Winter is arriving early it appears.  What a cold Sunday we are having with the temperature at least twenty degrees below normal.  On Saturday we did some final watering and then drained the irrigation system.  It will be blown out with compressed air in a few weeks. Final fungicide applications were made to all the greens, tees and fairways as well as a herbicide to the new rough to control annual bluegrass.  Bunker work is continuing and nearing completion.  Leaf blowing and mulching is almost complete as well.  The cold wind this weekend has really brought them down.

 

The fairways are young and tender.  This is cart damage to the eighth fairway from blowing leaves.  Seeing this kind of damage influenced our decision to wait till spring to open the course.

 

 

The third fairway continues to fill in.  This will improve rapidly in the spring.

 

 

Another view of the third hole.

 

 

Erik applying fungicides and chelated iron to the fifth hole.  Iron helps improve winter hardiness.

 

 

Crystal BlueLinks bent on our green nursery.  This variety of bent has good shade tolerance and was interseeded into many of our shady greens.

 

 

It is easy to tell where we seeded.  This picture shows dormant bermudagrass adjacent to the renovated rough and fairway on the eighteenth hole.

 

The fifteenth hole.

 

 

Number sixteen.  The light and dark pattern on the fairway is created by the mowers running in a counterclockwise pattern.  This allows the mowers to stay off the tender rough as much as possible. 

We had another nice week of work on the course despite the very cold weather.  We have completed six fairway bunkers so far with six to go.  Leaves continue to be a challenge but we are keeping up.  Even though we are not playing golf leaves must be kept off the new turf as much as possible.  The fairways have showed some mechanical damage from the leaf blowing so we are limiting how much we work on them.  The new fairway and rough turf continue to impress.  We are just completing the last fertilizer applications on them that will help increase root mass and build up carbohydrate reserves for next year.

 

Drainage installation on the second hole.

 

 

Completed bunkers on the second hole.  The white sand really shows well against the green turf.

 

 

Eighteen fairway bunker with the sand flashed for visibility from the tee.

 

 

We encourage you to walk on the fairways except when they are covered with frost.  These are foot prints several days later from a walker in the morning that didn't know better.  The turf is bruised but will recover.

 

 

Five tee is proving to be a challenge.  This is the soil temperature at one o'clock on Friday.  Roots are only about two inches deep.  We will cover these tees with a turf blanket for the winter.

 

 

This fellow is not helping the situation.

 

 

Julio and Rony have the strongest backs on our staff.  They have just completed planting ten thousand tulips!

 

 

One of the benefits of our tree removal program is that our better trees stand out much better.  This is a sawtooth oak on the second hole.  Magnificent!

 

 

Another positive is we have created some natural areas with chips from the many trees that were cut down.  These areas are great for blowing leaves into them and then mulching as David is doing here one cold morning.

 

 

The ninth hole.

 

 

Fall is really upon us now.  We have had several killing frosts over the last two weekends and the cold temperatures with some strong winds have really brought the leaves down.  Much of our work is keeping leaves off the new turf while trying to limit equipment traffic on the baby grass.  The turf is not yet ready for too much equipment and some mechanical damage has been observed.  We will be fertilizing the fairways and the rough this week for the last time this year.  This application will help  increase root mass and overall density.

 

Blowing the first fairway before mowing.

 

 

Fall color was late getting started but was spectacular once it did.

 

 

The seventh hole.  The specimen tree with yellow leaves is a Ginkgo.

 

 

One of the nice attributes of this tree is the leaves fall all at once which makes easy cleanup.

 

 

Three fairway continues to fill in despite the cool weather.  Here new seedlings are seen in the rows ten days after seeding.

 

 

Adequate moisture is a must as we push this fairway to fill in.

 

 

Nothing is perfect.  This is an area near a green that didn't fill in completely with bent and is unfortunately being invaded by annual bluegrass.  The annual blue is the taller clumpy turf on the right.

 

 

Here is a success story.  This is the front of the fifth green about six weeks after overseeding with Crystal BlueLinks bent.  The bluish turf is the bent competing quite well with the existing Poa.

 

 

Nature helping us out.  Here fountain grass has seeded itself in the seventh creek to provide a natural aesthetic look.  We are promoting this throughout the course.

 

 

 While the course has not had golfers it has experienced more wildlife in some unusual places.  This Great Blue Heron was observed in the creek left of the tenth hole.

The turf has slowed down dramatically in the last few days.  We didn't even mow the fairways this week.  We have begun work on the fairway bunkers and have completed two so far.  This entails removing the old sand and spreading it throughout the deep rough, adding a new drainage system, and then adding new sand.  Each bunker requires between thirty and forty tons of sand!  Detail work continues on the fairways and rough.  The disturbed area of the third hole was reseeded on Monday and a pelletized mulch was dispersed over the bare areas.  Hopefully this will enhance seedling development in this area.

 

The third hole after reseeding. This area has a southern exposure that will help the seed get started as the weather cools down.

 

Pelletized mulch.  This product expands with water and naturally degrades.

 

 

New drainage in the ninth fairway bunker.

 

 

The completed bunker.

 

 

Installing a new exit drain and connecting to the fairway drainage system on the first hole.

 

 

New landscaping at the bathroom on the third hole.

 

 

Sod work to improve the definition from fairway to rough.

 

 

Similar work on the eighth hole.

 

 

The second fairway.  Turf density continues to improve but the seed rows are still present in many areas.

 

 

The newly seeded rough is getting dense!

 

 

The third hole.

 

 

The eighteenth. Wow!