Course Updates from the Agronomy Team

It has certainly been a busy few weeks for the Agronomy Team.  The Dye Course has been closed since May 14^th for its annual early summer aerifications and the Nicklaus has been the only course open for play, making some of the routine maintenance practices a little more challenging to accomplish so as to not disrupt play.  The weather has finally started to turn in the right direction and will really begin to give us the temperatures we need to get the turf to aggressively start growing and help with the transition from cool season overseed back to our bermudagrass base.

Aerifiying #5 fairway

The Dye Course aerification is going very smoothly.  All greens, tees, fairways, and areas of high traffic have all been successfully aerified and cleaned up.  The greens are transitioning well, even with the cooler than normal spring temperatures, and should be back to normal within the next couple of weeks.  We have also delayed the closing of the Nicklaus Course for aerification for a week to allow the greens on the Dye to recover a bit more and be in better playing condition when it opens back up on Saturday May 24^th.  

Cleaning up #4 fairway – a little dusty!

While we refer to this closure as “aerification”, there are a lot of other projects going on at the Dye that would not be possible if done in play; Items such as the removal of the “stray zoysiagrass” in the fairways and approaches, removal of the zoysiagrass encroachment in the greens collars, and sodding of thin areas of centipede and high traffic areas.  These projects are extremely disruptive and labor intensive, requiring that we pull staff from regular routine activities (raking bunkers, changing cup, and frequency of mowing) that are done on a daily basis, to accomplish these large projects.  These projects are all on schedule to be completed by the time that the course opens back up but it hasn’t been an easy feat to pull off, most of the staff worked close to 75 hours the first week of the closure to complete the aerification process and then move on to these projects.  

Between #1 & 9 before – ugly!

 

Between 1 & 9 in process

Between 1 & 9 Finished Product - Much better!

Here are a few quick numbers of the man hours and materials needed to complete the aerification process and project:

• ·               Aerification required 592 man hours
• ·         Sodding of collars required 393 man hours
• ·         Sodding of high traffic and thin areas required 465 man hours
• ·         Sodding of stray zoysia in fairways and approaches 424 man hours
• ·         122 pallets of grass for these projects
• ·         150 tons of sand for topdressing and replacing soil in the greens collars
•        19,000 lbs. of fertilizer and soil amendments

As you can see from the numbers above we have been extremely busy and being closed helps the efficiency of the projects immensely.  Had these projects been done in play, we could expect to add approximately 50% to these numbers, not only taking longer to complete but the disruption to play and safety would be significant, almost unbearable.  

It will take a few weeks for the sod that has been laid to become rooted and the heights lowered to normal playing heights.  Please consider any sod that you may encounter as GUR for the next few weeks.  We could paint each spot but that would look like a white line extravaganza.  The rest of the course is coming along nicely and will continue to recover from aerification as scheduled.   

As you can see form the pictures, there has definitely been a lot going on around the Dye Course during the past 8 days.  As this is being written, we are still laying sod on the collars and some of the areas in the fairways and approaches, and we still need to mow all the rough, edge and rake all the bunkers to get the course set up for play again.  That’s all got to happen in the next 48 hours!

Below are a series of pictures to give you an idea of what these projects looked like before, during, and after. 

Spraying Roundup herbicide in fairways to kill stray zoysiagrass

#3 approach after round up applications

 

Cutting and removing stray zoysia from #3 approach

#2 approach in the removal process

#7 Drive On Before

#7 Drive On Complete

Removing the Zoysia encroached sod from the collars