Cool season grass has really enjoyed this spring. Cool temperatures and plenty of rain have kept fescues and bluegrass growing at an impressive rate. Bermuda has greened up but it is going no where. The poa is enjoying the moist soil and limited competition from bermuda this spring but its time is almost up.
The herbicide in the Sabot fairways is starting to take down the poa and the bermuda is primed for growth. The tees are nicely ahead of the fairways and are doing well in their transition.
Our spring cultural practice program was completed this week on the Sabot fairways and approaches. Both areas we solid tine aerated with 3/4" tines. This needed to be done before we applied our next pre-emergent application in early June. The solid tines have immediately helped with moving water off the surface. We received an inch of rain this week from thunderstorms and have only had a few holes restricted from cart traffic.
Compost was applied at a rate of 10 yards to the acre behind the aerators. As we talked about last week, the compost will go a long way in helping improve the Sabot fairways. By giving the microbes in the soil something to chew on, thatch is reduced, creating a firmer surface while also allowing water to better penetrate the soil. In total we put down 240 yards of compost this week. The compost has some burn potential this time of the year for cool season turf so that combined with a brushing has the poa feeling sorry for bothering us this spring.
With the aerators finished up on the Sabot, we went over to a few of the harder tees on the Manakin. These tees were core aerated, solid tine aerated and topdressed in order to help keep loosening that soil.
The collar project on the Sabot holes 13-18 was finished on Monday. The sod laid last week has rooted in and was mowed today. This new Latitude36 sod will give us a consistent surface all through the year and provides a sharp edge as we prepare to resurface the greens over the next two winters. We are finished sodding for the spring! We are excited to get the cartpath paved on 18 tees soon and transition into our normal routines of mowing turf and polishing the edges of the course.
Our spring plants are headed into the ground this week. A wide array of annuals and perennials are used each year. We continue to increase our flowering perennial inventory which helps reduce the costs of the annuals. Of course we will always have plenty of highly visible areas that use annuals for their superb summer color.
Here was the picture from last week by the Banquet entrance with the holly trees removed.
Now planted with Japanese acuba, blue angel hosta and a variety of heuchera.
The snapdragons have finally showed out!
All the annual flowers, about 2,000, ready to be planted.
Another clubhouse project this week was addressing the drainage issues outside by the Sabot putting green. The guys hand dug a trench from the Tap Room door and regraded the soil a bit so that water will flow better into this drain.
Sodded over with some extra Latitude from the collar project. The area seemed to take the thunderstorms in stride this week.
We are happy to have Apple Door Systems on site replacing all of our garage doors at the Maintenance Facility as part of the Capital renewals and replacements plan. The doors had been band aided together for a long time and were in rough shape. Being able to make improvements to our facility not only makes us more efficient but helps keep morale on a smooth positive path!
