Enjoying some favorable spring weather
The fairways on the Sabot have grown in nicely, mainly from the bermudagrass starting to wake up. We will begin fertilizing these fairways to help the bermuda along and then look at starting to take the ryegrass out with herbicide mid-May.
We do have our new weather station up and running. On Weather Underground you can search for the KVAMANAK9 station. Select it as a favorite and you will be able to see all kinds of current and past data like temperatures, humidity and rainfall amounts. The station is mounted between the Golf Shop and the cart barn and updates every 60 seconds. Having the station online allows us to watch rainfall in real time which enables us to adjust planning and irrigation schedules accordingly.
The bermuda on the Manakin is also starting to wake up. We are just about a month away from our first herbicide application to begin the re-grassing project (May 28th). The next 4 weeks will give the bermuda plenty of time to wake up and be ready to take up the herbicide properly.
John Gibson continues to troubleshoot and amend a variety of irrigation problem and leaks. None of them have been small but we are forging ahead in making sure the system is at 100% for the season.
Member Guest week has come on us quickly and the team has responded well. We have been double cutting and rolling greens daily and putting in extra hours to make sure the details are as tight as possible for the weekend. While it is fun to see how far we can push the turf in the spring, maintaining this pace of work isn't feasible for the staff or the plants through the summer.
We still have plenty of work to do as we move forward towards the Manakin project. The volunteer weeds in the new latitude sod around the greens will be removed in a few weeks as the bermuda continues to grow and fill in.
One final note this week and it is about broken wooden tees. As far as we are concerned, broken tees are considered litter, similar to an expired drink can or bottle or an empty bag of chips. If your tee breaks, please pick it up and throw it away. Our staff wastes time and effort in picking up these broken tees. They do not do our mowers any favors and overall the scattered trash produces an unfavorable look to our tee boxes. We are beginning our lobby for plastic tees that last for many rounds but until we can switch, please help us keep the tee boxes looking clean!