Course Update

Cooler weather and shorter days signal the beginning of Fall, and that means it's aerification season.  All the par-3 tees have been aerified and a sand/seed mix was put down to smooth the teeing surface and promote recovery.  The remaining tees will be aerified over the next few weeks as time and weather allows.  Greens aerification is scheduled for October 14 & 15, and the golf course will be closed both days.  Please check with the Golf Shop regarding hours of operation for the driving range those two days.

This time of year is also when we pick away at our project list, and the first item is renovating the six foot wide step-cut of rough around fairways.  The rough is comprised of Kentucky Bluegrass, turf-type Fine & Tall Fescues, and Perennial Ryegrass.  Over the past 20 years the step-cut has become contaminated with bentgrass that has spread out from the fairways, which creates playability and maintenance issues.  Bentgrass is ideally suited for greens, tees and fairways at a height of cut of .500" or lower.  When maintained higher than .500" golf balls will sink down and the thick turf will grab the club head and cause unexpected errant shots.  Bentgrass is also susceptible to certain diseases and having to spray these extra areas takes a toll on our limited resources.  There are a couple of options we considered to remedy this problem.  The first is to strip all the contaminated sod in the step-cut and lay new sod containing the grasses mentioned above.  This was impractical due to time and cost restraints, plus when bentgrass sod is cut any roots remaining in the soil will give rise to new plants and contaminate the new sod in 2-3 years.  The option we chose was to spray a herbicide that only targets the bentgrass plant and overseed with the desirable rough grasses.  The white turf you see is the bentgrass dying from the herbicide application, while the desirable turf remains green and unaffected.  The white ring around the fairways is not something I care for, but it's a great visual indicator that the herbicide is working.  It also shows how much bentgrass contamination there really is.  Overseeding is scheduled to be done this week, and a final herbicide application will follow shortly after to ensure all the bentgrass is dead.  Another unique aspect of the herbicide is you can seed before or after an application and it will not injure new seedlings.