Construction Continues

 After a brief break from construction, we are back at it.  Cart path work is now taking place, currently focusing on the paths at #18 green and practice areas.  While most of the paths around the course work well for one-way traffic, the two-way traffic from the Clubhouse to the practice area often leads to some beat up path edges. 

The path from the Clubhouse bridge to the practice area is being widened.

 Because of this, in addition to repaving the existing path, we are also having some areas widened, and have increased the parking area by the new putting green. Once the crushed concrete in the expansion areas has had a chance to settle, the entire path from #18 green to the short game area will be overlaid, giving a clean appearance.

Pulling the plug

In prior years, when we removed the ballwashers from the golf course, it was pretty easy to tell that they were no longer available for use during the off-season.  However, we have found that bringing in all of the new ballwashers just might not be too practical 😉...

Because of this, the ballwashers won't be removed from the course during the winter months, but instead, they will be drained to prevent freezing.  This is easily accomplished by removing the plug near the base of the ballwasher.

So with cold temperatures ahead, don't be surprised if you try to use a ballwasher, but come up dry.

Bye, Bye Bunker Pump

 The process of renovating the bunkers has taken several years, and finally all are completed.  Prior to this work, any heavy rain event had us pushing washed out sand back on bunker faces, and pumping water from bunkers which no longer drained.  You won't see a tear in our eye as we put a For Sale sign on this piece of equipment:

Big Blowout

 To (mis)quote Roy Scheider's character, Brody, in Jaws, "You're gonna need a bigger cart."  With over 20 miles of irrigation pipe buried beneath the surface of the golf course, it takes a lot of air to remove the water and prevent potential damage due to freezing during the winter months.

Still, this gargantuan compressor was a little larger than we typically receive-- as you can see, it blocks the entire pump station behind it.  Fortunately, despite its size, it performed like a gentle giant.  One of the keys to a smooth system blow-out, is the pressure regulating valve we connect between the compressor's discharge hose and the irrigation system.

With the system now winterized, we will be hoping for some occasional precipitation to allow our seeded and sodded areas to progress during the winter months.

Poa Seed

 Last week we mentioned using Poa annua seed for the Clubhouse putting green, in order to best match the greens on the golf course.  While many of the top courses in the country have greens that are predominantly Poa, overall, this grass still has a bad rap.  It's known for producing vast amounts of seed in the spring, leading to a bumpy putting surface, having a shallow root system requiring frequent watering, and is prone to damage from diseases such as Anthracnose.

Given all of these weaknesses, why would anyone want to use Poa?  Well, it may be time to rethink our views on Poa and all of these negative attributes which have long been associated with it.  Dr. David Huff of Penn State has spent close to three decades selecting and breeding Poa.  What he has developed is definitely not the weak, vulnerable grass we're used to.  For example, to see Poa outperform Bentgrass in drought recovery is pretty amazing:   

Similarly, disease resistance in this Poa is noteworthy:

Again, the Clubhouse green has been seeded with both Dr. Huff's Poa, as well as one of the best performing new Bentgrass varieties.  Although we seeded quite late, a quick peak under the cover this past week, has things looking promising.

Sod and Seed

 If you haven't had the opportunity to take in the new putting green at #1 tee, you're missing something big.  In fact, the new green is more than twice the size of its predecessor.  

In order to sod this landing strip, we used sod from three sources on site:  The old putting green, the Clubhouse putting green, and our nursery.

It would have been difficult to find replacement sod for the Clubhouse green from a commercial source which closely matched the mix of Bent and Poa on the golf course greens.  We were extremely fortunate to be one of  only a handful of golf courses in the country to receive Poa seed developed by Dr. David Huff of Penn State University.  Using his suggested ratio of Creeping Bentgrass and Poa annua, the Clubhouse putting green was prepped and reseeded last Monday.  

Seeding in November in our region can be a roll of the dice, so a turf cover was installed over the green immediately to help promote seed germination by retaining moisture and increasing the soil temperature.  The next several months will involve a good deal of cover on/cover off, on all of the recently renovated fine turf areas around the course.

Congratulations are in order!

 Recently, one of our longtime employees, Jacques St. Elien, officially became a citizen of the United States.  Jacques and his family emigrated from Haiti in the 1980s.

