Verticutting into the heat wave
The weather was perfect this week for our annual verti-cutting and topdressing of the Manakin short grass. Everyone was moving quickly on Monday and we started out by scalping all the tees, approaches and fairways down about .150" lower than their normal mowing height.
We also scalped down one single pass around the bentgrass greens in an effort to kill any remaining Poa annua in the collars.
The triplex verticutter took care of all the turf around the greens where the big machines could not get into.
The big machines took to the other 50 acres of Latitude short cut and took all three days to get around. The vertical blades rip through the existing thatch of the bermuda and pull up a hefty amount of material. As the bermuda grows, dead stems and leaves contribute to the thatch layer and the turf as a whole can become puffy and scalp at a normal mowing height. Employing the verticutters mid season allows us to produce a quality surface for the rest of year.
David ran the dethatching rake through all the rough as well. The rake is much less disruptive and messy than the fairways but at a 1.75" height of cut we don't worry as much about thatch build up.
We hauled over 50 trailers of "sprigs" up to the dump.
The nursery area left of 7 tees Sabot was sprigged with Latitude so that maybe we can have another area to use and alternate it with the area on 3 Sabot.
The sand helps fill up the thatch layer and create a firmer surface that can recover quickly from divots.
All shortgrass bermuda covered! The sand dried quickly in the sun and was brushed and watered in. It is now almost invisible and the fairways should mow out nicely tomorrow. Just over 300 tons of sand was spread over the 55 acres.
The range tee was also verticut and topdressed.
Grant took advantage of the three day closure to cut a section of 18 cartpath out to find some wire breaks. All 72 wires from the controller on 18 run under this path, and under the old mainline. 10 wires were broken here that Grant was able to patch and fix.
Meanwhile the vamont over on the Sabot is absolutely shining in the sun. These fairways will receive the same treatment at the end of August when we also small tine aerate the greens.
Cole and Trey pulled our old bubblers out of the pond on 4 on Thursday. This pond has just gotten too shallow for the bubblers to do their job. This new surface aerator should help keep the water moving so we don't have as much algae to deal with.
The bentgrass is hanging in there through the heat. We are almost to August already and have not seen many hints of pythium root rot like in years past. The heat looks to get back to normal after this weekend.
Our herbicide damage areas on 3 and 16 have given up the ghost. The footprints actually weren't too bad but these areas where the rain washed the product onto the green are absolute toast. These spots on 3 and 16 will be sodded out on Monday from the Sabot putting green so that the Pure Eclipse will continue to match up correctly. Sod from the sod farm will replace the section of putting green that we'll need to get back whole again out here on the course. Lessons learned here and we will continue to fight the good fight! Enjoy the heat!