Bermuda weather is here, 3" of rain last week

 

The rains last week and temperatures this week have us ready for another bermudagrass growing season. The Latitude on the Manakin has snapped into shape quickly.

Joe and his team have been working hard on the bunkers this spring. They have all been edged back close to their original edge, some almost coming back 2 feet. A sharp edge has been cut in on these bottom borders providing a clean look. The 1 inch or so deep edge should also help the ball jump down and into the bottom of the bunkers.

The Sabot front nine fairways have been in great shape all spring thanks the fact that we never tried to overseed them and we could stay on top of the pre-emerge applications. The big sprayer was out today along with the smaller 200 gallon unit. They sprayed all the fairways in under 4 hours which is easily a record. The larger 500 gallon sprayer can now make it all the way through 9 holes, resulting in just one fill up to knock out the back nine. We applied growth regulator and some iron to the front nine and fertilizer to the back nine.

The back nine fairways, namely 10, 12 and 13 continue to track way behind the front nine. The Poa annua did an unbelievable job of crowding out our vamont bermuda in some of these areas and they are having a tough time recovering. Again, because of the final attempt to establish some bluegrass in the back nine, no pre-emergent could be applied in the fall. The poa took over the bluegrass and this is what we are left with.

The amount of time and money spent on overseeding and then recovering from the overseed frankly is embarrassing. The vamont will continue to fill as we continue to apply fertilizer weekly and water daily. 

Over on the front nine we removed a few more trees left of 5 green in order to help that bermudagrass approach recover a little faster from the winter.

The Manakin guys continue to check off a few more detail items like pavers by 14 green off their list. Next week will again be very busy as our team prepares for the Men's Member Guest. Some more moderate temperatures are in the forecast for the next two weeks but we are off and running!