Jacques and four of his brothers were employed by the general contractor who built Laurel Creek, so he took part in the original construction, beginning in 1989.  If you happen to see Jacques on the course please give him a thumbs-up for this wonderful accomplishment. 

In a holding pattern

 The old putting green sod was stripped over two weeks ago, on October 15.  Since then you may have seen the sod comfortably resting to the left of #9.  

Prior to cutting the sod, fungicides and a plant growth regulator were applied to the green.  While there hasn't been a whole lot of foliar growth since then, it's great to see long white roots emerging from the bottom side of the sod.

As with many things these days, some supply issues have slowed down the project a bit, but with any luck, the sod will be moved to its new home later this week.

Don't let the grass grow under your feet

While golf course architect, Andrew Green, is all about growing grass, the in demand man has no time to waste.  Arriving pre-dawn on Friday morning, a lack of light didn't slow Andrew down, as he went to work checking grades on the new putting green.

With sunrise, it was time for him to move some dirt, making a few minor adjustments, prior to the drainage being installed.

Finally, with a bit more daylight, Andrew discussed the details with the construction team.  The new green is twice the size of its predecessor, and will tie-in nicely with the tees on #1.

It's about to get real...

 As the bunker phase of this year's Master Plan work is wrapping up, it's time to move on to bigger and better things.  Construction on the new practice green and redesigned #1 tee is now underway.  This area is quickly becoming unrecognizable from what it was a week ago.

Golf course architect, Andrew Green, reviews plans for the new putting green with members of Mottin Golf Course Renovations, prior to staking out the new green's location.

One of the trickiest parts of this operation is saving the sod from the old green.  On Saturday it was stripped, then relocated to the left of #9 where it will be stored until the new green is complete.  At that time the old sod, along with material from other areas will be placed on the new putting green.  Similar to the short game area last year, once completed we will be covering the new putting green over the winter months.

It's a first...

 With the golf course being 30 years old, it isn't very often that we can say that, "We've never seen that before."  An exception to this occurred last week as the remnants of Ian passed by, and then became a Nor'easter, slowly dumping crazy amounts of rain over a five day period.

When the skies finally cleared, we had accumulated over five inches of rain in the first five days of the month.  If we didn't receive another drop for the remaining 26 days of October, we would still be 43% above average precipitation totals for the month.

32,500,000 gallons of water fell on the golf course itself.  If we include the surrounding residential area which drains onto the course, the total is 68,600,000. With water weighing 8.3 pounds per gallon, that's 270 million pounds of water that landed on the course!

So what was the first time out of this?  Well, unless there was snow on the ground, we have never come close to six days in a row when we couldn't allow carts on the golf course.  

If nothing else, this map should change dramatically in the near future.  One other benefit was that the slow soaking rain was helpful in establishing all of the newly installed sod on the course.

Pitch Mark Repair

 We need your help!  Unfortunately, even with just a few outside golf events lately, we continue to see a large number of unrepaired ball marks on the greens.  Fixing your ball mark should be a habit.  To this end, here are a few suggestions:

• Go to your ball mark first when walking onto the green, then go to your ball.
• Repair your ball mark and one other on each and every green.
• Make sure those you play with repair their ball marks on each and every green.

Additional information on ball mark repair from the USGA can be found here:  Ball Mark Repair Quiz

Below are some step by step instructions, but if you need additional tips, any of our Pro Shop staff will be happy to give you a few pointers:

It's a dance

With limited labor (yes, that blue, "limited labor" link is worth the click) this time of year, we are often forced to use our riding "triplex" mowers on the greens daily.  Additionally, our mowing commences while it's still dark out.  In preparing for the Member-Member event, we double-mowed and rolled for several days, many times having multiple pieces of equipment on a green at the same time.

If you've ever watched the team prepare the putting surfaces, and it looks like a well-choreographed performance, their precision and execution doesn't occur by accident.

Like learning to dance with a partner, there is a good deal of non-verbal communication which takes place from the time the mowers and roller arrive at one green, and eventually exit, heading towards the next.  Whether you call it the triplex trot, tango, or two-step, operating in concert with another mower takes time and practice.

"Places of penance..."

