2018 Recap, Bridge Refurbishments, and Covering Greens

Yes, it has been quite a while since our last blogpost update and for that I apologize.  2018 was a great year at Harrison Bay with some of the best course conditions our Agronomy Staff has produced in quite some time.  Irregardless of the 83 inches of rainfall we received in 2018 (normal amount is 57") our small crew of dedicated team members continued to provide quality, championship conditions while continuing to make course improvements and advances.

One of the improvements we have been working on this winter is to repair and cleanup the bridges which span our wetland areas on holes 13 and 14.  We have removed and replaced any rotting or weak boards from the decking, have begun the process of pressure washing the bridge, and have installed a woven rubber liner in the center of the bridge to make it safer for our walking guests to travel across the bridge.

The walkway material is from PEM Surface and is an excellent product providing a porous, nonslip surface which is easily secured to the decking with silicone glue and decking screws.  We have already had several of our regular walking golfers comment and thank us for this project.  We will finish the project up this month and seal the bridge to help keep this clean, fresh look.

With the cold temperatures heading into the south this week we pulled the covers over the greens today to help protect them.  We do not cover as much as others, and that is perfectly fine.  No two golf courses are the same and no two golf course superintendents do the exact same processes.  We have 15 years of experience with what our greens can handle and our microclimate on the lake gives us a little advantage of staying warmer than other areas in town.

I was asked today "How do the covers actually help protect the greens?".  The illustration to the right does a very good job of describing how the greens covers work but in a nutshell the covers are designed to allow radiant heat from the sun to pass through the cover but not back out easily.  The sunlight warms the leaf tissue and the soil and "traps" the heat against the surface compared to uncovered greens in which the collected heat of the day is easily lost and the surface and soil temperature of the green is allowed to fall to levels detrimental to the health of the plant, and in turn the longterm health of the green.

I hope this helps explain why there are times, like today, when we have to pull the covers during the day when the sun is out and it is all nice and warm and you would love to be out playing golf.  In our experience if we wait too late and pull the covers at the end of the day we are losing a complete day of heat generation and capture and undermining the benefit of the covers.

It is our plan to remove the covers at the end of the week and have the course ready for play for the weekend.  We will update as we get closer to the weekend.

A Thousand Ways to Topdress

One of the beautiful aspects of golf course management is that no two golf courses are the same.  Golf courses in the same state, same town, or even "north/south" courses on the same property are different and there are a thousand different ways to maintain them and achieve the desired results. This is what makes golf course maintenance special and unique and gives each golf course superintendent the possibility to put his or her personal stamp on the golf course.

Topdressing of the greens is a vital process in maintaining healthy and well performing greens that putt well, drain properly, and are firm to accept impact from golf balls, foot traffic, and the weight of the golf course maintenance equipment.  For many years we have been applying our weekly topdressing sand with a mechanical spreader followed by a custom made drag mat to help incorporate the sand into the greens.  This process works well but we found ourselves collecting a large amount of the sand in our mower baskets the following days which was then discarded, having to do extra maintenance to the greens mowers due to the damage caused by the sand passing through the reel and bed knife, and having many disgruntled golfers no matter how hard we worked to get the sand worked into the greens.

So as some have noticed this year we have taken on a different approach to our topdressing program and so far are seeing very satisfying results.  Instead of using the heavy mechanical spreader which we had difficulty applying a consistent light topdressing with, we are using push spreaders like the ones used to apply fertilizers and other granular products to the greens.

A couple of years ago when we did the DryJect procedure on the greens we purchased dried bagged sand to inject in the greens.  We did not use all of the sand during this process and have been playing around with the idea and benefits of applying the sand with push spreaders since then. This year took the plunge and decided this is the method we are going to use to topdress our greens.  The use of bagged sand is more expensive than bulk order sand but this way we do not have any loss of product due to contamination, spillage during loading or transport to the greens, and we have an exact measurement of the amount of sand we are placing on the greens.

Our application rates are 5-10# of sand per 1,000 sq ft. each week depending on growth of the grass and how much play we have had or are expecting to have.  It is a light rate compared to that which is suggested by some research and golf associations but we have found the following advantages. We have eliminated any compaction on the greens from the heavy mechanical topdresser, eliminated the compaction and bruising of the turf caused by the drag mat machine, eliminated the loss of product due to spillage or contamination, eliminated the rush to get everything done before golfers start play (at this light rate we can do it in play and no one notices), and we have reduced the damage to the cutting units and all the expenses that go with having to change bedknifes, sharpen reels, and ease the frustrations of the equipment technician.

