August is winding down and fall course maintenance is ready to begin.  The course had an excellent growing season, (fingers crossed) and our renovation will be minor compared to other years.  Some ask why aerate greens when they are in such great condition?  Healthy greens are that way because of carefully planned and executed cultural practices, the most important being core aeration.  Healthy greens handle the stress of aeration and topdressing better and allows them to recover faster.  Expect great greens before you know it.

Not bad for late August.

The course is exhibiting some typical August stress.  Here is the 1st fairway showing heat stress.  Many of our fairways have really poor soil, and lots of rock.  When roots shorten as they naturally do in summer, this is the result.  This is heat stress with no cart traffic.  Put carts on this turf and its bye-bye time.  Our recent purchase of a fairway deep tine aerifier in conjunction with a compost program will dramatically improve our fairways in the future.  It's nice to finally own this piece of equipment.  Expect to see it used plenty after the golf season.

Dying trees continue to be a problem.  This white oak is a suspected lightning hit and will be removed during course maintenance.

This leaning white oak finally fell unfortunately into the lake.  Removal is scheduled next week as well.

There is too much of this on the course.  No turf should ever be taken with a practice swing.  Help spread the word, please!

This too shouldn't happen.  Easy to repair if done immediately with minimal scarring, but up to two weeks to recover from if not.

Vegetables have been bountiful from our garden.  

Approximately ten pounds of honey were extracted from our beehives.  Look for specials in the restaurant.

New front tires for the rough mower.

Morning reflections.

Picture of the year?  Richard Purple took this one.