Too much rain and not enough sun

 

We have been getting pummeled with rain this week. Torrential thunderstorms soaked us down this past Saturday and Sunday and then another two inches of rain crushed us during the day on Monday. Thankfully the sun came out on Thursday but there are still areas of fairways and rough that we have not been able to mow since last Friday.

In some areas we have even broken out the pushmowers to knock down the rough. Almost all the green surrounds on the Sabot got mowed by hand this week.

The fairway mowers have gingerly made their way through the Manakin but even with raising the height up we needed to blow the grass clippings left behind. Hand blowers tackled a lot of the work in the wetter areas as opposed to putting the tractor blowers out.

No doubt the moisture and humidity has greened up the bermudagrass. The newly sodded areas on the Sabot are rooted in nicely.

Good luck to the players in the 79th Valentine Invitational this weekend. If we can get the rain to hold off tonight we may have things back in to shape for a great event.

On this coming Monday we will be pulling 3/8" cores out of the Sabot greens. All the facilities of the club will be closed Monday as the forecast looks good to finish off paving the front entrance.

Why are we aerating greens when we are about to re-sod them in 73 days? For one, we are only re-surfacing the front nine this year, the back nine still has to be managed through another season next year. Physically however, our new sod from the sod farm is only going to be cut at about a quarter inch thick. Our aeration holes are going down into the greens surface around 2.5". Continuing to remove this muck layer through aeration and replacing it with clean sand further helps keep our greens firm and allows for greater root growth.

Our sod is looking pretty strong out at the sod farm. A few more weeks of heat and they will start dropping the height down. The September newsletter detailing our greens renovation project is now up on the blog front page. Check it out during another rainstorm!