We are by no means discounting the importance of topdressing greens with sand.  It has many great benefits which we believe we are still experiencing and will continue to benefit from as we move forward.  This process will allow us to place less stress on the greens, our small numbered agronomy staff, our equipment technician, and will be less disruptive to your round while all along providing firm, fast, and true playing surfaces. Looking at the course with the "third story" mentality has allowed us to see that just because certain cultural practices might work at another golf course or be recommended by someone they may not be best for our course or work into our program.

We have had so many compliments on the course this year which we are grateful for and they have all been passed on to the agronomy team.  Changing the way we topdress our greens has freed up some time to do other things on the course like giving a "shout out" to my alma mater, Auburn University, while waiting for the mowers to finish grooming the greens. (It can't all be work you know) We really hope everyone is enjoying the changes we are making to the maintenance programs and philosophy at Harrison Bay as all the hard work done on the course is to benefit your game.

Managing Excessive Organic Material in Greens

Over the past couple of months we have been working very hard to recover our greens from the nematode infestation that we experienced coming out of dormancy as detailed in a previous blogpost Greens Getting Better Everyday.  With all the extra fertility we have had to apply to the greens to help them recover we have generated a lot more organic matter in the greens this year than usual causing them to be puffy, or have a "spongy" feeling, which reduces the firm, fast feel of the greens and allowing our greensmowers to start scalping and gouging areas in the greens.

We have worked too hard in getting the greens back to lay off of them now so that is why we got aggressive with our verticutting process this past week.  The whole idea of getting aggressive is to remove the stolons or top growth on the greens.  It looks very intense but is actually one of the best things we can do for our greens as it removes the excess growth in the greens, allows for more sand topdressing to be incorporated into the greens, creates a firmer faster surface, and reduces the potential scalping issues that we have been facing.

The greens were verticut in two directions at a depth of 0.125" below the surface using a backtrack mowing pattern meaning we verticut directly back up the pass we just did.  This is done to make sure all the green is consistently affected in the same way.

Verticutting or vertical mowing is accomplished by using blades which are set in a vertical position, thus the name, and designed to penetrate the surface of the greens to remove stolons and excess growth on greens.  The depth at which the blades are set determine the amount of material removed and the disruption to the putting surface.

So why do we spend the extra time and energy to backtrack mow?  The set up of the verticutting units and the growth habit of the greens to grow downhill and toward the sun requires this to insure a consistent affect to the entire surface.  The top picture shows the units going up hill or "into the grain" so the blades are actually not affecting much turf.  The bottom picture shows the blades going downhill so that the teeth shown above are actually reaching under the green surface and pulling the turf upwards.  If the greens were only verticut in one direction then every other pass would be affected more than the other and that would result in stripes across the green which would affect play and appearance for a very long time.  And no one wants that.

After the greens were verticut we used a tow behind turbine blower to remove any excess organic material from the greens surface before it was double cut with our sand reel mowers set at 0.130 and then single cut with our regular cutting units set at 0.120.  The amount of material removed from the greens is unbelievable and I wish there was a way to collect it all and pile it up so everyone could get a grasp of what is going on under that putting green surface and why these processes are necessary.

After the greens were double cut and then single cut they were moderately topdressed and drug in and then watered.  We really opened up the canopy of the greens with this process and the sand worked right into the voids we had created, so much so that we were able to come back on Wednesday morning and apply another dressing with sand to finish the process off and smooth the greens up so much more.

So on Wednesday some of the greens looked like this which did give credence to some of the comments we heard like "What have they done to the greens now?" or "They just got them back and now they have torn them up again".  But the greens putted very well considering their appearance just proving you should not judge a book by its cover.

So by Friday the greens were healed in from the verticutting process and better than they have been all year.  It takes some work to get and keep greens in the condition that golfers demand and as we are not closed one day a week for maintenance we have to perform these tasks when we can.  Normally we would not have been this aggressive during the playing season, and would have waited for our summer aerification closure, but this needed to be done and if I could I would do it again next week.  Don't worry I'm not.  Thanks for your patience and I hope you agree with me that the final result was worth the couple of days of pain.

