Abundant rain arrived on Sunday and postponed the championship finals.  Not shocking considering it's 2020 but disappointing nonetheless.  We intended to aerate the greens on Monday with small solid tines but now we will do this on Tuesday.  This type of aeration interferes little with putting quality after they are rolled so don't worry abut the greens.  What we should worry about is the rain that is forecast on Thursday-Friday.  We will be working late in preparation for a significant rain event.  Hopefully we will have golf this weekend with Club Championship and Lentz's Revenge scheduled.

What a weird week of weather we experienced.  Three consecutive mornings of dense fog followed by warm sunny afternoons.

No fog delay on Saturday!

Leaf season has arrived.  Saturday morning moving leaves from 2/17 rough across 17 fairway.

Almost the entire crew working on the 17th hole Saturday morning.  

Moving leaves onto the parking lot and then mulching and picking up the mess Monday morning.

The course looks to be prime for our club championship.  After a washout Monday we experienced some amazing weather.  More rain arrived today with our first hint of real fall weather.  This weekend looks sunny, cool and crisp-perfect for golf.  Enjoy those greens!

On Monday we received 1.5" of beneficial rain.

Conditions were too wet to mow on Tuesday so we edged all green side bunkers and tamped the faces.  The fairway bunkers were finished throughout the rest of the week.

A completed bunker on the ninth hole.

Fairway bunker perfection.  You just don't want to be in it!

Amazing sunrise Thursday morning.

White asters completing a beautiful season of color changes on three lake bank.

  

 Its a rainy Monday.  Believe it or not but this is beneficial rain.  When was the last time that I said that?  We have extensively overseeded the golf course and this rain will help the new seedlings.  Bermudagrass rough areas were seeded especially hard.  Herbicides will be applied to these areas to help suppress the bermudagrass before entering full dormancy and will begin again in the spring.

Fescue seedlings emerging.

Bentgrass filling in in the tenth walkway.  After a difficult summer you have to marvel how fast the bent recovers.

Josh overseeding the driving range fairway with perennial rye a second time.  Weather did not cooperate the first time.

There is still too much of this occurring.  Two unrepaired divots near the 16th green aimed at 2 green.  Practice swing and then the real shot I guess.

 A fresh unrepaired ball mark.  At least this is easy to fix but unacceptable nonetheless.

This is much worse.  It certainly doesn't take much time to fix a ball mark this way but it will take weeks to recover.  We are spending more time fixing damage like this.  Please help by repairing them properly.

Fall color in the 8th creek.  Leaves are turning late this year.

Chess or checkers?  Bentgrass in its prime.

 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.