Hello Spring. Nice of You to Show Up...FINALLY

After a winter that seemed that it would never end, the sun is finally out and shining, and the course is coming back into shape, albeit about a month later than we are used to.  The extended cold temperatures and excessive rainfall that we experienced in the months of March and April delayed the green up of the bermudagrass and have caused the delay in some of our maintenance practices that we would normally have performed by now.

The delay in the normal springtime temperatures has caused delays in the green up of a few areas on the course and we have been asked about these, why they occurred, what we could do about them, and how long will they be this way.  Dr. Jim Brosnan, Associate Professor University of Tennessee, recently wrote an article about the delayed greenup that we are experiencing in the transition zone and I thought I would pass along his excellent explanation.

A Sluggish Start for Bermudagrass in 2018

To be honest a few weeks ago, as I examined the golf course, I was fearful we would have to sod several areas on the course.  Since the weather has taken a turn for the better in the past week, with full days of warm sun and little to no rain, the turfgrass has also taken a turn, and one for the better.  We are seeing substantial growth and recovery in these areas and will be doing a few cultural practices over the next few weeks to help the turf along.  The first practice, which started this morning will be to vertical mow the weak areas to remove any crusting of thatch and algae and expose the underlying turfgrass to the warmth and benefit of the sun.

The next practice will be to use our Aerway shattertine slicer to solid tine aerify the weak areas to allow a void for any water that falls or is applied to be removed from the surface as to not drown the new plants as they grow or allow any algae to reform and to allow oxygen into the soil to promote root growth and recovery.  We will follow the solid tine venting with mowing of the fairways to smooth out the surface.  Following this we will apply some extra fertility to these areas to give them a little boost.

Your agronomy staff has worked very hard over the years to provide the high quality conditions that you have come to expect.  We understand questions arise when things look out of place and we will do everything we can to answer those questions and concerns. The golf course is quickly coming back to form, now that Spring has finally decided to show up, and we are confident these weak areas will be filled in shortly.  As always if you have any questions, concerns, or comments about the course or any practices we perform on the course please don't hesitate to let us know.  We will do our best to answer them.

Summer Aerification 2017

As you probably know the golf course was closed this past week so the agronomy staff could perform the necessary cultural practices on the course needed to have a high performing and well conditioned golf course.  We realize that this closure is not a desirable event to many golfers but it is vital to the long term playability of the course.  We have done our best to limit our cultural practices to this one week out of the year as to not impact your round and we thank you for your understanding and commitment to our course.

During summer closure week we try to accomplish as many tasks as possible to relieve the compaction and wear the course receives during the year as well as make improvements that we feel the course needs and will improve our guests experience.  Usually I try and post photos of the activities but this year the agronomy staff completed so many tasks in such a short time I thought you might like a video of the week.

So what did we accomplish this week??

Over 18 MILLION new holes were created in the putting greens relieving the compaction from the past year, removing a years worth of thatch growth, and providing channels for new, stronger plants and roots to develop.

4 acres of teeing surfaces were solid tine aerified

10 acres of tee and green surrounds were scalped down for better play

32 acres of fairways were sliced with our Aerway shattertine aerifier to improve fairway health.

Around 150 tons of sand were applied to the golf course turf including greens, tees, and greens surrounds to help firm up the playing surfaces, fill in aerification holes, and provide a smoother playing surface.

and many other smaller activities.

One of the improvements to the course that we hope you will quickly notice and enjoy is the lowering of the height of cut of the turfgrass directly surrounding the greens.  For years we have been maintaining this turfgrass close to 1/2" which resulted in balls getting caught on slopes and not running onto the greens surface or limiting the options golfers had to play their shot onto the green.  The turf surround the greens was scalped down to 1/4" and topdressed with sand to help firm up the turf and provide a smoother surface allowing the golf ball to hopefully roll onto the putting surface easier and also allow golfers the option to putt their ball from off the green if they choose which in the past would not have rally been an option.  We will continue to work these areas and improve them over the remainder of the year and we hope you find the new maintenance practice pleasing to your game.

Our golf course has made considerable improvements over the years and it is all due to the hard work and dedication of the agronomy staff.  I would be remise if I did not recognize and commend these individuals for their commitment to the betterment of Harrison Bay.  

Thank you to each member of our agronomy staff for making The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay all it can be, not only this week, but every week.

Showing the Tees, Fairways, and Driving Range some "Love"

Greens Aerification wasn't the only work that got accomplished last week.  We also performed summer cultural practices on tees, fairways, and the driving range tee as well.  All the tee boxes were aerified using 3/4" solid tines, topdressed heavily with sand, and then once dry enough the sand was drug in.  This practice will make the tees healthier, will increase drainage, and will loosen the compaction of the soil making it easier for you to get your tee in the ground, which we know has been a challenge sometimes this summer.

