1 100 degree week down

The bermuda is loving the heat, the bentgrass greens are in survival mode and the bluegrass doesn't know which way to go. Overall we are hanging in there. We have had only one day in July with a high below 90 (88) and we did touch 100 on Tuesday this past week.

The bentgrass on the tees on 3 Sabot have been laid to rest. This pocketed area just can not produce a bentgrass playing surface that can hold up to foot traffic. 

3 white/blue, the black tee and the right white tee on 5 have been sodded with Zeon zoysia. The zoysia will hold up well to foot traffic as well as the humidity in these areas. We will work the height down on the sod over the next few weeks and have them back in play shortly.

A number of the smaller tees on the Sabot have the irrigation head right in the middle of the tee. This small head takes up a good amount of usable teeing ground. We took the time to move the sprinkler off to the side of the tee on 3 black before the new sod went down.

We continue to work our way through the Sabot irrigation system, band-aiding as much as possible to keep the course looking good. Heads like the one pictured have to leveled and adjusted in order to have decent water distribution. Even leveled, a thirty year old head is not going to use water efficiently. We continue to work on a new irrigation system plan that is scheduled to be implemented in November of 2021.

All the tree work on the Manakin has certainly paid dividends with the Latitude this summer. The guys are working this week to take off any sucker branches that pop out from previous pruning work. This helps the tree direct nutrients to the canopy and the roots instead of intermediate branches.

The summer heat brings plenty of opportunity for algae growth in the ponds. Hunter was happy to jump in and insert a barley bail across the incoming flow of water to the pond on 4 Sabot. Here is a good article telling you that no one knows why barley limits algae growth but at $5 a bail, its worth trying out!