US Open at Congressional CC Video

http://www.usatoday.com/video/index.htm?bctid=943131022001

May weather

May weather throughout the country has been devastating.  While we haven't seen the severe weather in metro Atlanta(thankfully), we have seen many extremes in May of 2011.  Averages were taken from http://www.weather.com/ and Suwanee, GA was used as the city.  Here are some crazy statistics from this May's weather at Bears Best Atlanta.

• We were 8 degrees or more above the average in 19 of the 31 days.
• We were 8 degrees or more below the average in 6 of the 31 days.
• We were in the 90s 11 days in May.  The first day in 2010 we hit 90 was June 11th
• We had frost on 20% of the golf course on May 5th.  5 days later it was 90 degrees
• For the month we had 2.2" of rain in two days.  1" on May 3rd and 1.2" on May 26th. (23 days in a row without rain)

Storm Damage

Last night we received 1.2" of greatly needed rain.  This was our first rainfall in 23 days.  There were some small limbs down and the normal pumping and repair of the bunkers, but no major damage to the golf course occurred.  The one problem we had was that the wind pulled the concrete anchors for the teaching tent on the driving range out of the ground and moved the tent some forty yards to the middle of the cart barn putting green.  The damage to the putting green is noticeable, but should heal in a few weeks.  We were lucky the damage was not worse.

Nursery Green

On April 14th we prepared and seeded the back half of the nursery green by the maintenance area. Four weeks later we have seen the good results.  The green was seeded with the same G-2 creeping bentgrass that we have on all the greens at Bears Best Atlanta.  It is always exciting seeing a new green from the start. Below are some pictures.


Robert O'Campo seeding on April 14th



4 weeks later on May 12th

May 12th

Up close - Filling in nicely

Spring Dead Spot

Spring Dead Spot is a turf disease that affects bermudagrass starting in the fall.  When the turf goes dormant everything seems to be fine.  In the spring, when the dormant bermudagrass starts to green up, the patches of turf that were affected by the pathogen cannot take up water or nutrients and causes these small to large circles.  There are several fungicides that can be used in the fall, but none are very cost effective and reliable.  Research on Calcium Nitrate use as fertilizer has shown some success, but it can be hit and miss as well.  Most of the golf course has minimal Spring Dead Spot, but the worst holes are #12-#18, with #18 being the worst.  We will be spreading our summer fertilizer this week which will help with these spots as well as applying more in these areas to get the grass to grow over.  Below is #18 between the tee and the fairway.



Spring Dead Spot #18

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Annual Flowers

We finished up planting our annual flowers around the clubhouse, cart building and the golf course restrooms.  We planted three different kinds of annuals this year.  The red flowers in the pots at the front doors are called "Xtreme Red" Impatiens and need to be in the shade.  The taller more "vine" looking flower are called "Evita Rose" Lantana. They grow together up to 2 ft tall and bushy and like being out in the sun.  The other plant are called Cora Cascade Vincas.  They need to be in the sun or part shade. The two colors of vincas that are planted are "white polka dot" and "magenta."  You can get these annual flowers at any grower or home improvement store in the area.  We purchased ours from Premier Growers in Buford.




"Evita Rose" Lantana and "Cora Cascade Polka Dot" Vinca



Up close

Stimpmeter Video

http://www.gcsaa.tv/view.php?id=405

Pictures of Greens Aeration Recovery from Saturday Morning



Greens are healing up very nicely and really benefited from the 1.8" rain we had Friday night and Saturday morning.

Tuesday Afternoon



Saturday Morning











Tuesday Afternoon





Saturday Morning





















A day of Aeration

Aeration went very well on Tuesday.  We are already seeing good growth up through the sand and plan on mowing tommorrow (Friday).  The greens have been rolled twice and are rolling smoothly.  Here is the series of events on Tuesday.  Please click on each photo for a closer up view.

#9 Green Before we started with Dogwood trees blooming in the background



David Babcock Jr.(Equipment Tech/Shop Manager) aerating #10 Green with Toro Procore 648 and an attached TurfPride Core Collector



Crew Members blowing and cleaning up plugs on #6 Green

#1 Green after Topdressing

Dragging the sand into the holes on #10 Green

Close up of the greens after process was complete.  2"X1.5" spacing was used with almost 1/2" tines



We have rolled the greens twice with this Salsco roller and will continue as needed



Aeration is Tuesday April 12th

We will be aerating the greens on the golf course this coming Tuesday the 12th.  We have an outing Monday at 1:00PM and as soon as the outing goes out we will do the 3 practice greens to get a head start for Tuesday.  Doing these 3 greens on Monday will allow us to get all the kinks out and see exactly how the process will go.  We will get our sand settings down and put the crew in their "positions" to make Tuesday run more smoothly.  Here is a video regarding the need for aeration and how the process takes place.  Please look again at the blog later in the week to see pictures of the day and how the greens are recovering from aeration.