Best Laid Plans Gone Awry---Green #9

Not every plan that we come up with at the golf course works out the way we plan, but you have to be willing to try different techniques or you will never know.  When we came out of winter dormancy this year we were dealing with several issues and had to try different techniques to combat them.  On #9 green our issue was not nematodes as it was on the other greens but rather poor drainage and an excessive amount of surface algae that was smothering the new turfgrass as it was trying to come out.

We tried several chemical controls to try and eliminate the algae growth but none of them worked the way we needed so we decided we would "wash" the algae off with a high pressure hose.  We started with a 1" adjustable fire hose nozzle but that was not working as well as I wanted so I decided to use a flat fan nozzle on the end of the 1" hose to peel the algae off of the green.

In theory the plan worked great and there was lots of green grass on the green under all that algae.  So our plan worked out, correct?  Well, not really.

On other areas that had algae growing on them on other greens we reverted back to the less aggressive adjustable nozzle after we realized that the flat fan nozzle had actually, almost irreparably, damaged the green by stripping the leaf blades off of the plant.  After a week or so after performing the high pressure washing of the green I knew our best laid plans had gone awry.  The green was showing some signs of recovery but with the golf season coming on quick we had to make some quick decisions about how to fix or repair this green.

Before just fixing the green we needed to figure out what could have been the cause of the issue in the first place.  Why was the green failing to drain properly and allowing the surface to stay wet for so long to allow the algae to become such a problem.  At first we thought it was our pigment PAR from Harrell's that we used for greens applications but according to lab testing that was not the cause of the sealing off of the greens.  A closer look at the top three inches of our greens surface and the topdressing sand we have been using for several years began to tell the tale about what happened.  The fine and very fine sand particles in our topdressing sand exceeds the suggested limits for topdressing sand from the USGA.  These particles had packed together to make water and air almost impossible to penetrate the green surface.  Below the top 2 inches tests showed that our greens were functioning properly but the water simply could not make it through to that level rapidly enough.

With several big events coming up at the end of the summer we had to pull the trigger on fixing the green.  We simply could not wait for the green to come back in on its own.  So on Monday, May 23rd, we started the renovation process of the green by removing the top 3-4 inches of the green surface as we did on #3 green over the winter months Rebirth of #3 Green  The removed material was stockpiled in the parking lot to be used in other projects at a later date.

Close to 75 tons of new greens mix was brought to the green and spread.  We used the tracks of the Bobcat track loader to disturb the area beneath the 4" so that there was no chance of the two sands bridging or water being trapped between the new sand and the existing greens complex.

After the green was roughed in and then fine hand raked to level out any humps we watered down the sand to help it pack better and used the weight and the tracks of the track loader to firm up the greens surface and get it ready for it's new coat of turf.

The removal of the damaged green and the replacement of the new greens mix was done by Mitch and Bill in only one day.

Over the next couple of days we continued to hand rake and pack the new greens mix as well as apply our pre plant fertilizer getting the surface ready to lay the new Champion Ultradwarf bermudagrass sod on it.  The sod arrived on Wednesday and early on Thursday morning we got started by first placing a ring of sod around the perimeter of the green and then pulling a rope across the middle of the green so we could have a good first line and off we went.

It took the agronomy staff a little over 4 hours to cover and cut in the new sod on the green.  Roll after roll after roll we kept laying it down until it was all done.  The sod came in a refrigerated trailer so it was still in excellent condition and gave us an instant idea of what the green would soon look like once it was grown in.

Once the green was completely covered and cut in we cleaned up all the scrap pieces and moved all the unused pallets of sod out of the way and began the "seating in" process.  First we hand watered the green rather heavily to water the sod and to make the 1.25 ton vibratory roller work better.  We rolled the sod in multiple directions which did a great job of helping to level everything out.

After the multiple rollings we had a sand slinging party to add greens mix on the surface and used level lawns and brooms to help work it down into the canopy.  This helped to firm up the green and level off high and low areas in the green.

The next thing on the list, after multiple heavy waterings, was to mow the green at a high height of cut 0.250" taking off the top bit of canopy to help the smoothing process and to make it easier to get the multiple topdressings into the surface.

Unfortunately this is the last project, and last picture I took, of one of our agronomy staff members Barry Webb.  Barry passed away unexpectedly on Memorial Day.  Rest in peace Barry.  You are very much missed.