The big practice that we took on this year was to verticut or vertical mow the fairways.  This year since we had a few extra days I decided to go "deep" to really get down into the thatch layer and clean the grass up.  With the blades set at 1/4" below zero we surely accomplished that goal and pulled a lot of debris up.

Just like the verticutting units for the greens, the ones for the fairways are designed to cut into the turfgrass on a vertical plane pulling long stolons and dead/decaying thatch to the surface so it can be removed.  Here is a video of the fairway verticutter in action.  As you can see there is a tremendous amount of debris removed during this process.  Following the verticutting we blew as much of the clippings as we could from the fairways and mowed them in a circular pattern to "attack" the grass from different angles than it is used to which really cleaned the fairways up.  Since we do not have a leaf/turf vacuum to pick the clippings up there was a lot of debris to blow and you will still experience a little bit of it for a week or so but it will soon be gone.

One area that we really wanted to work on while the course was closed was the landing area on #10 where we installed all the drain lines this winter #10 Fairway Drainage Project Complete.  The work on this fairway has turned out great but the areas where the drains were installed needed to be smoothed out.  Using our John Deere tractor aerifier Willie aerified the landing area with 1" coring tines, allowed the cores to dry and then used a steel drag mat to bust up and spread the cores around.  The area was then blown off and rolled several times with the 1.25 ton vibratory roller we rented for the greens.  We also, as to not waste anything on our course, used the sand removed from #9 green that we had stockpiled in the parking lot to top dress the area heavily which will help continue to fill in the trenches and smooth the landing area out.

To try and make sure all the areas on our golf course felt some love throughout the week we also aerified and verticut the driving range tees on Thursday.  Using the same JD tractor and coring tines the range tees were aerified, then verticut with the Toro verticutters, all the sand drug in and then all the debris blown off to the front of the complex.

In fact there was so much thatch material removed from these tee boxes that when Willie got it blown to the front of the tee complex we had to take the Bobcat up to load it into a trailer to haul it off.  In total we removed 5 full trailer loads of clippings from the area which is an incredible amount.  Just goes to show how badly it was needed to be done, and therefore it will be done a little more often from now on so we don't get in this situation again.

We all love our golf course and believe that all the work we performed last week will only go to improve it moving forward.  We still have a few tees to top dress and will be blowing some of the clippings as we mow fairways over the next couple of weeks.  We are already seeing some response from the fairways as they look more lush and healthy and the tee markers are easier to set in the ground on the tee boxes.  It's always nice to see all the hard work paying off.

2016 Greens Aerification

Early Monday morning we began our summer aerification of the greens and other areas on the golf course.  Aerification is one of the most important cultural practices we do to the greens as explained in this Course Care from USGA Why Aerate?.  This year we chose to use a 1/2" side eject coring tine set on a 1/5" x 1.5" spacing.   Using this spacing we affected 10.91% of the green and removed close to 30 cubic feet of material from the green per 1000 sq ft.

The organic matter content of our greens has increased considerably over the years to over 6%.  The recommended limit for greens is 3% so this year we had to remove the cores and since we don't have the proper equipment to do this, it was left up to the agronomy team to do this manually.  It was a tremendous effort by our staff over two days to remove close to 3,900 cubic feet of material from the greens surface by hand.

Here is a plug taken from the putting green which if you remember was devastated by nematode damage coming out of dormancy this spring, Greens Update.  Two things to take from this picture 1) We have reduced the impact of the nematodes and the damage they caused, and have grown some very nice roots.  2) We have a considerable amount of organic matter (roots, thatch, live tissue) in the top 1.5" of the greens surface.  Ideally we should be closer to 3/4" of this organic layer. This layer is a haven for disease, nematodes, and holds excessive moisture making the greens soft and slower.  Removing this material will only make the greens perform and play better.

After all the cores were picked up and hauled away (to be used to fill in low areas, tree stump holes, and drainage lines around the course later) the greens were blown off leaving a clean surface.  The holes created by the aerifier were open and ready for sand.

After the greens were cleaned off they were double rolled and heavily topdressed with AS45 damp sand from Golf Agronomics.  Over the entire golf course we applied close to 35 tons of sand to the greens.  The sand was allowed to dry, actually a couple of times as we had a few stray showers pass through which got the sand wet again, and then drug in twice using a circle pattern.  After the second dragging the greens were heavily watered to relieve some of the stress from all the abuse to the surface and to work the sand into the surface.

The next step of the process was to perform a vertical mowing of the greens surface.  This year our intent was to remove as much organic matter from the greens as possible so we set the blades at 0.200" below zero and made passes up and back in two directions.  This process removes a lot of the dead and decaying leaf and stem tissue from the green.  It also pulls the stolons to the surface so they can be removed which will make the greens healthier and roll smoother.

