The toll of traffic

Whether it's from golf carts, maintenance equipment, or just players' feet, the increased number of rounds over the past several years has created the on-going need to de-compact and repair high traffic areas, particularly pinch points.  

What are pinch points?  These are spots where vehicular traffic is squeezed into a tight zone, which commonly occurs as carts leave tee complexes, or enter green complexes.  One of the most challenging scenarios is where carts only have a single point of ingress or egress from the hole.  This is why you will often see cart paths curved in an effort to allow multiple entry and exit points.

The entry into #11 green cart path funnels all traffic into a single point.

Wear and tear from traffic becomes exacerbated following periods of heavy rainfall.  From August 1-October 17 we received a whopping 20.2" of rainfall.  The balance between protecting the golf course and allowing members access can be difficult during these extreme periods.

Without continuous cart paths from tee to green, there is no silver bullet that can eliminate this issue.  Instead, it is an ongoing battle that we will continue to fight using a combination of aerification, sodding and mats.  As always, there is plenty of work to be done over the winter, in preparation for the 2027 golf season.

Why Run Sprinklers?

If you live on the golf course and look out your window, there may be times when you see sprinklers running--and you're left wondering why.  So, what's the reason?

Suffice it to say that we are planning ahead--way ahead.  This time of year, we make two preventive fungicide applications for Take-All Patch disease.  If you're not thinking about this malady of turf right at the moment, it's likely because the damage from Take-All doesn't appear until  May--seven months from now.

Take-All is a soil-borne root pathogen, so we need to get the fungicides off the leaf and below the surface, where they can do some good.

Take-All Patch on #12 fairway

Hmm, with all of the rain we've had recently, why can't we just let Mother Nature take care of the watering-in for us?  There are a couple of reasons.  

Number one is that we can't always trust the forecast--even the hourly that you see on your phone is far from perfect.  If we spray and the rain passes us by, that's no good and potentially a wasted application.

Two screenshots of forecasts taken at the same time from different apps are wildly different!

The fungicides we apply can be absorbed both by the plant's foliage or its roots.  We can't wait for a shower that may or may not come along, as the material will have already been taken up by the leaves.

The second reason is that giving the sprinklers a couple of spins allows us to put down a much more precise amount of water than rolling the dice with a rain event.  If we try to use rain, we could end up getting much less or much more water than we need, again resulting in a wasted application, and poor control of the disease.  

We only get one chance to get this right, so we need to control what we can.  The efficacy of the treatment won't be seen for over half a year, so it's not as if we can monitor results, then come back in a couple of weeks and reapply, if needed.