It's Friday
- Created on Friday, 26 April 2013 12:47
Good Morning! It's a dry start to the day and hopefully the amount of rain scheduled this evening in minimal. We are getting a jump on the rain by mowing tees, collars, approaches, and fairways this morning. Greens are showing signs already of the cold weather yesterday by the slight purple tint. The greens are being mowed this morning as we continue the use of our brushes with the greens mowers to help in ball roll. I have included a picture this morning of our Prism Gauge we use for monitoring our greens heights. Explanation: you have a bench setting which is the mowers height of cut inside our shop. Then you have a Prism Gauge setting which is the actual height once the mower is on a green. This is determined by the weight of the mower or softness of green. As you can see we are mowing very close to our summer heights and all we are lacking is the cultural practices such as: verticutting, grooming, and topdressing. We will begin a more aggressive approach next week with temperatures more normal. Lastly, we are off the path today!
Thanks,
Doug Estes
Cold Weather Again!
- Created on Thursday, 25 April 2013 13:07
Yes, today makes the third straight week we have seen patchy frost and temperatures drop in the 30's. I'm sorry but that just seems crazy for April 25th. Todays conditions are still pretty wet and hopefully the weekend rain is minor.
The greens are going to get there soon! Unfortunately, with these temperatures it delays the growth needed for good density. A positive we received yesterday was that after a 1.5" rain our greens were dry enough to mow by lunch. That would not have happened this time of year with our greens already soft. We assume the Dry Ject aerification done a couple weeks ago is to thank. already. We started mowing greens at lunch yesterday after a 1.5" rain. I meant to attach this picture of the Dry Ject process on Tuesday. Notice the dyed green sand which shows the depth and uniform column of sand injected into the greens. 
Thanks,
Doug Estes
Golf Course News
- Created on Tuesday, 23 April 2013 16:27
Just Just a quick blog on where we are with the golf course. Even though we have greened up over the last few weeks the grass has been in a holding pattern with our weekly cold snaps. Each week we gain ground only to see Mother Nature set everything back another week. We are well aware of our conditions and have to be cautious as to how aggressive we are with our transition. The weather is affecting everyone in our area. The aggressive approach is related to the cultural practices that are needed to make our greens great. Such as: grooming, verticutting, brushing, and lower heights. We will get there shortly but we can't speed up Mother Nature. Two weeks ago we completed the first of three Dry Ject aerifications of the year. This process will take place of our normal core aerification in July. We were able to incorporate over 40 tons of material at a depth of over 7" into our greens. The goal with this process is to improve our water movement through the greens which will allow us to be more aggressive during our wet months.
Thank you,
Doug Estes
"Covering Up"
- Created on Thursday, 31 January 2013 15:42
They are calling for temperatures to drop to a low of 23 degrees tonight. This means we will begin covering greens this afternoon around 2:30. The greens will remain covered through tomorrow as temperatures are only reaching 36 degrees for the high. We will uncover greens Saturday morning when temperatures allow. Check with the Golf Shop on Saturday morning for start times. Thank you and have a great day!
Doug Estes
"Heat Wave"
- Created on Tuesday, 29 January 2013 14:24
We all know that with temperatures reaching upper 70's today bad weather is around the corner. They are prediciting a strong line of storms tonight that could bring heavy rain and high winds. We already lost the ol' Cottonwood on #14 creek, lets hope the important trees make it through the night.
Today, we are mowing greens which will cleanup the appearance and help ball roll. You may notice we removed the sweetgum tree left of #9 green yesterday and will be replacing this tree with a grouping of crapemyrtles this spring. The crew was able to add sand to numerous bunkers yesterday that lacked the proper depth. This winter our plans are to continue renovating bunkers in house that were not completed during the 2011 renovation. Lastly, our crew maintains the divots on our tees very well and any help to our fairways would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and have a great day!
Doug Estes
