Lack O' Light

The Grounds team starts as early as possible at all times of the year.  Preparing the golf course ahead of play is critical for both member satisfaction as well as our productivity--once we have to wait for a group to play through, things spiral down rapidly.

With daylight arriving later each day, it is definitely tricky this time of year, and we must push back our start time accordingly.  The team members' safety is our number one priority, and even with lights, operating equipment in the dark is less than ideal.

We often dot pin placements a day ahead of time, since a headlamp really doesn't allow you to thoroughly evaluate what will be a good location or not. 

And then we have those times when it's dark out, you think you are following the contour of the green with your mower, and suddenly realize that you're in the approach...

By the time we get to Halloween this year, sunrise will be at 7:28 A.M. and the end of Daylight Saving Time (that night) will be appreciated.

Watering--really?

They say that a picture is worth 1,000 words.  However, sometimes a few words may be needed to help put a picture into context.  For example, if you saw a crew member watering a fairway on Sunday morning, you might question why this was taking place.

Let's look at what is actually happening here and some reasons behind it:

• First of all, this is a hose being used--not sprinklers.  This allows for targeting selected areas.  
• Hand watering is labor-intensive, but purposefully used in order to have minimal impact on playing conditions.
• The topography of #8 obviously doesn't lead to soil conditions drying down evenly.  The Sun, wind and traffic on the slopes all affect moisture loss.  
• This is the most heavily divoted fairway on the golf course.  Allowing it to dry out can seriously inhibit divot recovery.
• In all areas of the golf course, we practice deficit irrigation.  That is, we only apply a fraction of the moisture lost each day.  The graph below illustrates how fairways were allowed to dry during the past week. 

Why might you see us running sprinklers when you wouldn't think any irrigation was needed?  We typically make a wash-in plant protectant spray monthly which needs to be watered in immediately.  We also may run heads (for six minutes) following a topdressing application to knock the sand off the upper leaf blades and down into the turf canopy.  

Interestingly, a longtime member and resident commented just last week that #8 fairway was in the best condition they had ever seen.

To mow or not to mow...

 ...that is the question.  Given all of the recent rainfall, it is often challenging to determine whether it is better to try and mow the course as scheduled, or to hold off and wait for dryer conditions.

While mowing soaked turf is definitely less than ideal, we also have to consider the "1/3 rule" in turf management, which says that you never want to remove more than one third of the leaf with a single mowing.  So if you decide to delay mowing, the options may be to either break the rule and risk scalping the turf, or raise the height of cut to stay within the one third guidelines.

The other factor which complicates matters, is the unpredictability of summer storms.  If you skip mowing a day, believing that conditions will be better the next, but another round of storms adds additional moisture, then you may be pushing back mowing by two or three days.

Mechanical damage on soaked turf.

On the bright side, with the greens being sand-based and having internal drainage, there are few times that they get a day off from the mowers.

A heavy subject

Weather is often part of these blog posts, as its impact on the Grounds Department's operation can't be overstated.  If you are hoping for something different this week, you may be disappointed...

August has delivered rain--a lot of rain.  Through August 30 we received 7.80" of rain at the golf course.  Most of us understand that an inch of rain is a pretty good storm, but if you dig deeper into the math, the numbers can be staggering.

The irrigation pond is at capacity.

An acre inch of rain is 27,154 gallons.  So if we multiply 27,154 by the 7.80" of rain in August, you find that every acre of the golf course was hit with 211,801 gallons of water.  With a gallon of water weighing 8.34 pounds, that is 1,766,422 pounds of water per acre during the month.  #9 fairway alone had close to eight million pounds of water land on it!

Divots

We've discussed divots in the past, however it may be worth a quick refresher--especially given this month's weather.  In general, we recommend that if your divot stays together, replace it, do not use divot mix.  

As you can see below,  a replaced divot provides a much better surface than a filled divot.    

Credit to Scott Bordner of Union League for conducting this trial.

No doubt there is variability of divot survival rate based on several factors.  For example, a divot taken from the top of a fairway mound may have a more challenging time healing as opposed to one taken 20' away in a fairway swale.  Available moisture is obviously impactful in determining if a divot will recover or not.  This is where timing can come into play.  

While Laurel Creek's Creeping Bentgrass fairways may not love August weather, with 7.5" of rain from August 1-August 23, there has been no lack of moisture.  A divot replaced this month definitely stands a good chance of recovering!