 As you check out the collection of new bunkers on #15, the words of Bernard Darwin may ring true--bunkers are intended to be penal and therefore should be avoided.  

If you haven't had an opportunity to see the new fairway bunkers on #15, they are visually spectacular.  The one closest to the green is eye-catching, and will be challenging to say the least.  With a downhill lie, and 70 yards to the green, this is a bunker shot that few people practice on a regular basis.

This bunker definitely has the potential to get in a player's head, however there is a bit of good news if you're able to clear it, as the fairway will  be expanded in front of the green to the right.

As noted previously, some elements of the Master Plan are executed more easily than others.  While we've tried to work around irrigation lines during this process, there have been a couple of times when things needed to be relocated.  

The new bunker on the right side of #15 green happened to have the irrigation greens loop going right through it.  Fortunately, this was a fairly easy line to reroute.

Over the hump?

 For turf managers in our region, August 15 has traditionally been thought of as a turning point in the year--if you made it to that date without major turf loss, you should be in good shape.  However, in recent years, more and more people say the date has now shifted to September 15 before we can exhale and take a long, deep breath.

Certainly this summer's persistent hot weather, and reliance on irrigation (instead of rainfall) were not conducive to producing firm, fast playing conditions.  While most of us focus on daytime high temperatures, for plants (which can't escape to the comfort of an air conditioned environment at night) the low temps are quite meaningful.

Seeing a "5" early on Saturday morning and feeling the need to grab a light jacket felt amazing. 

 As the Sun rose, looking back towards #12 tee, a whole lot of happier grass plants were on full display.

So will we truly relax now?  Well, that might be an option, but no, this cooler weather just provides us with an opportunity to achieve better playing conditions by once again putting the pedal to the metal. 

What's with the white weeds?

This past week we made a herbicide application targeting Crabgrass and Goosegrass.  The area we primarily focused on was along cart path edges.  The additional traffic these areas receive compacts the soil and thins the stand of desirable turf, allowing weed encroachment.  

The product we used is effective at extremely low rates--we applied it at 0.75 ounce per acre.  It causes chlorophyll loss in weeds, resulting in them turning white.  

Aesthetically, the weeds may actually be more noticeable now than prior to treating them--just thinking of this as them raising the white flag.

Construction Update

In addition to contending with all of this summer's hot weather, the Master Plan construction has been keeping us on our toes for the past month.  

While things are progressing smoothly, there are always challenges when working around play, and some areas are easier than others.  Installing a new drain line from the right side of #5 to the left involved crossing the fairway.

Currently, work is taking place on #2, 4, 5, and 6.  #9 and 15 will be next, completing the bunker work, followed by some tee improvements on #5 and 7.

Striking the right balance

Fortunately, the weather forecast was (once again) incorrect last week, and we had some great weather for aerifying fairways.  But, in case you haven't flipped on the news lately, the region is in a serious rain deficit.  Among other things, this means we have been trying to recover from aerification relying solely on sprinklers.  

Clear skies and another 90 degree day will dry things out.

Until the holes are fully healed, the fairways will need plenty of water, and be very soft.  Similar to an ice cube with a hole in it, which has more surface area to cool your beverage, the unhealed holes have additional surface area from which we can lose moisture.

No irrigation system can provide the uniformity of  rainfall.  Given the fairway mounding, it's not uncommon to have areas which are turning toasty brown just a few feet away from a swale which is too wet, and tracks up from carts.  

Too wet and too dry are not very far apart.

With continued above average temperatures this week, the goal each morning is to start out with enough moisture to get us through the day, and not need to run sprinklers.  We always say, it takes one good rain to get things healed--and this year, an end to the 90s might help as well.  Monday provided us with the largest single rain event in over two months.

The patients are in the ICU

This past week, we went ahead with greens aerification, as scheduled.  Like many surgical procedures a person might undergo, aerification is beneficial to the turf in the long-run, however it is also quite stressful in the short-term.  As the days leading up to aerification approached, and we looked at the weather forecast, thoughts of, "The patient is too weak, can they survive surgery?" popped into our heads.  After all, how many people would be able to withstand surgery in a 97 degree OR!

A miserable weather stretch to aerify in.

