The course has just about recovered from a difficult summer.  The bulk of our seeding is complete and we are now grooming the course for our club championship.  The course remains very soft and needs plenty of sun to dry out. It also needs your help as it recovers.  Poorly repaired ball marks are prevalent on our greens.  Please take time to repair them properly so the greens can be as good as possible for our competitions.

     This picture is from Monday morning.  Each ball is a poorly repaired ball mark-and that is just a portion of the green.

This is what we are seeing.  Two of our staff members spent the better part of the work day repairing these.  The greens have no defense for this right now.  Please we can do better.

On Monday we topdressed all the tees.  Tonight's rain should wash it in and so they can soon be mowed.

The fifth fairway one month back from the dead.

Perfect practice technique.  The practice areas would be open more often if everyone practiced this way.

Fall has arrived. Leaf work is just beginning.

Acorns are back.  Turf areas must be cleared before any mowing or rolling can occur.

I don't know if you have seen this but the cover page is AWESOME!

My high school crew filling divots Saturday morning.  Groody's Groomers completed the task on Monday.

An unexpected sunrise this morning!  The rain was nice enough to wait for golf today.

Member Guest and More

 

Member Guest was a resounding success.  After such a difficult summer its nice to see the course bounce back and perform so well.  We are wrapping up fall maintenance and now are in grass growing mode.  We aerated the practice green on Monday and will let it grow and recover.  The course greens are near perfect and were as good as I can remember for Member Guest.  They should provide a great challenge for our club championship.

 

                                

 Eighteen Green Saturday morning.

 

Our work continues as we recover from a tough summer.  Here Jose B topdresses approaches.  Sand helps protect new seedlings and firms up these areas.

Josh and Richard repairing the expanded collar on 18.

Seeding wash areas in five fairway on Monday.  All bad areas in fairways were reseeded.

The expanded collar at the chipping green came out well.  This will be open for play in October.

Another view.

Is that the moon?  Western wild fires affecting the sun.

Tall fescue beginning to germinate.

Gill paying no attention to the sign!

 

 

We are doing our best to get the course back to our standard.  Finally the weather looks to be cooperating.  We have an abundance of work to complete before Member Guest.  Please bear with us as we are doing everything possible with a now reduced staff.

 

There has been plenty of chatter about the chipping area recently.  Last week we removed a portion of the bent and replaced it with rough grass.  This was to be cut back to step cut height once it matured.  We now feel we made an error and will replace some of the fescue with bent tomorrow.  The newly sodded bent will provide a nice level area for chipping while also providing some separation from the putting green.  The flagged area will be the bent fairway.  Sorry for the confusion.

 

 

Close Encounters of the Springfield Kind?  This morning double cutting the practice green reminded me of that movie.  Anyway we are finally lowering the height of cut for the first time in over two months.  The picture illustrates this quite well.

 

 

The beginning of a very busy day.  Removal of a dead oak by the ninth green.

 

 

Piecing it out with the help of a crane.

 

 

A monster trunk!

 

 

Miss Gill helping out.

 

Sealing the asphalt in the cart staging area.

 

 

Rhizotonia Blight in the chipping fairway but too wet to spray.

 

 

You bet its wet.  Mower stuck near or in the creek on eight.

 

 

The man hiding behind the tree did it!

 

 

Josh seeding the rough.  I hope we haven't missed our optimum germination window but what can you do?

 

 

There's always something to brighten your day on the course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well we thought the weather had broken.  Humid, damp and rainy is the tune of the day.  We were fortunate that we only received about a quarter inch last night so we were able to accomplish plenty today.  More rain is forecast this weekend so we will wait and see what we have to deal with next week.

 

Check out five fairway! It was mowed for the first time on Wednesday since it was seeded. Sixteen days!

 

A measly quarter inch of rain almost filled the cups. Crazy. 

 

Wet, soft greens and poor etiquette.  A fresh ball mark not six feet from the cup.  We understand your frustration but please this doesn't help.

 

We thought we were through with the fans for the season.  Nope.

 

 

Several areas were prepared on Tuesday and then fresh sod was laid on Wednesday.

 

Jose B preparing the expanded collar on hole fifteen.

 

 

 

Topdressing greens with dry sand during a break in the showers.  The course is too soft to use riding equipment.

 

Edging bunkers on a rainy day.

 

 

Beautifully edged and ready to be raked-TOMORROW!

 

 

 

The weather has finally broken and the course is responding accordingly.  Last week was tough.  Too much rain continued to plague us and prevented greens aeration and seeding throughout the course.  This week promises to be long like the rough.  Greens aeration started today and will wrap up tomorrow.  Please don't fret as we are using a very small coring tine.  Light topdressing will be applied afterwards followed by seeding.  The greens should be very good for upcoming competitions.

 

Small tine coring of the greens.

 

 

After cleaning up the plugs and then rolling the surface looks like this.  Sand will be added tomorrow.

 

 

Throughout this mess we somehow managed to have excellent germination in the fairways.  This is best observed in the morning dew.

 

 

Luis seeding two fairway on Thursday.  The worst fairways were seeded first.  Seedlings were observed this morning-five days!

 

 

Taking time to smell the roses.  Asters in profusion on the third hole.

 

A closer look.

 

A moonlit morning.

 

 

An awesome sunrise this morning greeting an improved third fairway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The golf course is super saturated and can not take on any more water.  All aeration and seeding have been suspended until the course dries out.  Mowing has been stopped as well.  We have been unable to work on the course with the exception of Monday with any equipment.  All greens except 5,6,14, and 15 have been deep tined.  Seven tees remain to be aerated.  The driving range fairway and a little rough were seeded but that is all.  There is quite a bit of bent germinating in the fairways and collars under less than optimal conditions. Let's hope the weather improves so we can fix this mess.  By the way my opinion of the weatherman is not very high right now.

 

Monday morning and perfect deep tine aeration of greens.

 

Despite the wet conditions we were able to pull cores and brush them in on the tees.

 

 

Seeding the driving range fairway with perennial rye on Monday.

 

Our crew detailing the third fairway.

 

 

The third fairway filling in.

 

Five fairway looking dramatically better.

 

Another view from the green.

 

 

Julio, Francisco, and Rony cleaning up the lily bed on four.

 

 

Asphalt repairs have been able to proceed.

 

A nice repair where roots had lifted the cart trail.

 

Old drain lines smoothed out.

 

 

Our greens have been stellar through this tough stretch of weather.