Farming Time

While turf growers could always be considered farmers by a strict definition, it is during mid-August that we truly feel like it.  This is the one time each year that we core aerify the fairways, often during intense heat, drenched in sweat and eating a lot of dust.

Golfers look at the number of holes we make (about 43 per square foot on fairways) and believe we tilled the whole surface.  In reality, most traditional crop farmers would shake their heads at what little we are able to do.  They may till their fields multiple times per year between harvests and plantings, whereas we only disturb around 8% of the surface area--then have thousands of carts pack this surface back down.

As usual, the Pro Shop staff joined us, to help with the cleanup process.  The guys did a great job, and the assistance is greatly appreciated!

Why more water?

After 11 straight months of below average precipitation, we had a nice bounce back in July, with 5.40" of rain.  The timing of these storms worked out well, as we only had one no cart day for the month.  Now on to August...

In the first five days of this month we received 84% of the monthly average with 4.35" of rain.  So why would we have guys out hand watering fairways right after so much rain?  There are a few reasons for this.

As a reminder, turf roots are at their shortest during August, thus the surface area from which the plants can pull moisture from the soil is significantly less than at other times of the year.  What this means is that we can't let the turf get as dry and firm as in the spring and fall.

Second, the fairway mounds didn't receive the full benefit of all of that rain, since a good bit runs off into the swales.  These mounds will also dry down much more quickly than surrounding areas due to full exposure to the Sun and wind.

Lastly, we are embarking on our annual fairway aerification this week.  We need healthy turf going into this process.  If the soil is dry, the turf will become stressed and wilt, extending the recovery period significantly.  

Fragile--Please Handle With Care

Between members practicing for hours, and our golf campers, the Clubhouse putting green sees a lot of activity this time of year.  Unfortunately, not all of it is by golfers.  There have been several occasions where we have arrived in the morning to find damage to the green from people running, flagsticks being used as hammers, etc.

It's easy to understand how seeing a putting green for the first time, might be something new and exciting to a young child.  However, this is not the Brady Bunch's AstroTurf--it is a collection of millions of living plants maintained at a height of 1/10", which require a fan to help them survive the summer heat.  With members practicing on this turf seven days a week, it really can't handle any additional stress.

So while it might be tempting to race around on, please remember that it is a putting green, not a playground.

Softer in the summer

It can seem counterintuitive that golf course conditions may not be as firm during periods of hot, dry summer weather, as they are during cooler periods when we receive more consistent rainfall.  

The USGA recently addressed this issue in an article:  How Can A Course Be Soft When The Weather Is Dry?

Many of the points mentioned in this article are relevant to Laurel Creek:

• Let's start with the irrigation system itself.  Our system was designed in the 1980s and doesn't provide the uniformity of coverage of a more modern design.  Despite having employees spend up to 500 man hours per month hand watering to supplement coverage deficiencies, we still can't provide the uniformity of rainfall.  Thus, at times, it feels like Goldilocks--this area is too wet, this area is too dry, this area is just right.
• Obviously daily moisture loss is much higher now than at other times of the year.  For Poa greens, with very short roots during the summer, there is a small amount of root zone for them to draw moisture from.  
• Cart traffic also leads to higher moisture needs, than are required for a course that is walking only.

The shortest roots of the year are in August.

Soon enough, fall will be here, a season which often leads to some of the best playing conditions of the year.

A little rain and a lot of pain...

If the first part of July is any indication of things to come, we may actually break our 11 month streak of below average precipitation.  (Yes, it was a full year ago, in July, 2025, when we were above average for a month.)  While the recent rain has helped to get the water levels up in the ponds, the precipitation did come at a cost.  The smallest rain event yielded a meager 0.15" on Friday, July 3, but it caused some serious headaches.

We arrived on Saturday, July 4, to find damage from a lightning strike near #15 Laurel tee.  This hit the tree in the background, blew an irrigation pipe out of the ground, caused electrical issues in the controllers throughout the course, and destroyed more than a dozen solenoids in sprinklers on #14 and 15.

Two nights later, the small irrigation controller at the Centerton Road entrance island took a hit, and blasted the PVC off the backflow preventer.  While on a much smaller scale than the golf course, this repair also required both plumbing and electrical work.

One thing is for sure, summer in this region is never boring!

Today's Green Speed: Alive

This past week's temperatures put the "fire" into the holiday's fireworks!  With the exception of the practice tee, the golf course is comprised entirely of cool-season turf that isn't loving this summer's blowtorch conditions.  What does "cool-season" mean?

