Club Championship

This past weekend we had a successful Club Championship. The weather was great. Here is a great picture of the golf course maintenance crew early Saturday morning around 5:30 double cutting the greens and prepping for the day. The lights are from the greens mowers and other vehicles and equipment on the course.

Saturday AM Setup At TPC SAWGRASS for The Players

This is a video of the Saturday morning setup at The Players Championship.  There are many other videos from this week at the tournament in their blog that you can click on under the "Blogs I Follow" to the right of this blog.  Pretty cool stuff

Two down, two to go

We installed the fan on #14 on Wednesday and the fan on #15 today amongst the outings. The bases are installed on #6 and #13 and are just waiting for the fans. The wiring has been trenched in and once the fans are installed our electrician can come and hook them up. This has been a big project that has taken some time to come to fruition, but will benefit the greens greatly when the hot humid weather hits.

New Infield Grass at Turner Field

As I have been watching the Braves the first few games at Turner Field I noticed the difference in color from the infield to the outfield grass(turf need I know). This made me do some investigating and I found this article in the AJC.

"New Infield Grass at Turner Field Designed to be Slower." by Carroll Rogers

The new bright green infield grass at Turner Field is not just for show, though many have noticed the difference during the Braves’ first home stand of the season.

Braves head groundskeeper Ed Mangan planted a new kind of infield grass this season in the hopes of slowing it down for the sake of the Braves infielders. The Turner Field infield is known for being quick, and Mangan planted a thicker grass he hopes will remedy that.

Mangan said he’s been testing out a variety of grass called “paspalum” in the bullpen and center field sod farm, for a few years, and decided to try it out this season. He plans to use it only on the infield for now, but might eventually plant it in the outfield too.

Paspalum was originally found in sand dunes of South Africa, Mangan said, and is used on beach area golf courses because it can withstand a higher salt content in water. What makes it useful for the Braves is that it’s a little softer than the hybrid Bermuda “419” they’ve used for years.

“Just looking for something to take a little bit more speed out of the ball on the infield,” Mangan said. “So far so good. So we’ll see how it pans. But just walking on it, you can tell a big difference.”

Second baseman Dan Uggla said he could tell a difference walking on it – “It feels spongier,” he said – but not necessarily fielding groundballs.

“You can’t really tell that much difference in it,” Uggla said. “I think it may be a tad slower.”

Third baseman Chipper Jones, who’s been playing a lot longer on the infield at Turner Field, has noticed a difference.

“I like it,” Jones said. “It was a really fast infield. It was almost like playing on Astroturf sometimes. This will slow stuff down. It’ll take some steam off.”

Gold, White, Green

The flags on the course will now correspond with their location on the greens. This will give golfers a basic idea of the distance to play and allow the maintenance staff flexibility on where to put the pins. In the past with the caddies, there was no need for different colored flags other than white. The new colors are as follows:

Gold - Front
White - Middle
Green - Back

Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Course

Today we received our official letter stating that Bear's Best Atlanta is a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Golf Course.  We are just the 20th course in Georgia to become certified.  Here is a small portion of the letter we received.

"Congratulations on being designated as a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary!  You have shown a clear commitment to enhancing wildlife habitat, protecting water quality, conserving resources, and education......Your efforts are contributing to a nation-wide system of lands that are being managed for wildlife habitat and natural resource conservation.  Perhaps more importantly, you are helping to serve as a model for making decisions in the future that benefit both business and our environment..... Keep up the good work!!!"

Vertical mowing of greens

Now that we are healed in from the small aeration we have started to verticut the greens again. With the warm weather and all the fertilizer releasing to grow back in quickly, the greens have been on the slow side the past few days. They are growing like crazy. We double verticut the all three practice greens and then cut them for a second time today. We will then verticut all the greens on the course tomorrow morning and mow them as well ahead of play.  This cuts out excess lateral growth and stands the leaf up to get a good cut.  They will still be a tad on the slow side for a few more days, but with the verticutting, extra mowing, and some rolling we will get them back up to speed.

Standing the grass up 2 directions

Machine used to verticut

New water cooler stand on #8

We have installed a new water cooler stand that can be accessed on your way to #8 and #10 tee boxes. It will hold two coolers so we can avoid that stand running out of water in the summer.

Audubon International

Over the past year here at Bear's Best Atlanta we have been working towards the goal of becoming Certified in the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses.  So far, we are certified in Environmental Planning, Water Conservation, Wildlife and Habitat Management and have done an extensive Environmental Case Study on our property.  We are currently waiting to hear from Audubon on becoming certified in Outreach and Education, Chemical Use Reduction and Safety, and Water Quality Management.  Once these three catergries are certified, we will be certified in the complete progam. According to http://www.auduboninternational.org/ we would be only one of 12 properties and 19thh course so far in the state of Georgia to become certified.  If you have any questions or want to know more about the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses please let me know.

Please goto their website to learn more http://www.auduboninternational.org/.

Small Tine Aeration

We aerated all the greens ahead of play today. We used between a 1/4" to 3/8" tines depending on inside vs outside diameter. It went great and the greens were actually faster than yesterday after they were double rolled. With the play behind us we cleaned the plugs off the greens, blew clean and then double rolled. After play went through the remaining sand from the plugs was drug in and the leaf blades stood up. We will mow, lightly topdress and spray our wetting agent tomorrow. This aeration is mostly visual and the ball still rolls great.  I will post more pictures this week.



View from #9 green after it was drug this afternoon