So it has been three weeks since we went from what was an embarrassing situation and green to one that is looking extremely good.  Already down to greens height and rolling better and better every day we are extremely happy with the results of the project.  Thanks to all the golfers who put up with the temporary green in the fairway for a few days and with the slower than normal putting as we worked the green down to height.  As we move forward the green will only get better as the rest of the greens are.

The Agronomy Staff did a great job on this project and we will continue to work to improve the golf course with other projects such as sodding, tee and approach aerification, and adding sand to bunkers will be carried out throughout the remainder of the summer.

Greens Update -- Getting Better Every Day

Photo taken on April 19, 2016

It's only the first of June but it has already been a long season for the agronomy team at Harrison Bay, mostly due to the extended growing season we encountered this past winter where we were still mowing green turf on our greens on New Year's Eve day which is very unusual. If you have played the course you have witnessed the areas on the greens which are less than ideal.  So what caused this and what are we doing to correct it?

The primary cause of our issues on the greens was a severe infestation of nematodes, mostly of the Sting (Belonolaimus longicaudatus) variety.  Nematodes are microscopic, non-segmented worms which feed on the root system of plants in various ways, all leading to the injury and/or demise of the turfgrass.  In the case of the Sting nematode they feed by inserting a stylet into the plant root much like a mosquito into a human and suck out the plant juices.  By the time the symptoms are observed on the surface the damage has been done below.  We normally treat for nematodes from March through October but with the warm weather this winter the nematodes did not enter dormancy, or hibernation, as they usually do.  This was an abnormal year and I simply was not thinking of nematode control during the Christmas season.  This has been a wake up call for us and we will, from now on, be on a 12 month preventative control program for these little pests.

Photo taken on May 21, 2016

All is not lost however.  We have seen a considerable amount of recovery over the past couple of weeks since the weather has improved with higher temperatures which has greatly encouraged both topical and root growth.  The nematode infestation has been controlled with the use of Avid from Syngenta and Nortica from BAYER Golf.  We have begun using a new product Dakota REV from Dakota Peat which we have seen considerable benefits from.  This product along with our foliar apps from Harrell's MaxLine and our granular fertility, along with Harrell's Divot Recovery Mix, will help to continue to improve the putting surfaces every day as we move forward.

Unfortunately there are areas on a couple of greens which would take longer than acceptable to recover just by growing in the turf that is there so we will be working to repair these areas with sod over the next several weeks.  No one likes to have to sod a green surface but this is the best and quickest way to get these areas, mostly on the perimeter of the green and thus not affecting most putts, back into proper condition and ready for the major golfing tournaments and TGA state championship events we have coming up in the next three months.

Healthy turfgrass from root to tip can withstand more environmental stresses than plants which are already weak.  This is well known and commonsense.  So as I stated last year in Time to Reset we will be doing more cultural practices on the greens to help improve their health and ability to withstand the pressures placed on them from weather, play, maintenance practices, disease pressures, and other forces such as nematode activity.  This may include additional venting and quad tine core aerifications, spiking, shallow and deep verticutting of greens, and additional applications of sand topdressings.  All designed to improve the health of our greens by revigorating our 12 year old Champion greens with new, stronger, healthier plants.

We are confident that our greens will continue to improve exponentially as the summer progresses and we thank all of our faithful members and tournament directors who have stuck with us through this learning process.  This has been a trying time for everyone at the course as golfers look to us for answers as to what went wrong.  I have to thank my agronomy staff for their hard work and the operations staff in the clubhouse for taking the brunt of the questions and concerns.  As it has been said before "If it was easy, everyone would do it." which is definetely true for a golf course superintendent.  We are excited about the future and thank you for your patience.

The Rebirth of #3 Green

For several year now we have been dealing with the poor performance of #3 green.  We have tried many different practices and processes to try and revive this green but with no success.  So this winter we took on a renovation of this green in order to continue to work to provide the best possible playing conditions and experience we can.  Details of the project and why we chose to make this drastic step can be viewed on a previous blog post, Renovation of #3 Green.

We began the project in November by removing the top 5 inches of the contaminated greens mix. The excess organic matter in the greens surface made it virtually impossible for the green to perform properly.  It was surprising how fresh the greens mix below this level was.  Like it had just been installed a few days ago.  This difference in the two layers validates the need, and our request, for deeper aerification of the greens surfaces to eliminate this hard pan layer and allow for roots, water, and air to penetrate deeper into the greens profile.