Fortunately, as we near one week post-surgery, it looks like the greens made it through the "punching" in good shape.  Once past the actual day of aerification, they can relax and recover--it's now easier for them to breathe, and they will be kept well-hydrated.

As the Sun rises, #11 is being rolled, post-aerification

While most people focus on the daily high temperatures, the nighttime lows are equally important to plant health.  During the 10 day heat wave we just went through, we stayed in the 70's and close to 80 degrees many nights, allowing no relief to the turf, all while providing great growing conditions for some nasty plant pathogens.

So, after many hot, humid mornings this summer, it felt amazing to get up on Saturday and actually have to reach for a light jacket.  Undoubtedly, August will show its teeth again and go down swinging, but this brief respite from the heat and humidity is appreciated by both flora and fauna!

A lot of plates up in the air...

 With turf roots at their shortest of the entire year, standing on its own, August is always a challenging month.  Every year, this is also when we aerify the greens, tees and fairways, which is a massive undertaking from a labor perspective.

There are a few agronomic reasons why it's important to get aerification completed now, but labor is also part of the equation, since we will soon be losing several employees as they return to school. 

If that's not enough fun and games, 2022 has an additional wrinkle as our Master Plan work commences on the same day as greens aerification.  With supply chain issues, the planning for this year's work began well in advance, and we have had some materials on the ground for several months.  But some of the preparation can not be addressed until just before the actual construction begins.  

Included in this, is the tracing and marking of existing irrigation lines.  As you play the first holes where bunker work will take place (#2, 4, and 5), you may see a good deal of paint and flags.  With bunkers being changed,  we also went ahead and knocked down the backside of the Fescue on the areas which will be under construction.  This allows a cleaner view of the land as well as the buried infrastructure to be avoided, or potentially relocated.

Fescue is cut, and irrigation lines marked on #4 field bunker.

The construction sequence will be to rebuild the remaining bunkers on #2, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 15, address tees on #5 and 7, then finish up at #1 tee and the putting green.

Water, water, not everywhere...

 With summer storms being hit or miss, the decision to irrigate or not, can be a roll of the dice.  Truth be told, there's likely an average of two or three times each year when we wait until nightfall to make the call on irrigation, and wakeup to find that what looked like a solid line of storms fell apart--or the opposite happens, and the "pop-up" storm has dumped a bunch of water after we gave the heads a couple of spins.  

Beyond the impact on playing conditions, this can be a humbling experience when you are maintaining turf at 1/10" in the transition zone.  Currently, the roots of the Poa in the greens is about the depth of a hockey puck, thus drying down the greens is not an option.  So even if moisture is in the soil profile down deep, we have to manage to what is referred to as the "functional" root zone--that is, where the Poa roots are able to pull water from. 

Many times what appears to be a solid line of rain splits while approaching Philadelphia from the west, leaving Laurel Creek in the "miss" zone as it rains to our north and south after crossing the Delaware River.  A number of years ago there was an article which proposed three possible reasons this storm split may occur:

• The elevation change from the hills of eastern interior Pennsylvania, to the lower, flat elevations of the Delaware River and south Jersey.
• The Delaware River itself may impact the storms as they approach.
• The enormous heat of the city acts to break up storms.

As you can see below, a recent storm begins to split to the north and south as it passes the city, and crosses the Delaware River.

After this line of heavy showers passes Philadelphia and the river, the golf course is left in the "two drops" zone.

Regardless of the reason or reasons this occurs, relying on irrigation is always less uniform than rainfall, and turf rarely responds to irrigation water as it does to nature's water from above.

Obviously having to irrigate this time of year is to be expected.  However, this year has been unusual both in terms of heat as well as the need for supplemental water.  As of July 28, much of the region is way behind in rainfall over the last six week period:

Sooner or later we'll be complaining about how cold and wet it is, but for the moment we're doing whatever it takes to make it through this nasty stretch of weather.  

Goldilocks and Water Management

 The course received approximately 50% more rain than average in June, so it probably shouldn't have been much of a surprise that July was going to be payback time.  With one week left in the month, we are way behind in precipitation, with only 28% of the normal rainfall total for July--which has also clearly lived up to being the hottest month of the year.  Yes, you might not be aware (if you happen to be a cave dweller), but it has been just a tad warm of late...

