Three Cheers for July Rain!!

What a difference a week or two can make!

After a rain soaked June we have seen a hot and drier July. Some turf took a beating during the eight days in a row of ninety degree temperatures. This weekend's cooler weather is giving the golf course a break which has greatly improved turf the last few days! Greens' height of cut will be lowered this week because of the lack of 90 degree in the forecast for the near future.

Hot weather caused a rapid increase in both soil temperatures and stunt nematode population. Greens declined after our June 5 nematode control program failed because of excessive June rainfall. The rains quickly leached the control product from soils so it never had time to work. This is why 15 green was most affected by recent heat.....it is the green that perennially has the highest numbers of the microscopic soil root munchers and the population climbed completely unchecked. (A second biological nematicide was applied to all greens on July 18.) The results of this application will be evaluated in coming weeks.

Greens on holes 13, 15 and 16 struggled last week but are improving. This week, these three greens were mini spiked numerous times to help get needed air into the soil profile. After the spiking operation, greens were overseeded with ninety million creeping bentgrass seeds. Even if we see one percent germination, we'll have 900,000 new bentgrass plants on those greens in a week or so! All greens were fertilized Thursday to aid growth and recovery and the use of growth regulator chemicals has been suspended to all greens to aid healing.

Other thin areas of greens will be spiked and seeded as described above beginning Saturday night.

We will add sod to the failed area of 16 green during the week of July 29th. This area will be renovated during fall to remove the excessive accumulation (3 to 4 feet) of bunker sand that has splashed onto the green from thousands of bunker shots. We are excited about this project as it will restore the green back to how it was originally built and will ease the height of the steep slope of the greenside bunker.

Tidbits.....Cartpath paving and sod project is complete. Sodded areas will be opened up in early fall. Edges will be repaired through fall.....Grub control continues this week....We still haven't purchased a drop of water from Warwick, thank you new water holding berm!!....We expect to finally aerate and overseed 14 fairway this week; this project was put on hold due to heat....Bunker edging and re-sanding project continues. We have added 60 tons of sand with at least 90 more to be added....Tree Committee begins ambitious program to inventory all golf course trees on Monday....

Thanks for everyone's support the last few weeks! I hope everyone has a great week!

Patrick M Gertner CGCS