faced with that tee shot.

#2 Fairway bunker from behind

 Overall things are doing pretty good around the golf course, we hope to have all the rough caught up by the end of the holiday weekend and things will be ready for our aerification on Tuesday. This final aerification of the summer will be a deep, about 8" deep, punch with only a 1/2" diameter hole. This should lead to minimal disruption to the surface as we will be topdressing before hand and since we will be using a solid tine there will be no clean up aside from dragging the sand in from the top dressing. We will be open for business as usual on Wednesday and should be close to healed up by the weekend.

Areas on #18 Rough and Fairway that weren't able to be mowed
due to severe wetness!

I want to wish everyone a safe and fun holiday weekend and as always if you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me or flag me down on the course. Oh, and I almost forgot, good luck to all the college football watchers as the season kicks off tonight. I hope everyone's team comes out strong. I know I'm looking forward to my Spartan's coming out and taking it to Boise State on Friday! GO GREEN!

The Practice Tee

When we practice by keeping our divots in a straight line, like the Pro's do it, the recovery time is much quicker.

2nd Summer Aeration 2012 Update

The aeration holes on the putting green, Monday.

The aeration holes on the putting green today, Tuesday.

Topdressing the putting green

Well, we finished our 2nd aeration of the summer and it went off without a hitch. The boys from Aeration Technology came out and punched all 21 greens and the 1/4"holes left from the smaller tines are going to heal up wonderfully. As a matter of fact the 14-7-14 fertilizer we applied last Thursday will be kicking in full steam right about now, giving the greens a nice head start to healing. I wouldn't be surprised if they are close to 100% healed by the weekend!

                      

Putting green after we incorporated the sand topdressing

We will be rolling and mowing all week and we hope to have the green speeds back close to 10 on the stimpmetrer by Friday. Hopefully if the rain lets up for a couple of days we will have the roughs all caught up as well. Come on out and enjoy a round here at the Trace!

Stay tuned to the blog for a video of the steps involved in the aeration process. Coming soon!

2nd Summer Aeration July 2012

Lots of material harvested during the 1st round in June

We are getting ready to punch holes today but rest assured the coure will be open and the greens will be playable tomorrow the 18th of July. We are utilizing 3/8" hollow tines that will leave only a 1/4" hole. Couple the small tines with the topdressing and we will hardly even notice the holes when we finish. I can't express enough how beneficial it is to include aerification in our cutural practices but the positives GREATLY outweigh the negatives when we perform this.

Large 5/8" Holes from June aeration

We plan to having the greens back to 100% by this weekend and if the weather cooperates we should have some firm, smooth and very playable greens. We will also aerify the front nine tees and approaches this week and we'll finish the back nine next Monday. Stay tuned this week as I will be posting a more detailed account of this months aeration process. As always if you have any questions or comments don't be afraid to fire away!

Hardly any material to clean up after today's punch

1/4" holes punched today

I've included a link to an article from the USGA green section which talks about aerification and some other issues we deal with as Superintendents.

http://gsr.lib.msu.edu/2000s/2002/020113.pdf

TPC Eagle Trace Family Course Program

On Monday of this week we began installing the new Family Tees here at TPC Eagle Trace. Bryan, Derek and I decided to institute this program as a way to give juniors and beginning golfers a way to enjoy playing the game while taking a little of the "bite" out of the golf course. The goal of the program is to make the game enjoyable for every member of the family and players of every skill level. 

Step #1- Locate teeing area

The PGA Family Course Program is a joint effort of the PGA and U.S. Kids Golf with the aim to draw more people to the game of golf without having to play the full yardage of the golf course. This allows players the opportunity to learn the rules and etiquette of the game without the frustration or intimidation of long holes and forced carries.

Step #2- Make the hole

After we received the 36 plates (18 gold “Level 2” or long plates and 18 blue “Level 1” short plates) from U.S. Kids golf we went about installing them. First Bryan and Derek went out and painted the areas where we wanted to install the tees, keeping in mind these guidelines: the blue tees are 3000 yards and the gold will be playing to 4000 yards. Most of the tees ended up in the fairways for the par 4’s and 5’s with a few in the walking paths. The par threes feature the plates installed on the current teeing areas or drop zones and also a few in the walking paths. After the teeing areas were chosen my crew and I followed with the actual installation of the plates. We started by using our 7.5” sprinkler head trimmer to cut a hole over the mark that Bryan and Derek painted. We then cleared out the hole and added some green sand to level out the bottom of the hole. After adding the sand we used a rubber mallet to pound the PVC stake included with the plates into the sand/ soil in the hole. Finally we screwed the plate on the end of the stake and pounded it into its final resting place on the green sand making sure to keep it aligned with the direction of play. We installed the plates to be just below the surface grade, much like a sprinkler head, so we are able to mow the areas without hitting the plates. We will be edging them when we edge the sprinklers to keep them looking nice and maintain visibility.

Steps #3 & 4- Fill with green sand and pound in stake

     As of Tuesday, all of the plates are installed and ready to use. We feel that this is a great program to help get more people out enjoying the game. Take a minute and talk with the golf shop staff for more information about the program as well as scorecards for the new courses!

Final step- Screw on plate and align direction of play!

Here is a link to US Kids Golf with tons of great information:  http://www.uskidsgolf.com/eng/familyCourses/sectionLandingPage.cfm?cmSectionId=234