This extreme weather combination of high temperatures and lack of rain, makes water management critical.  Striking the right balance between too wet and too dry during this kind of weather pattern is challenging to say the least.

Few balls will be plugging on the dormant range field right now.

Most of the golf course, if allowed to dry down and go dormant, will recover without issue when temperatures moderate and available moisture returns to the root zone.  However, areas which go dormant and then have to deal with stresses such as cart traffic, may become severely damaged.  On the other hand, since water is a great conductor of heat, saturated soils can be no better for the turf than dry, with the potential for rapid root loss.  

Additionally, the course's predominantly short-rooted Poa annua greens are constructed primarily of well-draining sand, and will not last long if allowed to dry down.  Hand watering, checking sprinkler arcs and adjusting run times are currently a fulltime job for several staff members.

A slight sprinkler arc adjustment was needed on the back of #16 Champion tee.

So this is where Goldilocks comes into play--both too much and too little water can quickly kill turf at the moment--trying to stay in the "just right" zone for the varied areas and turf species of the course is like walking a tightrope.

While we continue to mow the greens daily at 0.10", we have backed off on other more aggressive cultural practices, such as double-mowing, verticutting, topdressing and rolling.  Course conditions are certainly not fast and firm; but with temperatures approaching 100 degrees and the golf course dominated by "cool season grass" species, this is one of the times of the year when playing defense is the only sound choice for the long-term health and survival of the fine turf.

Some New Tools and Field Trials

 Since the time the golf course was constructed, one of the most challenging maintenance aspects has been the management of the severe fairway mounding.  These areas are definitely subject to more wind and Sun than a flat area, and can dry out very quickly.  Additionally, if we receive a typical fast moving thunderstorm, most of that water doesn't have an opportunity to penetrate the soil, and just runs off the slopes.

Over the years, we have tried a number of things to keep these mounds alive throughout the dog days of summer, and ideally reduce the hand watering labor required to achieve this.  Recently, John Paddock of DryJect brought over their latest amendment injection systems for us to check out.

So this was both another trial for injecting the super absorbent polymer (we're using in all of our divot mix), AquaPerk into the ground, as well as an opportunity to see the new "AquaJect" in action.  With a smaller footprint than a conventional DryJect machine, the AquaJect can be used in a wide range of settings, including both residential and commercial.  

As weather anomalies seem to become more common--and actually less anomalous--the prospect of injecting AquaPerk into your lawn to reduce water use may become quite appealing for homeowners.  One of the unique things about the AquaJect machine is that it allows both granular and multiple liquid amendments to be injected into the plants' root zone simultaneously.  

As we always try to do when evaluating a new product or practice on the course, untreated check plots are left.  We will closely monitor moisture levels in these areas going forward to determine if there is value in continuing this process throughout the course.  After all, the condition of the playing surface above the ground is primarily dependent on the conditions you may rarely see--those beneath the ground!

When "measure twice" isn't enough

 Way back in January the Trex decking was installed on #2/12 bridge, and since then, several people have asked what the hold up has been with adding the anti-slip matting down the center.  Well, when we spaced the Trex decking on this bridge, we used the same measurements as we had for #8 bridge last year--after all, we were purchasing the exact same material for the center.

However, when we received the matting this year, we quickly found out that it would not fit between the Trex boards.  For some reason, PEM, the matting manufacturer, changed the width from 24" to 25".

Hmm, the matting we received last year was 24", the boxes we received this year say "2 ft.", so it seemed pretty reasonable that we should have gotten exactly what we previously did--24" matting, not 25" matting.

What to do?  Well, given all of the angles on this bridge, removing and repositioning the Trex to accommodate this larger mat size wasn't a good option.  We patiently waited to find out if PEM would be doing another run of this material at the stated 24" width--after several months, we were told that they would not.

We were then left with little choice but to trim 1" of material off of 275' of matting.  This was definitely not something we planned for, nor really had time to do mid-season, when our focus should be on the turf.

After many hours, some sore knees and backs got the trimming job done.  With that completed, the matting was installed, and the finished product came out great.  So, yes, we measured twice, but unfortunately had to cut once...