While we can typically find some reason to complain about the weather, even the most "glass half empty" grass grower would have a hard time coming up with any negative words about this past week's beautiful conditions. After a summer of some very tough weather, the reprieve was greatly appreciated by both greenkeeper and grass.
This year, we performed our tee and fairway aerification earlier than ever. Typically in this region, August 15 is considered to be a (relatively) safe time to pull the trigger on this practice. For cool season turf, August means the shortest roots of the year--we rolled the dice and started August 5. Fortunately, despite a whole lot of rain in August, the timing appears to have worked out well.
For the turf, it's not just about the lower daytime temperatures, but equally important are the cool nights. Anytime we need a light jacket on an August morning, it is a good day. As you can see below, even the afternoon high soil temperatures on #16 fairway this past week have been less than the daily low temperatures were back in early August.
Another bonus to this atypical cool weather has been an increase in green speed. Again, we don't change our prep to the putting surfaces during the summer, but hot, sticky weather slows everything down. While temperatures are warming back up this week, hopefully we are over the hump.
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