Too much rain followed by too much heat spells trouble for cool season turf.  The course weathered the bad stretch of weather quite well but did suffer a few dings.  The story of this season so far is the amount of rainfall we experienced in May and June.  This has caused shallow roots throughout the course and an extended period of hot and humid weather could really hurt.  We will carefully monitor the turf and do preventive measures as necessary.

July 4th.  When the course is stressed the most and this happens- 14 Green. 

Drain lines are the first indication that the heat is on.

More heat stress in nine fairway.  Pull cart leaving blue tracks intersecting prior golf cart damage.  There is a reason we restrict carts when the turf is under this kind of pressure.

It's funny but before we turned hot and dry we were hot and wet(humid).  Here is a poor attempt at repairing a ball mark that is one of the consequences of too much moisture.

Here a solution to lack of oxygen in the root zone-core aeration to the putting green after too much rain and foot traffic. 

There has been some excellent practice on our range and chipping fairway.  The turf will rapidly fill in laterally in several weeks.

Unfortunately some are not getting the memo.  This will heal by November!

The wildflower bed on the third hole continues to excel.  Besides bees many birds are enjoying this area especially red wing blackbirds.

Several more perennials have begun flowering.  Here is purple coneflower.

Here's another-this is evening primrose I think?

We have two more sites we have proposed to add wildflowers.  The first is below the 16th tee between the creek and the cart path.

The second is on the right side of the 12th hole.  Adding wildflowers increases habitat for all kinds of wildlife as well as reducing labor once established!

You've probably seen me monitoring our bluebird houses on the course.  Generally three species take residence in these houses.  The top nest is that of an English sparrow which are an invasive species and immediately removed.  The middle nest is an eastern bluebird and the bottom nest is tree swallow which are both desirable birds.  So far we are having a pretty good season fledging good birds.

Plenty has happened since my last post.  It finally stopped raining for one thing and then it got hot!  The crew continues to get it done.  Once again we are a little behind due to the wet spring but rapidly completing little projects.  Now its time for our Member Guest Competitions.  Good luck to all and lets hope the weather cooperates.  Oh by the way it started raining again.

Late May/ early June started out like this.  We had just repaired the bunkers and it happened again-only worse.

Your greens crew did a bang up job regrassing the driving range tee.  Here it is ready for sod.

Sod installation in progress.  We are using a hybrid developed for cold tolerance-but we know how that goes.

Josh mowing it for the first time seven days after installation.  The grass tee will open on Thursday June 21st only two weeks after sodding.  We will be cautious the first two weeks and allow limited play on it.  Range hours are as follows: open daily 7am-8pm except on Tuesday till 6:30pm.  The range opens at 7:30am on Wednesday for mowing.

Solid tine aeration has begun every two weeks throughout the summer.

Tournament preparation.  Grooming greens in two directions to help true them up.

Greens after grooming two weeks before competitions.

Topdressing approaches to firm the entry areas to the greens.

Double cutting greens on Tuesday followed by rolling-we are almost there.

Speaking of tournaments Springfield hosted the inaugural United States Senior Women's qualifier on June 6th.  These two ladies flew all the way from Sweden to try and qualify and Sofia Whitmore pictured on the right was medalist and will be playing at the Chicago Golf Club in July! 

It is a really busy time on the golf course.  Last weeks deluge has really piled up the work.  The course received around six inches of rain for the week.  With Memorial Day arriving this weekend we have our work cut out for us.

Yep its dead.  The cold winter took a beating on our driving range tee.  The tee is scheduled to be sodded the first week of June and will be open by Member Guest.  Replacement poles and netting has been delayed due to the wet weather.  

Tree down behind the 14th green on our turf nursery.  We lost two large oaks overall.

The large pile of limbs was finally chipped up.  Two pin oaks in the parking lot were removed and all the stumps on the course were ground up as well.

The same old song and dance of this spring continues.

Greens were successfully aerated on May 8th and healed quickly.

There have been questions asked why we have eliminated the intermediate cut around the fairways.  It is difficult maintaining tall fescue at such a low height of cut and inevitably transitions to weaker turf.  We do mow one pass around the fairways three times a week during peak growth periods to keep this area from being too penal.

Wildflower bed on the third hole.  Different flowers, different month!

Please don't go ball hawking in the flowers!

Tulips are now available to the membership.  They may be picked up in the upper parking lot nearest the pro shop.  Come and get them!

The crew is putting in extra time to get the flowers in by the holiday.

What a picture of Jack ridding our course of geese.  Gill is in the pond too just not in the pic.

 

  

Plenty of weather extremes since our last blog.  Unfortunately most of it has been cold related with a little summer tease.  Rain finally occurred in the form of a drought buster.  It has been years since the bunkers were so washed out and our crew did an outstanding job getting the course back into shape.  Most of our mulch beds washed out as well.  Like ole Forrest said managing a golf course is like a box of chocolates- you never know what you're going to get!

Three and a half inches of needed rain!

This represents nearly all of our bunkers on Monday.

Mulch in beds washed out as well.

Ponds went out of their banks.

Lots of debris in all of our lakes.

Before the rain we were able to extensively aerify most of the rough.

Contract fairway aeration followed with mixed results due to the extremely dry conditions.

Nonetheless everything cleaned up well and recovery should be fast with rain and warming temperatures.

Tees were aerified and topdressed on Thursday and Friday with great success.

Crystal BlueLinks bentgrass continues to impress.  We have developed a nice root system with just enough thatch in our fairways- dare we say "Mission Accomplished!"

One benefit to the cool spring is the extended bloom on our bulbs.  Daffodils and tulips have performed beautifully this spring.

Tulipmania!

Wildflowers on the third hole are ready to bust out.

The first of many species to flower has begun.  This is called wallflower.

Our bees are doing well and we expect to extract our first honey next month!

 Purple martins have returned in abundance indicating warmer weather is on the move.

Gill has proven to be a great addition to our staff and is a natural goose dog but needs to differentiate between geese and ducks!

Opening day- what a turn out!