Tree Trimming.... A Priority This Winter!

Tree Trimming is an annual maintenance task here on the golf course.  The fact that we have mature hardwood trees on the course creates a lot of work year round from deadwood to limbing to safety concerns for golfers.  The trees on the property are constantly evaluated to determine the necessity of the aforementioned tasks.  This year we will be focusing on tree lines of each hole.  Tree limbs should not hang over or impede a fairway boundary in my opinion.  The goal will be to limb the tree up underneath as well as shape the trees with a boom lift the best we can.  A golfer should have a full swing under each tree as well.

This golf course was not designed with the intention of ending up with all these trees we currently have.  Not mush we can do about that  but maintain safety and keep the course as fair and playable for everybody, of all skill sets.

Mike O'Neill, GCS

Tee Renovations, Holes #2 and #5.

We are well on our way in the tee renovation project we are working on in-house.  The project is going well considering mother nature certainly has not cooperated!  The plan is to re-use the sod we have stripped on the 5th tee to save some costs.  The 2nd tee complex will be sodded to brand new bentgrass sod.  These two tees are the two weakest structurally on the golf course so the finished product will be  quite drastic comparatively.  As is visible with the infested tree roots in the tee above,  the health of the tee has certainly been compromised by the roots over the years.  A good example of why trees and healthy turf do not exist together!

New irrigation lines have been trenched and set and the tee soil mix has been placed on the new tees. We will continue to fight the weather to get the projects done in the near future so the sod can establish before the long winter.  The plan is to be able to open the new tees first thing in the spring when the course opens.

Mike O'Neill, GCS

Tee Renovation Scheduled For #2 And #5 Men's Tees.

We recently inquired and received 15 loads of  Free soil from a local pool company building a pool in the area.  The soil was some very nice topsoil so the plan is to put the soil to good use by re-building the 2nd and 5th men's tees.  These tees are the weakest on the golf course for many reasons so we will address the master plan and renovate them to provide a very nice teeing surface for next years golfing season.

 #5 Tee below contains (2) very uneven and misaligned tees.  The tees here are also inundated with tree roots from trees in the area.

 The master plan below shows how the #2 tee will be built utilizing (2) separate tees for the blue and white teeing area.

 The master plan below shows the 5th tee and how it will merge into being (1) large tee at the same  elevation.

In the meantime, we will begin construction sometime in early October and during this time the blue and white tee markers will be placed on the ladies tee until next season for daily play.  Preemptive apologies for any inconvenience this will cause until next season.  

Mike O'Neill, GCS

The Obvious Benefits Of Core Aeration...

The pictures above shows two different portions of greens that we core aerated back in July.  These areas are historically high-traffic areas that receive excess wear and traffic from foot traffic, a wetter than usual area or a pinch point where golfers tend to funnel because of the topography in these areas. These areas are both, as mentioned, "Wet Areas" that tend to stay wetter than the rest of of the green. The extremely wet June we experienced further exacerbated the problem here so we took the approach to core aerate these spots and the benefits are evident with the healthy looking turf in all of the aeration holes.

With the demands to keep greens speed at a certain expected level, these areas that are weaker will be expected to thin out come August.   I have heard members ask "Why are the greens slow today" or "Why can't the greens be this fast all of the time".... The answer is in the pictures above.  We would have extensive thin areas like the ones pictured above if we did't take our foot off the pedal at least a little bit.  These areas will fill in nicely going forward thanks to the aeration process.  We will be core aerating all the greens on September 8th;  the process is very labor intensive but the benefits to our greens is exponential and is the reason our greens play the way they do all summer!

Mike O'Neill, GCS

Wetting Agent Products For Turf...Worth The Investment!

The above picture shows how dry the intermediate rough has gotten recently with the dry weather we have been experiencing.  It is very noticeable how healthy the fairways look compared to some of the rough.  In the picture above, you can see a distinct line where we sprayed wetting agent on the fairways this spring to help keep the fairways moisture level adequate.  The lackluster irrigation system is the main reason we spray the wetting agent in the spring.  Next year we will include the intermediate cut in the wetting agent application for very obvious reasons!!!

Mike O'Neill, GCS

Proactive Aeration On Historically "High-Traffic Areas" On Greens.

This week many will notice the random strips where we have core aerated the greens that tend to go south during the months of July and August with our rigorous maintenance programs to keep up greens speed.  These areas tend to thin because of an existing issue with drainage or lack of soil underneath.  The spots we aerated are areas than cannot withstand the pressure of frequent mowing and rolling coupled with excessive foot traffic.  The aeration is an attempt to be proactive in creating a healthier environment for the turf in these areas.  You can see by the above picture, my assistant Keith Eilertsen is also applying seed to these areas to promote an even more tolerant bentgrass turf species to traffic for the future.

Mike O'Neill, GCS

#12 Approach...Much Improved!

The late fall project of creating "Drainage sumps" for surface water removal of the 12th approach has been completed.  The drainage is doing a nice job through this very wet spell.  We recently removed bentgrass/poa sod from our nursery green collar and sodded the entire area.  This area should play and look a whole lot better from here on out!

Mike O'Neill, GCS