Perfect end of summer weather
It is hard to ask for a better week of weather than this! An inch of rain recharged the soil a bit this past Sunday and the humidity finally dropped out Tuesday night. We have been letting things dry down all week as we work through both the Ladies Club Championship as well as Men's Member Member.
The new greens on the Sabot have gotten their first taste of summer in Richmond. They have recovered from aeration nicely and the thinner areas on the most pocketed greens have turned around quickly. The ultimate challenge with this brand new turf is figuring out exactly how to balance growth rate with mowing height, topdressing frequency and growth regulator use. This denser turf is probably going to take more topdressing during this first year or two to be able to get the heights down to where we can keep putting speeds up. Overall these greens look amazing and we'll be happy to have all 18 holes completed by mid-November.
The Manakin greens have been outstanding this year. It has only taken 4 seasons to get them figured out! The fixed head mowers are back out already delivering an aggressive cut and a smooth roll.
Grant and John continue to find and fix tiny wire breaks on the Manakin irrigation system. We only have until 2030 before we can replace this system which will then be 27 years old!
We ended up with some polka dots on the Sabot back nine after chasing down goosegrass with a hand sprayer. The goose is smoked but the bermuda took a hit as well with this herbicide combo but will green back up next week with some warmer weather. We are excited this fall to simply put our normal warm season pre-emergent program in place so that goose and crab and not as worrisome as compared to having to dance around the proper pre-emergents with a cool season overseed.
Besides all the course detail work, mowing, and blowing this week we spent a significant time in the bunkers. After the rains on Sunday any silt was cleaned out and then the entire bunker was raked including the edges. The edges were then rolled back flat so that the ball can come back to the center. All in all this takes 7-8 people per course all day to get accomplished. This doesn't even take in to account the mowing and weedeating that goes on around the bunkers every week. The Manakin bunkers will continue to rebuilt in November!
As a reminder, the Manakin greens will be core aerated with 1/4" tines and then topdressed on this coming Tuesday and Wednesday. A newer program this year with the smaller tines has proven beneficial for overall health of the turf as it grows through out the season. Although the holes are smaller than normal, we are poking more of them so the overall impact is similar to the larger tines but with much less recovery time. We are setting up for a great fall season! Enjoy the beautiful weather!