Master Plan and More...Much More

As seen below, monitoring the steps of the Master Plan work requires attention.  However, this isn't the time of year we can focus solely on one thing, since other areas of the course continue to cause challenges as we enter August.

For example, the pump station between #5 green and #6 tee was having difficulty maintaining pressure with its small submersible pump.  We discovered that the pump's discharge pipe had corroded, causing the water to recirculate back into the wet well, instead of the irrigation system. 

The good news is that the pump didn't need replacing, and we were able to dive in and put a temporary clamp around the hole until the discharge pipe was replaced this week.

From the category of "We haven't seen that before...",  all of the wet weather last week led to slime mold developing on several of the greens.  Fortunately, it poses little risk to the turf.  On #12 we were treated to three different colors at the same time.

Early in the week, we noticed thinning of Bentgrass on several tees.  After soaking some plugs in a lemon dish detergent solution, high counts of Annual Bluegrass Weevil larvae were found--this too belongs in the "never seen before" category.  Bentgrass can handle weevils much better than Poa, but 100 weevils per square foot is enough to do damage to Bent, especially at this time of year.  A treatment was made to the tees the next morning.

In looking at any areas of concentrated cart or foot traffic (aka pinch points), it's evident that there's a lot of tired turf on the golf course right now.  We will begin aerification on Monday, along with Master Plan work on #3.  Undoubtedly this will continue to keep things interesting!