We almost dried out......

 

After a pretty decent weekend of temperatures, the rain stayed away all week and we were just barely seeing the course dry up and dial in. The temperatures came back up along with the humidity on Monday so the bermudagrass continues to love life.

But after prepping the course out all week, we just got served up another tropical thunderstorm, dumping close to an inch and a half of rain right after the second round of the Men's Member Member. Just as our bentgrass was starting to enjoy some sunny, drier weather it gets saturated again. The greens on the Manakin will see some relief as we will move forward with a core aeration on this coming Monday and Tuesday the 20th and 21st. The aeration process is still stressful for the turf so we are really looking forward to some cooler nights next week. Go enjoy the Sabot next week, it is in amazing shape! 

Did you know that the Sabot only gets about 40% of our total golf rounds? Right now for year to date rounds we have 25,774 on Manakin and 17,608 on Sabot. The Sabot back nine fairways will again be overseeded with bluegrass on September 27th and 28th. With the front nine closed starting November 1st, we wanted to see both how the vamont does dormant (front nine) and if we can get the bluegrass going again like we did two years ago for the winter season on the back nine.

The November 1st date continues to draw closer every day. Last week we tried a little heavier hand of herbicide to knock down some bermuda on the Sabot chipping and putting greens. It is working but a little unsightly. Next week we will go back to what we did a month ago with a single herbicide around the edge of 8 green to hurt the bermuda, but now we will do all the front nine Sabot greens in preparation for the new bent sod. 

The Sabot team put some work in a few waterfalls on 5 stream this week. We have also spec'ed out our new recirculation system for 5 stream that will be installed during the irrigation renovation this winter. 

Keep your eyes open for another wave of armyworms, we can see their egg sacks all over the place. This heavy rain today is going to put your mower away for a while so if the caterpillars are out there and you don't have any insecticide out from 2-3 weeks ago, they are going to start munching!