Trimming/cleaning natural areas

Once a year, we clean up the years growth in the natural areas on numbers 4,5,6,7,9,11 and 13. We do this on mornings while there is frost on the greens, tees and fairways. We started out on #4 today and got it cleaned up until we worked on Monday range maintenance.

Trimming and Cleaning in front of #4 Tee

Cool Video from Glencoe Golf and Country Club in Canada

Massive Tree Removal on #15

#15 green has really struggled the past few summers during the extreme heat.  All of the pine trees behind #15 green have grown up since the course was built ten years ago.  None of those trees were planted there.  We have removed 90% of the trees so far and will finish up sometime next week.  We will clean up the trees once the they have lost some more needles to give a better ground cover.  Robert O'Campo(one of the assistant golf course superintendents) has headed up this project and done a great job. The trees being removed will create better air flow and with the addition of a fan next spring, the bentgrass will have a better environment to thrive than in the previous years.

Before the trees behind the green were removed

Robert O'Campo starting the process of removing trees

From the hill behind #15 green, below #16 tee box

On #15 green

Almost finished on the right side

Overall look at what has been removed so far

Pictures and Frost

Here are some pictures from the weekend of November 12th. While other courses are dormant and can allow golf as soon as their greens clear, here at Bear's Best we have to wait for the ryegrass to clear as damage would occur to the tees and fairways as well.  We open the practice area much sooner than the golf course as the frost holds on much longer on holes 1,2,3 and 5.  Further posts on frosts will follow.

Frost at #11 ladies tee and drop area

Frost in the shade on #7 fairway and rough

View from right of #4 green with black bunkers

#9 green

behind #9 green looking back the fairway

USGA video

Over the next few months, I will post some videos from the USGA, other turf sources and golf course superintendents around the country on some of the things golf course maintenance staffs do to prepare the golf course for play. The first one looks at how the Stimpmeter works.

2 weeks later......

Two weeks ago on Wednesday and Thursday we put out our perennial ryegrass for winter overseeding.  As you can see from the pictures below, what a difference two weeks makes.



Kent Cain overseeding #9 fairway 



Pancho and Piedad overseeding #10 approach

Lots of water over the past two weeks



View from #1 green after fairway was mowed for the 1st time



#4 fairway from the green

#5 fairway

View from #1 green

Summer weather Review

This was posted by meteorologist Kirk Mellish on his blog at http://www.wsbradio.com/.

Summer review:

• June temperatures (highs AND lows averaged together) were +4.0F... with 24 90 or above days and three 95 or above days. Rainfall was only 56% of normal.

• July temperatures as above were +2.2F... with 27 days of 90 or above and six days of 95 or above. Rainfall was only 51% of normal.

• August temperatures as above were +3.6F... with 29 days of 90 or above and 12 days of 95 or above. Rainfall was just 39% of normal.

• There were no triple digit high temperatures this summer, but August 26th was 99. So the 3-month summer season averaged 3.2 degrees F above normal.

• For Atlanta, with 133 years of data, 2011 was the third-warmest summer on record with 2010; only the summers of 1980 and 1993 were warmer. According to the Georgia state climatologist office: "summer 2011 ranked third with a temp of 82.26 and summer 2010 ranked fourth with a temp of 82.17".
  
  1980 was 82.67 and 1993 was 82.28..

Temperatures in Atlanta didn't break ANY daily high temp records this summer; we just rarely got a break from the heat. Many past summers have had more record highs than this summer, more upper 90s, longer 95+ streaks, and more 100s than this summer, most recently 2007.
Based on the average  high temperature, it was also the third-warmest summer on record with an average high temperature of 92.5 F (4.5 F above average).
Based on average mean temperatures our summer was like Tampa Bay, FL. (temp not humidity or rainfall).

• The summer rainfall for Atlanta was 6.38 inches (6.04 inches below average), making it the 9th driest summer on record.

• Atlanta rainfall the past 90 days is -6 inches, and for the last 365 days rainfall is 8 inches below normal
• Total summer rainfall averaged just 48.6% of normal or 51.4% below-normal rain.

The longest streak of 90 or above was 16 days in August, putting this summer in 2^nd place in history IF you include September behind 21 days in 1993. For spring AND summer 2011 is in first place for days of 90 or above at 89, ahead of 79 in 1980 and 72 in 2010, 1993, 1986, 1954, and 1943.
A typical summer in Atlanta  (June-July-August) will give us 37 days with a high of 90 or above, and nine days with a high of 95 or above. This summer gave us a whopping 80 days of 90 degrees or above and 21 days of 95F or above.

This summer ranks in the top 3 hottest in history in Atlanta, just barely behind 1980 and 1993 based on daily high temperatures and average (mean) temperature.  Both 90 and 95-degree days were way above normal, with 6-month 90 days setting a new record, and probably 1^st place for summer as well.
There have been many years when the summer failed to register a high temperature of 95 or more, most recently 2005. The fewest number of 90 degree days was just two in the summer of 1967!

Long, Hot Summer, but there is still ryegrass out there!

