2019 is here

It's officially time to stop whining about this year's weather, and move on.  While we are still focused on providing exceptional playing conditions throughout the fall of 2018, as the golf course mowing requirements start to decrease with cooler temperatures, quite a bit of our efforts are now geared towards having a successful 2019 season.

There is probably no better example of this than our Take-All patch prevention sprays.  The first of these applications was made this past week, on October 26.  Why is this date important?

The significance of spraying for Take-All patch in October, is that the damage from the disease typically isn't seen on the fairways until late spring, often peaking at Memorial Day.  The picture below was taken on May 31, 2018.

So, yes, even as we are still licking our wounds from the summer of 2018, we are actively working to prevent future turf damage from occurring more than half a year from now.

Rough Recovery

The prolonged hot, wet weather this year took its toll on area golf courses.  In many cases, no part of the course got hit harder than the primary rough.  Both Gray Leaf Spot disease, as well as mechanical injury from carts, maintenance equipment, and even feet, really thinned the turf.  In spots where we can limit traffic, we have aerified and seeded, with promising results.  However, it doesn't look as if we had much time in the "Goldilocks" just right temperature zone for seeding this year.

With nighttime low temperatures of 70 degrees just 10 days ago, we were hoping for some cooler nights to aid in seed establishment and recovery.  Well, once again Mother Nature showed her twisted sense of humor, leaving us with the old "be careful what you wish for" feeling.  This past Thursday night we were in the low 30's, with a solid frost on the golf course.

Seedlings in a primary rough area which was aerified and seeded.

Other areas will be sodded during the late fall and winter, with improved turf varieties that are more traffic tolerant, and disease resistant.  While it's typical for us to sod a few cart path ends in the off-season, it looks like there will be a much greater amount of area that needs to be addressed this year.

The walk-up behind #13 green took a beating this year.

On a positive note, the greens, tees and fairways made it through the year with minimal lasting damage.  With cool nights, the green speed increases as if by magic.  Now all we need is some prolonged dry weather, and you might actually start to get some roll...

Plenty to do every day...

Unless you happen to live on the golf course--and spend a lot of time looking out your back door--you might think that when the course is closed, little maintenance takes place. In reality, days when we are closed can often be as busy and productive as when we are open for play.

For example, this past Monday, we finally had a chance to lightly topdress the greens, applying an average of 200 pounds of sand per green.  Any practice like this, which may be somewhat disruptive during play, is best accomplished when we are closed.

Scott topdressing #6 green

Additionally, the grass doesn't know if it's a day when the course is open or closed.  Especially this year, with all of the rain, if we have a window of opportunity to mow without causing damage, we need to take advantage of it.   When it comes to the greens, they get their morning mowing seven days per week, whether there is play or not.

Selvin mowing #17 tee

  It now feels like someone finally flicked the switch, and we have been abruptly thrown into fall.  You will hear no complaints about cooler temperatures from the Grounds staff!  However, we can now add one more task to our daily list:  leaf cleanup.

Jim (and a helper) blowing #15 fairway

Not very low

Ah, October, a month we look forward to, as the heat and humidity of the summer are finally replaced by crisp, cool mornings, and some of the best golfing conditions of the year.  Or, at least that's the way it's supposed to work...

It truly feels as if a book could be written about the weather we've experienced in 2018.  Two weeks ago, the Philadelphia region hit its annual rainfall average--and we've had over 4" of rain since then.  Yes, there definitely have been countless days this year that were neither good for playing golf, nor for maintaining the golf course.

In addition to abundant rainfall, we have also had some crazy temperatures the past several weeks.  However, in this case, we're not talking about extreme daytime high temps, but instead, the nighttime lows.  Going way back to August 27, we have had exactly one single night that hit the average low temperature.  Stop and think about that for a second--that is only one day out of the last 40+ which has been "normal" by this measure.

Through the entire month of September we averaged close to eight degrees above average at night.  The normal low is now 47 degrees, and we have not come close to that.  As you can see below, the lone "cool" night occurred on September 9.

While people may only consider nighttime temperatures when deciding to turn the A/C on or off, if you're a grass plant, what happens at night can be just as important as what happens during the day.  What do these extended warm nights mean for the turf?  Well, with the persistent humidity, moisture, and warm soil temperatures we’ve continued to experience, a lot of the bad actors that have usually packed their bags for the year, are sticking around.

On the turf disease area, we have seen more Gray Leaf Spot in the rough this year than ever before.  With regard to insects, the Annual Bluegrass Weevil is still active, causing damage to some areas of Bentgrass.  And annual weeds have continued to germinate and grow vigorously.

The Annual Bluegrass Weevil has moved on to Creeping Bentgrass.

It used to be that if you made it to August 15 without issues on the course, you were over the hump.  Now, we are into October and still have the fans running around several greens.  We can only hope that it won't be long before we finally see some frost on the pumpkin.