As the name implies, these species grow best in cooler climates, not in the blistering heat we've been experiencing.  During the spring and fall, we get root growth, but as the heat increases in the summer, plants lose root mass.  

During the latest heat wave, we heard many people say that after 15 minutes outside, they had to head back into the A/C.  Of course the turf doesn't have that option, and is baking all day, every day.  The challenges to turf health become exacerbated when there is no relief at night.  Low temperatures in the 80s don't allow for any recovery.  

So what changes are we making in our maintenance practices in these extreme situations to protect the course for the long-term, and what can you expect?  

Well, we don't stop mowing and we rarely (if ever) raise the height of cut on the greens--they are currently still being cut daily at 0.100".  However, we do back off on any cultural practices that can cause additional stress such as verticutting and topdressing.  Additionally, we may reduce the number of days per week that we roll the greens.  For greens in some of the more challenging growing conditions, an extra venting, using micro-tines has proven to be helpful in getting them through these weather patterns.  Lastly, if we anticipate temperatures in the triple digits, we may give the greens' sprinklers a spin during the day to temporarily cool off the turf canopy.

Green speeds will typically drop somewhat during mid-summer regardless of what we do.  The plants swell, and similar to how we feel in the heat, the greens may seem sticky.  We treat the greens like elite athletes, closely monitoring their inputs and conditioning protocols.  Pushing for fast greens at this time of year by lowering the height of cut, aggressive grooming, double-mowing, and rolling is ill-advised.  You won't find many athletes going for a personal record in 100 degree heat!

And for the record, the greens were 11'3" on July3, and 11' 2" on July 4--we must have set the bar pretty high if players are saying the greens are slow now...

Why today?

Over the years, we occasionally hear comments regarding the timing of our maintenance practices.  This may include questioning why we need to spray "every time" you are playing a round.  While we try our best to avoid interfering with your enjoyment of the course, there are several factors that may impact what, when and why we need to make a plant protectant application (or perform any task) on a regular basis.

The reality is that at this time of year we are likely spraying one of the playing surfaces five days per week.  For example, the greens don't receive any granular fertilizer applications, so depending on the growth rate, we may be applying a nutrient spray weekly.  The primary rough is typically treated monthly, however if we see a need to pivot due to weather conditions, that timing may require a change.

A disease breakthrough in the rough warranted an unscheduled application last week.

With the course's round counts up by approximately 50% over the past several years, we have a challenging combination of increased maintenance needs on the course, along with fewer times to perform these tasks without encountering play.  In order to help with the issue, we have shifted our morning start time back by half an hour in 2026--this is the earliest it has ever been since the course opened.

Feeling Funky

We have been pushing the greens hard the past couple of months, and based on feedback, the results have been appreciated by players.  Of course, just when things appear to be running like clockwork, we get a curveball thrown at us.

What is sometimes referred to as "Poa funk"  appeared on several greens this past week.

While this might have some of the same visual symptoms that you would see with a turf disease, the cause is actually environmental stress and often appears in areas with higher moisture levels.  As you can see above, the aerification holes are green, and less likely to suffer from this funk.

By dotting the margins lightly, we can easily compare how things are trending from day to day.  More often than not, when these spots appear, they do not grow in size.  So we've got that going for us--which is nice...

Quick Fix

Many irrigation repairs are unplanned, which can make them challenging.  This past Thursday, a quick coupler (that we connect a hose to for hand watering) at #1 green broke off, leading to a river running down the approach and a deposit of mud on the front of the green. With this occurring 45 minutes before the first tee time, the team had to quickly jump into action.

While it wasn't the way we like to start the day, it was great to see the repair completed in less than an hour, with only one group having to play the hole as we worked on it. 

This does also highlight the fact that we have an irrigation system that was installed almost 38 years ago.  There is approximately 20 miles of pipe in the system, which is always under 115 PSI, whether sprinklers are running or not.

Bunker Basics

It might be a bit naive to expect that we would ever receive compliments about bunkers.  Realistically, if we aren't hearing complaints, we should probably chalk it up as a win.  What you might not realize, is that in order to achieve this not so lofty goal, it still takes a tremendous amount of time and effort.

Of course raking is a part of the process, but there is a lot more to it than just that.  Bunker surrounds must be mown by hand,  the bunker faces need to be edged, weeded, then the sand packed and rolled.  Additionally, sand depth uniformity is checked periodically, as neither too much nor too little sand is desirable.

