To mow or not to mow...

...that is the question.  While rainfall is often welcome after a long dry period, the unpredictability of summer storms can lead to some tough choices.

For example, between July 22 and 23, the course received just under 2" of rain.  When we arrived on Monday, July 24, the turf was pretty juicy, and not in the ideal condition for us to be cutting fairways.  However, the weather prognosticators were calling for the possibility of additional storms Monday night.  If that occurred we were looking at going five days between fairway mowings.  This would be messy and have the potential for "scalping" the plant.

Slight mechanical damage can be seen on a fairway following a mowing under wet conditions.

While our focus is primarily on turf being cut as low as 0.10", we often see summertime mowing issues in home lawns as well.  Cutting the lawn when it is under drought stress can really set things back.

Of course, cutting when the backyard is saturated isn't a whole lot better.

As it turned out, while the conditions on Monday were less than ideal for mowing fairways, it was the correct decision.  Monday night, the "hit or miss" storms hit us again, depositing an additional inch of rain on the golf course, and leaving us saturated on Tuesday.

Working around the weather is never dull, and can be frustrating.  This weekend, they were predicting a rare summer nor'easter, and had us on the 2"+ line for rainfall.  Instead, we received 0.2" of rain--only 10% of what was forecast...