7 inches of rain in as many days

We have gotten an amazing amount of over the past 7 days. Our teams has worked around it and the Sabot is holding up. Just about every blade of grass was mowed on Wednesday before another two inches of rain came down early this morning. The drains in the bunkers are very slow due to the amount of silt contaminated sand in them. It will take most of the crew two days to get the water out and get the sand shoveled back up on the edges. We will be putting together an improvement plan for these bunkers this winter.

A quick note on cart traffic. Our main directive has been to scatter traffic as much as possible. Something that helps this is to stay on the path until you are at a similar distance to where your ball is. Most golfers have been treating the fairways as grass cartpaths. Exiting the path quickly and driving straight up the fairway does not do the turf any favors, especially when everyone drives through the same areas. Stay on the path until you reach a closer latitude to where your ball is and then scatter traffic from there. The rough and fairways will thank you!

The Manakin is doing ok with all the rain. The forecasts are indicating some dry days on the way and hopefully our summer ridge of high pressure shows up in July as we start the sprigging. The Manakin stays saturated longer without any green grass on it to take up the water. Our second application of herbicide was set to go out Friday but that may be pushed to the weekend or even Monday. The major benefit of the no-till sprigging process is that we don't really have any bare soil exposed that the rain can wash out. The turf mat layer is still holding things in place which is helpful during these downpours. You can see some of the bermudagrass bouncing back after the first application of herbicide and some subsequent fertilizer. The next two applications will finish the job and we are still looking good to start sprigging July 8th.

Despite the soggy conditions work started on the approaches on the Manakin this week. During the original renovation the Manakin approaches were cavitied out and filled with sand. This sand never really proved to be beneficial for golf play. It never firmed up correctly and it was built in a way where close to the green would dry out and produce thin turf and further down the approach would stay soaked. We are taking the opportunity during the closure to change the approaches back to soil. This will keep them consistent with the fairways and allow us to firm them up and produce healthy turf. Our staff started by removing and preserving the existing latitude bermudagrass that was laid partially on the approaches last fall.

McDonald and Sons construction company is on site removing the old sand mix. This mix will most likely be used to topdress the sprigs in July.

Fill soil is pulled from on site to begin replacing the old sand. The soil packs in nicely and will create a firm growing medium.

4 inches of topsoil is placed on the fill soil and raked out to perfection.

The original sod is placed back on the new soil. The areas that were sodded last fall did not cover the full approach area so we will be using additional sod from a local farm to cover the rest of the soil.

We are just about finished up with our supplemental tree work for the re-grassing project. 3 oaks here between 5 and 6 were removed in order the thin the tree canopy in the landing areas so that the new bermudagrass will have a chance to thrive. This final tree removal and pruning has been imperative for our success not just for this season but for many years to come. For bermuda to survive and provide satisfactory golf course conditions it needs at least 8 hours of full on sunlight. The crew has been working extremely hard to get these tasks accomplished and we sincerely appreciate everyone's support. We are looking forward to moving on to more tasks like aeration, applying amendments, grading, tee building and drainage in the coming weeks.