With aeration and overseeding one week from today and tommorrow, there is still some ryegrass hanging on from last year.  Even with the excessive, lengthy heat we had this summer, there are some places that the ryegrass is alive and some places that is now thriving.  With the cooler temperatures, there are places that are recovering and producing a good stand of ryegrass.  It won't be too long until the tees, fairways, and approaches will look like the collar from #5 green seen below.  This picture is just one more reason why fans are so important for cool-season turfgrass survival in the hot, humid south.  This collar is right in front of the fan.  Not only did the green do great this summer, the ryegrass held on as well.



#5 Green on September 7th with ryegrass going strong



Atlanta Athletic Club blog

One thing that is really cool about our industry is seeing how things are done at other places.  Here is the Golf Course Maintenance blog from the Atlanta Athletic Club.  They will be posting lots of cool updates over the next week and during the tournament.  Check it out.  aaccgm.blogspot.com

PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club

Here is a video with Ken Mangum, CGCS, The Director of Golf Course Maintenance at Atlanta Athletic Club.  He details the course conditions and the varieties of grasses that are used at AAC.  The greens are Champion Bermuda, which are loving this heat while ours at Bears Best are G-2 bentgrass and are not real happy at this point in the summer.

http://www.turfnet.com/tv/latest.php

New Divot Bottle Holder

We have installed a "swap out" divot bottle holder at the intersection of #8 Tee, #9 Green and #10 Tee.  We will install another one at the water cooler on #13 later this week or next.

Celebration Bermudagrass and New Fairway Mower

Tuesday we sodded #2 blue tee with Celebration Bermudagrass.  Celebration is more shade tolerant than 419 and is very aggressive.

Friday our new Toro fairway mower was delivered.  We are very happy to have this new reliable piece of equipment.

Celebration Bermudagrass on #2 Blue Tee Box

New Toro 5510 Fairway Mower outside the clubhouse

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

 "

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.

Rock Work

The maintenance crew has started to do some rock work around the cooler stands out on the golf course.  We are also doing some smaller areas along the cart path that are prone to rut up with cart traffic and beverage carts.  So far, the cooler stands on #10 Tee and #12 Tee are done and a small area long #15 cart path has been finished as well.  We will continue over the next few weeks to dress up and finish these areas.  Here are some before and after pictures.

Before

After

After

Aeration Scheduled for April 12th

We have scheduled our spring aeration this year for April 12th.  This is a little later than usual, but will provide optimum surfaces leading up and through Masters week.  The soil temperatures will be higher in April and we should see a quicker recovery than we would in March.  This is a very important process and will benefit the greens greatly.  I will post some articles over the next few weeks regarding aeration and the importance of the process.  He is a recent link from the USGA.

http://turf.lib.msu.edu/gsr/article/bevard-putting-3-4-11.pdf

More Rain

The golf course has held up well despite having around 3.75" of rain over the past ten days.  Another rain event is expected Wednesday with more heavy rain moving in.  The golf course maintenance staff will continue to repair bunkers and fix wash out areas to make the course as playable as possible.  Unfortunately, the Cart Path Only rule will be in place while the course remains wet. 

When to apply Pre-Emergent?

This is a question that seems to come up almost everyday. Usually the question on when to apply pre-emergent this time of year is related to crabgrass and summer weeds. Researchers at the University of Maryland determined that the minimum daytime soil temperature to observe the initial emergence of crabgrass was 54 degrees. The major emergence of crabgrass, however, did not appear until soil temperatures were at least in the range of 60 to 70 degrees.  Around northeast Atlanta, the soil temperatures have been between 47-55 degrees the past week.  The optimum time to apply pre-emergent differs for each location depending on shade, soil type, moisture, etc. 

The earlier you apply pre-emergent the better control you may have initially, but more weeds could develop later in the summer if you do not come back again with another application.  If you apply it later, weeds may germinate before to you put it down causing a need for a post-emergent herbicide. 

With all this information, The golf course maintenance staff at Bears Best will be spreading our pre-emergent in the next 7-21 days depending on what the weather does during that time period. If it stays warmer and the soil temperatures continue to rise, we will apply it sooner rather than later. Here is a link to the risk levels of crabgrass provided on Syngenta's website. http://www.greencastonline.com/PestOutlooks.aspx?po_id=47

Irrigation is back up and running!!!

The main irrigation line comes right out of the pump house and tee's off by the nursery green.  The connector from the 14 inch pipe to the 10 inch pipe had shifted over time, thus allowing water under high pressure to flow out. This is something that no one in the Golf Course Maintenance Department wanted to come across. With the warmer temperatures upon us, we needed to get this fixed as soon as possible. We dug up the area and drained the line and went to work yesterday to fix the break and get the new connectors in place.  Once finished, concrete was poured over the area to make sure the pipe would not shift under high pressure. The process was completed yesterday and our irrigation system is back up and running today.  Thank goodness this did not happen in the heat of the summer.  



14" Tee between two valves



Removing the bad 14" to 10" connector

Installing the 14" to 10" reducer directly to the Tee



Connecting the Reducer to the pipe and a 10" mechanical coupling





Pouring concrete to secure the connection