In between each direction the greens were blown off to remove the debris from the green and allow for a cleaner and more consistent cut with the verticuttters on the next pass.

We verticut following aerification rather than prior to pulling the core because experience, and advice from our friends at East Lake Golf Club, has shown that this process helps to work the sand into the holes and reduce the size of the surface opening of the aerification hole.  The vertical mowing process will actually pull the leaf blades over the hole reducing the visual affect of the aerification process and will aid in helping the grass to grow over the opening faster which will help make the golfer happier, quicker.

The next step was to remove the leaf surface that was stood up by the vertical mowing process.  We set our sand reel cutting units at 0.150" and mowed up and back in one direction.  The greens were then blown off again and heavily watered again.

On Thursday the greens received another 35 tons of sand to continue filling in the aerification holes.  The sand will help to dilute the organic matter in the top of the greens profile, will help water and air exchange compared to the heavy thatch layer which was present in the top two inches of the green, and help smooth the surface out for better putting.  The greens were drug multiple directions and in circles after each mowing and topdressing.

After all the coring, topdressing, verticutting, mowing and dragging there is only one step left and that is to roll the greens with a 1.25 ton street roller.  The heavy roller will remove the majority of the tire tracks from the greens and start the greens along the path to recovery. Several different fertilizers and soil amendments were applied to the greens and after one final drag and after one more heavy irrigation cycle Greens Aerification 2016 was in the books.

So yes this has been a lengthy blog post but it has been a very long week and all the work done by your agronomy team will pay off tremendous benefits from here on.  I have to thank Robin and our upper management in Nashville for allowing us the time to perform all these tasks properly and not rushing through them as we normally have to.  We usually have only two days to accomplish all the tasks we performed over these five days but this way we got to take our time, slow down, and do the job better which will allow the course to recover quicker and perform better.

I can not thank our agronomy staff enough for their dedication and hard work.  After all the long hours for the TGA Match Play Championships last week to come right behind that with aerification was a lot to ask.  They performed flawlessly and had a great attitude the entire week doing all the hard work in the baking sun to make your golf course better.  If you see the agronomy staff out on the course let them know how much their commitment to the conditioning of the course means to you.  They deserve the recognition for all their efforts.

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.

Graden Groundhog Demostration

In the last blogpost Graden Contour Sand Injection demonstration we showed one of the many tools that are available to the golf course industry to help maintain greens properly and help to provide conditions that golfers demand. Although the Graden CSI did a wonderful job in removing the unwanted organic matter in the top inch of the greens there was a great amount of material to clean up.  Sometimes that is the biggest issue with doing cultural practices...cleaning up the mess that we create.

Another machine that was demoed was the Graden Groundhog material removal machine.  This machine is a self contained debris cleaning machine.  It has brushes and paddles inside which sweep the generated material into a hopper which can then be raised and dumped into a waiting vehicle or piled up on the side of the green to be picked up later.

Above is a video of the Groundhog clearing the material generated from the Graden CSI.

Once the material is cleared from the greens surface it can then be easily lifted above a vehicle to take the material away from the greens area.

Here is the area of the putting green after the groundhog has been over it.  Very little material left on the surface which will only require a little blowing.  The Groundhog during the demo had the brushes set just a touch too low and pulled some of the sand out of the grooves but since it is adjustable I believe I could set it to leave some more of the sand on the surface to help with leaving a smoother, less disrupted surface.

Here is the area after it was cleaned up and blown off.  The amount of material removed by the Groundhog was impressive and the fact that it would have taken agronomy staff members so much longer to pick up the debris is even more important.  This small demonstration area was nice to do but I know if we had to do all the course it would go much faster and be less back breaking on the crew if one had a machine such as this to help.  Again thanks to Michael Crawford of Redemix Turf Products for the demonstration.

Time to Reset

I have to begin this blogpost with a sincere apology.  Over the past couple of years I have failed to do the job that I was hired to do; to be the caretaker, the protector, the "voice" of the golf course.  I have spent so much time trying to satisfy so many different entities from golfers, to management, to the proshop, that I have failed to care for the most important entity we have, the golf course itself.

One of my favorite movies is An American President and to quote Michael Douglas' character "I have been so busy doing my job, I have forgotten to DO my job.  Well, that all ends today."  I have spent countless hours worrying, stressing, and beating myself up over what we need to do on the golf course to keep everyone happy and not effect or interfere with anyone's golf game that I have failed to carry out many of the important agronomic practices that I need to carry out to ensure the golf course is in top condition.  That all ends today.

