Last minute touches

The golf course is greening up nicely despite the recent cool weather. The greens are on the mend from their recent drill and regular aerification practice. The staff is trying to finish up small project work in anticipation of the new golf season just around the corner.

The zoysia continues to green-up on a daily basis.

Drainage work at #6 green.

Fill material carefully placed around new pipe extensions.



Crew busy restoring liner and drainage in #6 greenside bunker.

Floor liner installation almost complete at #6 green.

 #6 green bunker back to a playable condition.

Notice 10-12 inches of bunker sand along grown-in edge. Hey Spencer, how much has the grass edge grown into the bunker?

Today was a rain-out which allowed me to catch up on invoices, personnel forms and communication avenues. Tomorrow is the ladies Opening Day with a 9-hole shotgun on the back nine. We'll be ready! 



Down and Dirty

Weekend temperatures in the mid-eighties have accelerated the growth rate of everything on the golf course. The bentgrass on the greens started growing on Sunday just in time for aerification.

Fairways starting to green up prior to hot weekend

The week of April 11th is focused on two areas. Greens aerification and working on the drain lines around greens on the front nine. Above, #2 green being drilled and filled to a depth of 12 inches deep. Now the roots in the new sod can easily grow into the seedbed . Below is #10 green after being drilled and just prior to our standard 5/8 inch hollow core aerification. Significant positive enhancements to the seedbed where the bentgrass grows were achieved with this aerification practice.

Two green's plugs with one showing the foreign sand layer that came with the sod. One of the purposes of this week's aggressive aerification is to break up this layer to aid downward rooting into existing seed bed before the summer stress period.

Working on the drain lines at each green site continues to be a challenge to locate  the pipes with minimal damage to the golf hole. Unfortunately, most of the exit points are in the front approach of many greens as illustrated with the photo of #3 green. It's hard not to be an inconvenience to play. At this location we found the drain line located in a 12 inch wide rock saw cut trench line approximately eight feet down. When we uncovered the drain line we found the pipe completely blocked with soil. Natural drainage was severely limited. We were able to jet the line clean and now water will move down the line although slowly due to the pipe grade sloping back towards the green.

With this herculean effort to locate twenty-two year old drain lines, you find that quality controls were somewhat lacking during the original construction  as evidenced by the crushed drain line leaving the back half of #3 green. Our efforts are not to question the past but prepare for a better future.

This week has been a great week for the golf course in regards to performing cultural practices that will greatly enhance the growing environment at each green in the very near future and for several year to come. The down side is that playing conditions will take a step backwards for a short period as the course and greens recover from all the disturbances.

The green-up is underway

In the last three weeks, the golf course has experienced two  Monday  snowfalls and two record high temperature days of 84 and 88 degrees.  Thirty to forty degree temperature swings have been the norm with the winds racing across Kansas City at 20 to 40 mph from a different direction almost daily. The effect on the golf course has been positive with the soil temperatures steadily increasing and pushing the various grass types  to green-up and start growing.

The week of April fourth has been a busy chaotic week for the maintenance team. Twelve seasonal employees arrived on Monday ready to work another seven month stint at Shadow Glen. Seven guys are returning employees with five new bodies to train. We are trying to implement a new maintenance strategy which will require a week or two to workout the bugs as we strive to improve our efficiency over an eight hour day by creating maintenance zones. By keeping groups of workers in smaller sections fo the golf course I hope the reduced travel time will result in better time efficiency with the ultimate goal of providing better course conditioning day to day.

The verticutting of the greens on Monday went smoothly followed by a light sand topdressing and fertilization. Also, a rusted leaking forty-five degree steel elbow fitting on the four inch irrigation main line under the cart path at #6 tee was removed and replaced with ductile iron fittings and a concrete thrust block was poured for support while the course was closed on Monday. In the next couple of weeks, we need to return the cart path back to 100 percent. Cudos are due the crew as they endured a 20 to 40 mph north wind with temperatures hovering in the low 40's and the wind chill below freezing most of the day.  Welcome back.... Oh yes, I forgot to mention that a strong storm with hail and high winds ripped through the golf course on Sunday night leaving the course littered with tons of tree limbs to pick-up before any mowing could be accomplished. Fortunately, the course suffered minimal damage with the bunkers absorbing the hail quite well.

Tuesday added to the chaos as a healthy frost delay stalled the course from opening on time while the assistants tried to keep twenty-two guys busy for three hours until the frost cleared. Our library of training videos came in pretty handy for this type of scenario.

Wednesday was a beautiful day and the work effort flowed more smoothly. We mowed fairways on hole #13 though 17. The mowers firmed up the fairways, spread some earthworm castings and created a nice visual with the return of the mower stripes. Ahh, the future looks good and the fairways are providing a good playing surface as they green-up.

The rest of the week looks promising with the potential of severe storms over the weekend. Most of the time I hate when it rains on weekends but over the next ten days, it can't rain next Monday or Tuesday! Our greens aerification is planned for those two days and I need to get this done in this window for everyone's sanity!