As the golf calendar ramps up for June, so does activity for our ground’s operations. Beginning in May, our team refined the work schedules to tend to the playing surfaces of the golf courses.
Mondays are usually reserved for maintenance activities, specifically the playing surfaces such as vertical mowing and topdressing of sand. Daylight hours will allow our staff to top-dress greens and conduct mowing operations of various areas following the occasional Monday golf outing. This is a change from previous years and if you happen to play golf after one of these events, you may encounter our staff as they prepare the course for the remainder of the week.
In a recent Weekly Happenings e-blast, we communicated about the turf renovation of the main practice tee. Beginning on June 19th. The practice tee will close for three days to strip the existing turf, grade the soil and install the sod. Once this is complete, the main teeing area will open for mat use until the sod has matured. We anticipate this will take less than four weeks for the seams to knit-in place and the turf to root down. During this time, the rear tee will be available to hit off grass from the expansion that occurred in May.
The process we will use to harvest the existing turf is called fraise mowing. Fraise mowing utilizes hundreds of blades on a helix-shaped rotor that removes material from the surface. This type of cultivation has been used on sports turf surfaces such as football fields or soccer pitches since the mid-90s, and has made a move into the golf market in recent years. In the instance of sports turf fields and depending upon species type, a field can be fraise mowed and usable in four weeks. The organic material removed exposes plant material to produce a stronger and healthier surface.
We enter the sixth month of the year and as we look back on our wet weather events, we are trending slightly lower year-to-date for totals for rain. In addition, the month of May was down two inches from a year ago, which is hopefully a sign of lesser amounts of precipitation from the yearly total in 2018 of 65 inches.
As we progress through the month, the weather will turn warmer and more humid. With this expectation, we will communicate via email regarding changes to cart usage. Up to now, we have asked cart traffic to scatter in all areas. At some point in the near future, we will ask to have carts traverse up the hole on the fairway only, as we can support the stress of traffic with the irrigation system.
If you are worried about grubs in your lawn, the latter part of June until July 4th is the best time to apply your
pre-emergent product. This will ward-off these critters that are a great food source for skunks and foxes that can cause damage in your lawn areas in September and October.