Practice Tee Turf

It isn't too often that we have a day with unimpeded access to the practice tee.  So when this does happen, we take full advantage of it.  Given this summer's heat, the Bermudagrass on the practice tee flourished, and has spread well beyond the original section of the tee that was sodded to Bermuda.  

Because of this, instead of overseeding a small percentage of the upper tee, we covered almost the whole thing.  This process requires several steps, including seeding, aerifying, dragging, blowing, brooming and fertilizing. 

The somewhat gloomy weather throughout the past week may not have been great for golf, but was perfect for getting the seed up quickly.  As a matter of fact, even some seeds that landed on the practice tee mats decided to pop:

Tournament Preparation

The lead-up to one of our final major events of the year, the fall Member-Member, meant a lot of time was devoted to working on the greens.  On Monday, we tickled the turf with our verticut units to remove any grass that was growing horizontally.

This process generated quite a bit of material.

Beginning on Tuesday, we double-mowed and rolled the greens every day.

The end result was some pretty slick surfaces, which everyone seemed to enjoy.

An Early Haircut

The summer of 2024 had some rollercoaster weather patterns, with plenty of heat, and all or nothing rainfall patterns.  One of the consequences of this was early turf dormancy, as well as a tremendous amount of weed growth in the Fescue areas.

While we tried to beat back the weed pressure, these areas have had some pretty inconsistent playing conditions throughout the season.  At this point, the best option is to cut them down a bit earlier than we have done in the past.  This will help to achieve the goals of having these areas be penal, while also allowing a player's ball to be found (more often than not), and be advanced.  The mowing definitely creates a more uniform surface.

With 40 acres of native areas to mow, this process is never quick.  However, this year, due to delays in getting a new trim mower for cutting tee and green surrounds, our Ventrac tractor is being asked to do double duty.  The machine is mowing the close cut turf a couple of days each week, then switching attachments for mowing the Fescue.  It will definitely take a while for us to get all of the native areas mown down.

What's that?

 At first glance, this might appear to be just a little dirt spot on the edge of one of the flags:

However, if you look very closely, you'll see that it is not dirt at all.  More than likely, this is a Fall Armyworm egg mass:

Fall Armyworms don't mess around--a few years ago they caused serious turf damage in the region:

So is this a serious concern for us now?  Probably not.  While Fall Armyworms are wreaking havoc in the south once again this year, they don't do well at low temperatures, and the cool nights we have been experiencing lately will dramatically lengthen their egg hatch period.