Again, all of this takes a lot of labor.  Fortunately, the team is now at full strength and we are catching up on these tasks.

They're back...

It's been several years since it's even been worth mentioning Annual Bluegrass Weevils.  However, they appear to be back in force this year.  While most of their activity on the course won't catch your eye, the approach to #7 green may be the exception, as they had a field day in this area.  This is somewhat unusual given the control treatments that were made in April and May.

Last week we hit the collars with a larvicide to knock them out, so hopefully there won't be any more surprises this season.  One thing is for sure, a cold winter does nothing to set back this insect.

A dreary Memorial Day weekend, but...

Let's face it, this past weekend was probably pretty disappointing for anyone planning outdoor activities.  However, prior to this, it was definitely a good run as far as golf goes with the last "no cart" day being way back on April 2.

A soaked #9 fairway on Memorial Day.

While this was not great weather for spending time at the pool or working on your game, if nothing else, the golf course appreciated this multi-day soaking.  And despite all of this rain, it still looks like we will finish May below average in precipitation--this will be the 10th month in a row.

Return of the Fan

It's hard to believe, but it was over 13 years ago that we initially installed a fan at the first tee putting green.  When the green was rebuilt, we took a wait and see approach as to whether or not the fan was still required.  

Well, last summer's hot, swampy weather provided a resounding "yes" to this question.  While many things have changed over the past decade, others have not, and this would include the growing environment in this area.  The green is obviously open on the front, but the back half gets limited morning sunlight and air flow.  In fact, as the trees continue to grow, the environmental conditions for this green are declining over time.

Fortunately, when the fan was removed during the green construction project, the power supply was not.  However, we did have to dig another five and a half foot deep hole and pour a thousand pounds of concrete to support the fan.  

  This will definitely provide a breath of fresh air when the dog days arrive.

April showers?

It might not jump out at you since we are still in spring, but despite some recent showers, we continue to be running way behind in precipitation.  As a matter of fact, you would have to go back to July, 2025 to find a month where we were actually above average.  That is nine months in a row of below average rain (or snow)!

What does this mean?  Well we obviously weren't complaining that we wanted more snow over the winter, but if this trend continues as we head towards warmer weather, it will definitely have an impact on the golf course.  Specifically, less rain leads to greater reliance on the aging irrigation system, thus less consistent conditions (wet areas and dry areas), as well as more labor resources being devoted to hand watering with a hose.

The rain gauge is looking thirsty.

In trying to view this rain reduction with a glass half full perspective, we did have zero "No Cart" days in April, 2026.  In contrast, during the month of April from 2021-2025, we averaged between four and five no cart days for the month--so at least this weather pattern is good for something.

Poa in the spring...

For a few reasons, we always deal with smoothness issues on the greens in the spring.  Unfortunately, this year the ball may be hopping a bit more than we've seen in a while. With last fall's aerification holes still being visible, it's easy to blame them as the main cause; and while the aerification holes may be part of the issue, it appears that the bigger culprit is the Poa annua in the greens.  

As most golfers know, Poa goes to seed this time of year.  We make preventative growth regulator applications to suppress this process, since less seed equals smoother greens in the spring.  The timing for these sprays is based on a Growing Degree Days model--basically a measure of heat accumulation.  

It appears that this past winter's weather threw a curveball into this predictive model for us, and resulted in much less seed suppression than we typically achieve.  One possibility is that despite below average temperatures, the insulation from the prolonged snow cover kept the Poa on pace for seed production.   

As you can see above, the greens are comprised of a combination of both Creeping Bentgrass along with multiple biotypes of Poa annua, which are currently growing at very different rates.  This lack of uniformity in grasses adds another wrinkle to the smoothness challenge. 

With the greens being cut at 1/10" in height, it may be hard to believe that one area is actually higher than another on the putting surface.  And at 1/10" it's a bit challenging to take a picture that shows the difference of Bent vs Poa.  However, if we look at an approach, it may be easier to visualize the difference on two types of grass being cut the same.

In the photo above, it's pretty easy to see how the clumps of Poa rise above the still semi-dormant Bentgrass, even when precisely cut with a reel mower.  A ball rolling across this surface will tend to have a little hop to it. 

In order to address the issue on the greens, we have decided to fumigate, strip and reseed the putting surfaces to Bentgrass--just kidding.  We have actually been lightly verticutting and topdressing them, but having a bit of patience may be the best thing we can do at the moment.  The Poa seed will soon end.