Straight into the sauna
Just over a month ago we were yearning for some bermudgrass growing weather and boy do we have it now. Temperatures and humidity have been stiffling and the thunderstorms have been hitting their target all week. Over 3" of rain has come down this week. The storm that came through Tuesday night included some serious winds in the 2-13 corridor of the Manakin. The wind blew over the heavy divot and cold towels chests at the cross over and knocked any kind of loose pine straw out of the trees.
The bermudagrass is loving life with all the rain. We were able to mow everything out Monday and Tuesday as well as get some growth regulator out on our 85 acres of short grass across both courses.
Our older bentgrass on the Manakin greens is certainly in survival mode with the heat and excessive rain but now is when you see all of our programs pay dividends, really all across the property. Fungicide programs, wetting agent strategy, fan placement and operation, aeration and topdressing techniques, mowing heights, mower sharpness and roller decisions, tree removal and drainage projects are all in play every second of the day right now. Then having a quality crew groom this turf correctly puts it all together for a great playing experience despite the weather.
Your new genetics over on the Pure Eclipse greens are truly amazing. PLEASE keep looking for ballmarks and fix them correctly by pushing in to the middle. The greens are regulated for growth to prevent scalping and maintain putting speed in the disgusting humidity. This means ballmarks are bruising and will hang out for a few weeks. Fixing your mark correctly should allow for a smooth ball roll.
Wet golf courses always allow for more detail work. All of our fairway and green sprinklers along with the tee plaques were edged this week.
We also went around with some bunker detail work early in the week. The bermuda loves diving into the bunkers in the heat so it takes some serious labor to maintain the edges and noses.
The Manakin crew continues to refresh some of the older sand in some bunkers. The top inch is scraped out and replaced with either new sand or fresher sand from the bottom of the bunker. Afterwards the sand is watered in and rolled with the tractor.
We dropped in a few new crew members this week around some of the ponds. Hopefully these fake herons will dissuade the real herons from coming around and using our greens as a toilet. The herons are very territorial so if we can keep moving these guys around hopefully the real birds will prefer Kinloch just like the geese now. We plugged out 15 separate death spots from the herons on 15 Sabot from last week but none so far this week!
Enjoy the Tommy Galloway and hopefully we will dry back out for the weekend!