Summer's Lease

Ideal Conditions
What a great spate of weather we've had recently. Rains have been just in time, cool nights aren't uncommon, and days aren't too warm.  The course thrives under these conditions and we can more easily tune it to play smooth and fast.
Men's 3-day Member Guest has come and gone with 3 great days of golf, as well as the Club Championship.  We even endured a day of emergency storm clean-up just for good measure.  The grounds crew is doing great work and the new hires are earning their stripes day by day.  All said,  June and July have shaped up to be great golfing and growing months.  The first sign that summer is coming to a close is our college workers are starting to peel off and return to their respective pursuits.

Dawn on final day of 3-day MG

Why Greens are Fast (or aren't) - Part 1

I thought it would be good to touch on this topic as it's often a misunderstood one. The more everyone understands how greens roll smoothly and why there's variability through the week, the better it is for their own game. 
Since it can be a complex topic, I'm going to take it in two parts because there's only so much turf talk people can tolerate before they stop reading.
Friction reduction is the ultimate goal when we try get greens to 'roll out'.  To accomplish this we  remove as much obstruction to the ball as possible. The most obvious first step is mowing at a low height and it works when conditions allow.  But there's a limit to how low greens can be mowed before they succumb to disease or mechanical injury. To get the most out of our height of cut we add sand topdressing.  'Sanding the greens', as you may hear it called, consists of applying a fine layer of sand over the entire green.  It's effect is similar to what cosmetic makeup does for skin -- it fills in the imperfections and rough spots on the surface which delivers a smooth surface free from obstruction. It's the same with greens, though the effect lets the ball roll further because friction has been reduced.  Done frequently enough, the sand helps the surface stay firm and true.  The second part of sand topdressing at Tuscarora is rolling.  Rolling the greens with a 800 pound roller works the sand down into the turf at the same time as smoothing larger imperfections on the surface.  The combination of the two processes add substantial smoothness and ball roll distance.
Part two will discuss what Tuscarora's greens are capable of, why weather matters, why greens get slow, and why the speed of the greens vary with fertility, disease pressure, and tournament preparation.

Update - collar widths
This is what we were shooting for by allowing the collars to 'grow-out' earlier this summer.  It's a small detail, but it's an affordable one that gives the greens a sharp appearance at no cost but our own patience.

 

Bunker Sand Depth

All bunkers on the course have been checked for the correct bunker sand depth.  Where sand has been dragged out of position by our mechanical rake and heavy rain, we try to reposition it.  While this temporarily covers thin areas, it won't fix the underlying problem.  The reason sand moves out of position in a bunker is from being mechanically dragged, or washed by heavy drains and poor drainage, over uneven bunker floors.  The solution is to rebuild the bunkers to have flatter floors, better drainage, and be of a size that allows proper machine raking without radically moving sand around.  If it were simply a matter of adding more sand, we'd be doing it. The problem isn't enough sand, it's that sand ends up in the wrong place because the bunker's were designed during an era where there was only hand raking - no machines existed to rake sand.  As a result older bunkers are unsuited to handle modern machinery and uneven sand depth is often the result.  This is why we've returned to hand raking.  It leaves the sand in place longer than when we rake with a machine.  The greens Advisory Committee is looking at options for how to address the worst draining bunkers on the course and a plan for them will be decided on this fall

Green Recovery Update

All damaged greens from last winter are fully recovered and being mowed at normal greens height.

There are weaker areas within these greens but no spot that dramatically affects putting or ball roll.  Bare spots on the greens, in general, are being plugged out every week.  Plugging a few times per week is the preferred method because it affects ball roll less and looks more natural over time than a strip of sod, or 50 plugs would.

Crabgrass 

Crabgrass infestations have been mapped on the property and will be treated with a preventative herbicide at the end of spring 2015. Crabgrass is an annual grass that dies every winter but germinates from seed in early to mid summer.  Currently we treat fairways, tee, bunker, and green surrounds and control has been good in those spots. We'll expand treatment to include all mounds and a larger percentage of the rough in 2015.