So what does that mean for you, the golfer.  We will be carrying out more of the vital and important cultural practices that we have put on the back burner such as verticutting, aerification, topdressing, and slicing to name a few.  Don't be surprised when you see an aerifier on the course or a slicer alleviating compaction and wear in the fairways, or the greens, tees, or approaches being topdressed with sand.  And we will be using white sand from now on for many reasons (cost, availability, and the fact that painted sand is harmful to the soil profile).  More on that in a later blogpost.

Now please don't get me wrong.  I greatly appreciate everyone who chooses to spend their hard earned dollars at our course.  We are blessed to have a great collection of loyal golfers and tournament directors that choose our course over all others in the area every day.  We have over 50 tournaments/outings per year bringing in over 4,000 of our 30,000 annual rounds and we will try our best to not interfere with your round or your outing but with three to four outings in some weeks we will have to perform some of our cultural practices when we have to do them.

As always if you ever have any questions about the course or what/why we are doing certain practices on the course please don't hesitate to contact me at paul.carter@tn.gov or stop me on the course and I will be happy to sit down with you as I have with others in the past several months.  Our job is to provide the golfer with the best golfing conditions possible within the constraints of our budget and manpower limitations but to do that we have to take care of the foundation of the property, the turfgrass.  I thank you, in advance, for being accepting and understanding of the maintenance being performed on the course.

Verticutapalooza

Summer has finally arrived for us and while many people are going on vacation or laying out by the pool for the managers of ultradwarf bermudagrass greens the work is just beginning. Speaking for myself I can say that I love my job. I love being outside, seeing the sun rise each morning, watching the wildlife play on the course, and I even like the challenges that comes with my chosen profession.  One of the biggest challenges that we, golf course superintendents, face is finding the balance between the expectations of golfers and the health of the turfgrass, especially when it comes to putting surfaces.

For managers of the new ultradwarf bermudagrass cultivars that are replacing bentgrass greens all over the south thatch accumulation is probably one of our biggest issues.  Thatch according to the dictionary is "a tightly bound layer of dead grass, including leaves, stems, and roots, that builds up on the soil surface at the base of the living grass of a lawn."  Thatch according to a superintendent creates soft, patchy greens which are slow, can easily be scalped, harbor insects and disease pressures, and restrict the inflow of water, air, and nutrients.

The greatest tool that we have in combating the excessive accumulation of thatch is the use of vertical mowing or verticutting.  This is a process of using blades which are positioned vertically to slice through the surface and raise/remove growth which is not removed during normal mowing operations.  Is thatch a big issue?  Well the picture to the left shows the material removed from a single 10,000 sq. ft. putting green.  If this material is not removed on a regular basis the greens will become soft and puffy and will not be an acceptable putting surface and will eventually fail to perform correctly.

Our practice for the past two days which we called "Verticutapalooza" because it was a party for both us and the greens was to vertical mow up one direction and then back down the same line with the blades set 1/16" below the rollers. This picture shows on the left the green surface following the verticutting practice and on the right the greens surface once it has been mowed with our normal cutting units.  The thatch that was removed and the excess growth that is cut off of the surface helps to provide a firmer, faster, and more consistent putting surface.

Once the greens were mowed they were topdressed fairly heavily with a kiln dried green sand which was then drug into the surface with a carpet drag mat.  The incorporation of sand to the surface helps in the breakdown of organic matter in the soil matrix, fills in any voids in the putting surface, and helps to aid in the infiltration of water.

We use kiln dried green sand for our topdressing sand because it mitigates some, if not all, of the concerns and/or complaints by golfers of the greens being topdressed.  Many golfers are under the misconception that a green which has been topdressed will be slow, bumpy, or will drastically interfere with their round.  A light application of topdressing sand will actually make the greens smoother, faster, and more consistent but the sight of a green topdressed with white sand, no matter how well worked in, will still cause some golfers to complain to the proshop.  With our green sand if you don't see us putting it out you are most likely not going to be able to tell the greens have been topdressed and in our mind is worth the extra cost.

This is a picture of #18 green after being verticut twice along the same line, mowed, topdressed, and drug.  A massive amount of material was removed from the putting surface but it will only go to help the green both in the short term and the long haul.  Some golfers may see agronomy departments verticutting greens and think "They are destroying the greens.  Why can't they just leave good enough along?"  We could but the putting surface would not be the best it can be and would eventually begin to fail, resulting in lost turf and extensive restoration of the surface. Basically it is a very short term, minimal disruption for the overall longevity of the green.

May was a very busy month for us with 21 outings and tournaments which limited the amount of cultural practices we were able to perform to the greens.  We will resuming our biweekly verticutting program starting next week so that we can continue to improve our putting surfaces in an effort to provide the best putting surface we can for our golfers and guests.  Some had questions about what we were doing to the greens and I hope this has helped to alleviate some of those questions and concerns.