Invasive Species

26 April 2013

Bermudagrass mutations #10 green

We’ve had some members ask about the different types of grasses they see intruding on the greens from the collars, step cut and roughs. When the greens were renovated back in 2001 they were planted with a pure stand of Tif-Eagle Ultradwarf Bermudagrass. In the years since weeds have been trying to infest the tif-eagle and infringe on our smooth playing surfaces. Weeds being defined as any undesirable plant growing amongst our desirable crop, in this case, our putting greens. Most of what we see are mutations of the 419 bermudagrass which makes up the remainder of playing surfaces at TPC Eagle Trace. These mutations along with some other grassy weeds develop into different varieties of the “parent” grasses over time and become a strong enough to take over some of the weaker tif-eagle and cause problems with smoothness due to their inconsistent growth habits. Some of the mutations grow faster than the tif-eagle and some slower. This unevenness causes a non-uniform surface which can effect ball roll and cause ugly visuals on the greens. Some of you may remember the goose grass that popped up on greens #3 and #7 last year affecting some putts due to the goose grass growing faster that the tif-eagle.

Beginning in May, when the growing season is in full swing, we will embark on our plan to remove these areas through the use of chemical herbicides and physical removal of the undesirable areas followed by the replacement of these zones with clean grass from our nursery. You will notice some yellow areas and some more plugs on the greens as we move forward with this project over the summer. This shouldn't cause too many issues as the warm weather, ample water and sunshine, which tif-eagle loves, will promote fast healing and healthy greens all around.

As always feel free to contact me with any questions you may have and keep those scores low!

Skip Connolly

Golf Course Superintendent

TPC Eagle Trace

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

It's been a while...TPC Eagle Trace Course Update

Dear Members,

            Dear Members,

Greens rolling smooth and true

            It’s hard to believe we are full swing into the golf season and Christmas/ New Year’s is right around the corner! While the holiday season has snuck up on us, there has been a lot happening at TPC Eagle Trace over the last few months!  The departure of Heritage Golf Group and the addition of Century Golf Partners/ Arnold Palmer Golf as well as hosting the Final Stage of Champions Tour Qualifying School in November have certainly kept us busy. Much has gone on and I feel the club has come through in good shape and we are poised for much improvement in the future.

            Here at Golf Course Maintenance we are full in to our “In-Season”/ wintertime cultural practices. While we have made it to the winter months, the weather lately has not been our typical South Florida winter.  The warm day and night temperatures coupled with high humidity have led to some much needed growth in the fairways but have also produced some challenges with disease and algae pressure on the greens.

            Some of our winter maintenance practices include monthly, instead of twice monthly, light topdressing on greens. We lower the frequency of the topdressing to limit the damage to the turf which doesn’t grow as much in the winter. We also mow the greens at higher heights of cut to allow for more leaf surface to harness the light from the sun, which there is less of in the winter, to make food. We will roll the greens more frequently to counter act the higher mowing heights which helps keep the green speeds remain where we want them. We have also been able to complete two full mowing cycles on the main rough and the outside St. Augustine rough on a weekly basis. We continue to mow the fairways, tees, and approaches three times a week. We will also be implementing more frequent fertilizing of the fairways and tees utilizing lighter application rates.

            Lately I have been getting questions as to why we don’t overseed the golf course like some of the other courses around South Florida. Aside from the fact it is a done purely for aesthetic purposes, it actually hinders the play ability of the golf course. This is the main reason we discontinued the practice when we were still with the PGA Tour. There is also a substantial cost associated with the practice due to purchasing seed, copious amounts of water use, preemergent herbicide applications for the non-overseeded areas, and additional labor just to name a few. Don’t forget, due to the heavy watering needed to get the new grass established, the golf course would need to be played under Cart Path Only conditions for two to three weeks.  Perennial ryegrass is the cool season grass most used to overseed in South Florida and our normal climate here does not provide the optimum growing environment for this grass. To successfully overseed, you must have the cooperation of Mother Nature. The warm temps and high humidity we have seen recently is more suited to the Bermudagrass that blankets our golf course.  If we had overseeded lately, the ryegrass would have become weak and then taken over by the Bermuda. We’d then be left with both species being weak when the weather returns to the normal cooler, drier days we are used to in the wintertime.  The end result would be having had our play ability affected even more so than not overseeding at all. These are some of the more prominent reasons for not overseeding here at the club.

A new day dawns over ET

In closing, I would like to thank everyone for their patience over the last few months as we made the transition to Century Golf. We have been instituting a new culture here around GC Maintenance and the future is looking bright for the golf course and the club as a whole. I hope everyone has noticed the vast improvement to the course conditions and rest assured we will continue to improve and maintain the course to the higher standard you as members crave and deserve. As always feel free to stop me on the golf course or contact me here at Golf Course Maintenance if you have any questions at all regarding anything going on around the club. I hope everyone has a Joyous and safe Holiday Season and a Happy 2013.

Oh and I almost forgot, after a short absence from posting content on the site  we will be putting pictures and other goodies up on our Golf Course Maintenance Blog. Feel free to follow us at http://tpcgm12.blogspot.com/ for some good stuff in the upcoming months.

Take care,

Skip Connolly | Golf Course Superintendent
TPC Eagle Trace
Tel: 954.344.5635

Fax: 954.341.4562
wconnolly@tpceagletracegc.com
www.tpceagletrace.com

SkipConn@twitter.com

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.

Tropical Storm Isaac Update

Rain coming down hard this morning

As of 0630 this morning we had received over 6" of rain resulting from TS Isaac, with 2.25" accumulating since then. The wind has really only been a small problem and we were able to complete a lot of limb clean up along the cart paths and around the club house. The course itself is impassable at this time and will remain so as long as the rain keeps falling like it has. We will have extensive bunker repairs to make tomorrow and will have to redo the ones we fixed today.

At 12 noon TPC Eagle Trace is under a flash flood watch until 2pm, a severe weather watch until 1pm and a wind advisory until 6pm. With any luck the rain will let up and the wind will help to dry us out.

Water almost up to the top of the bulkhead on #7

The club is planning on being open as usual tomorrow and I would plan on cart path only as far as cart rules go. Again I hope everyone stays safe and be sure to avoid low lying areas and any standing water that you don't know the depth of.

Here is a link to a weather blog talking about Tropical Storm Isaac:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2208

Flooded bunker on #6