The next step was to bring in new greens mix which was spread and contoured to a new greens shape.  The new greens mix and the old greens mix was lightly blended together to insure we did not have a barrier between the two soils.  The green was then graded and packed which gave it a similar but new look to the surface and now provides us with about twice the legal pinning areas as before.

Once the green was packed and contoured we installed new Champion ultradwarf bermudagrass sod to the surface.  Now sodding an ultradwarf green in the middle of winter in Tennessee is not the ideal way of doing things I will agree but it was the only time we could do this project and affect the smallest amount of play.  We were extremely lucky during the time of the sodding as we had unusually warm weather through the end of December which allowed us to roll and top dress the green several times and helped in its transplanting.

On February 27th we decided to officially open #3 green for play.  Although there are still a few seams that you can see and it is not as smooth or fast as the other greens on the course, playing on the greens surface is better than playing on the temporary green out in the fairway.  We will continue to roll and top dress the green over the remainder of the month and believe by the end of March the green will be as good as the rest of them, maybe even better.

We are very pleased with the results of this project and very encouraged by the growth we are seeing from the green given how early it is in the season and the weather we have had so far.  This is a picture of a plug taken from #3 green and as you can see the roots are starting to grow and establish into the greens mix.  This is a very encouraging sign and one we are very happy to see.

I would like to thank our Agronomy Staff for all their hard work on this project.  We took on a challenge that many people said we were crazy to attempt and through hard work and determination have succeeded in reviving our worst green to one we can now be very proud of.  I would also like to thank everyone, from the proshop to the golfers, for their patience and understanding as we carried out this process.  I know it was not ideal to have to play to a temporary green for three months but I believe you will agree with me that the pain was worth the gain.

As always we will continue to strive everyday to make The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay the best that we possibly can and we thank you for your patronage and your support.  If you have any questions or comments please don't hesitate to contact me with them.

Covering Greens---What It Looks Like and Why We Do It

I really wish it only took this long to cover a green but in reality when you have a great crew, who know what they are doing, it can be that easy.  Covering greens is not an easy process but to help ensure the survival of ultradwarf greens in the transition zone it is a necessary evil.  No one likes to close a golf course to play but then again no one likes greens that are damaged in the summer from winter laziness or poor decisions.


Here is a link from a previous blogpost including a webcast from the United States Golf Association which better explains covering greens.

Link to USGA Webcast on Covering Greens

So much like you or I need a coat on when it gets cold outside, our greens do also, especially this year with the warm weather and the extended growth of the grass.  Covering the greens will increase the temperatures under the covers from 5-8 degrees higher than the temperature outside of the cover.  This may not sound like much but that slight increase in temperature can be the life and death of ultradwarf greens.  It takes a little work to protect them but it is worth every second in the long run.  And it is still better than syringing bentgrass greens all summer long.

Facelift for #16 Green

This week we worked on giving #16 green and little facelift and in the process correcting poor surface drainage on the back of the green that has caused weak turf on the cleanup lap.  As you can see in the photo there was a dip where the 419 surround and the Champion green surface met resulting in water running down the 419 surround and then sitting on the edge of the green.  This caused for poor rooting and surface algae accumulation which caused for poor turfgrass coverage.

We removed the existing turf, both Champion and 419, and also removed any greens mix that was contaminated with excessive organic matter. We brought in new greens mix and spread across the area.

Once the new greens mix was spread out we used a 1 ton roller to pack the new mix and make sure we had the proper grade that we wanted for the area to help ensure the water did not have an area to accumulate in but continued on the green.

After the sod was placed on the ground it was watered and rolled multiple times to smooth it out and help ensure good sod to soil contact.  This was a good way to make sure we had the proper slope that we wanted and had a good transition from the existing sod to the new sod.

Once the sod was down, watered, and rolled into place it was lightly topdressed and watered in several, several times to fill in the canopy and help retain moisture.

Improvements will continue at Harrison Bay all winter, especially if we continue to have this great warm weather.  Any area, on or around any of the greens, that has been renovated will be marked and should be considered Ground Under Repair and should be played as such.

Thanks to Willie, Barry, and Mitch for doing such a great job on this project.  Now onto the next one.