State of the Club

Nine days after the completion of a very aggressive aerification of the greens which included 5/8" aerification holes on 2" centers, along with 1" by 12" deep drill and fill process, we are in better shape than expected. 

What do I mean by that statement?  I mean that historically we are removing excess sand for up to two weeks after aerification, however, this time with more expense we aggressively rotated the mowers to hasten the process, performed extremely heavy fertilizations, and the even more so we have had fantastic weather we are having to expedite the recovery process with higher than normal heat and humidity.  Other than some spot plugging on holes 1, 4, 5, 8, 11 & 15 most of the greens are about a week ahead of plan thanks to these processes and weather.

12's Green - Slightly Scalping Due to Thatch

So what is the plan and what to expect?  Today we will be double cutting the greens using two triplexes and then topdressing all of the greens.  Since the sod laid in the beginning of June and late May is becoming thatchy (leading to the slight scalping you may have noticed) we will be also verticutting those areas.  The sod that that was put in last week we will be sand leveling today and tomorrow.  We may have to spot aerify some of the new sod if the verticutting doesn't handle the thatch issue ... but it is premature to guess on that presently. 

All of today's processes, along with the starting of the growth regulator application are for one goal ... increase green speed.

So what else to expect?  Since we have stopped chemical transition in 2010 in an effort to save funds for the Club, the roughs and the fairways are still poised for transition.  Presently there is an average of 50% ryegrass remaining in the fairways.  Here at Avondale we purchased a hardier ryegrass since we do not have wall-to-wall cart paths, which will handle the excess cart traffic during season.  This also slows its removal in the summer thus reducing the spread of the common bermudagrass that we have here.  Over the next couple of months this transition will continue in the approaches, fairways, select (non-328 bermudagrass) tees and roughs.  We will address these areas as they occur.

14's Fairway Going Through Transition

Transition is not preventable if you overseed a golf course.  By its very nature, ryegrass is devolved to die in the summer time thanks to excess heat and increased disease to allow the bermudagrass to fill in and make a wonderful base to overseed into the next season.  If this ryegrass could survive year after year we would not overseed at all and only grow ryegrass.  There is no amount of money that can stop transition and this is the reason that most golf courses in Florida, Texas and southern Georgia have stopped overseeding completely.

So the last question you may ask is “why did we sod the same areas on the greens again this year?”  This is a great question but not a simple answer but here is the quick and dirty version.   New bermudagrass sod requires 100+ days of growth to improve its chances of survival, and ideally is not overseeded for one year after.  The one year not overseeded is not realistic for us here at Avondale but the 100 days is possible.  Last year I debated with JC Resorts to sod early like we did this year, but they decided not to go that route … I did, however, in July of last year go ahead and sodded these extremely bad areas to improve the conditions for our summer members.  I used funds and savings in other areas of my budget to pay for this sod work thus I still kept my budget within line.  Sadly, 70% of these areas did not survive the overseeding process since they were not fully established.  This summer, we increased the survivability by given the sod 100+ days of growth.

I will note that there will always be some problematic areas on the greens during transition such as on 1, back of 5 & 10, 11 and 12.  You may ask why? And what can we do to fix this problem permanently.  On the 1’s green – remove the large eucalyptus next to the green who’s roots are damaged that side;  same holds true for 5 (the palms and shade issues on side and back, 10’s back where the large eucalyptus encroaches the green.  On 11’s green there are two major issues one of which holds true on 12 & 15 as well …  extremely poor percolation issues thanks to years of tilling in the bentgrass root mass long before the conversion.  Additionally, 11’s green faces major shading issues on the back and left side, and some root encroachment.

To address these issues we also trim the trees surrounding the greens every year just before overseeding; and lastly aggressive aerifications and deep drilling to address the percolation issues.  Other discussions to how to best address these issues have been in the Green Committee for potential rectification.