Monday, September 11, 2017

September 2017

We hope everyone has enjoyed their summer. It has been a busy few months here on the course. We’ve accomplished many projects and practices throughout the summer to continue to improve the playability of the golf course. Here is a short list of our accomplishments:

  •         Dethatched aprons, approaches, fairways
  •         Aerified aprons, fairways, and tees
  •         Topdressed aprons, approaches, fairways, and tees with almost 1500 tons of sand
  •         Aerified & dethatched both driving range tees two times
  •         Topdressed both driving range tees
  •         Aerified roughs and driving range floor two times
  •         Completed multiple drainage projects to improve troubled wet areas
  •         Installed a retaining wall and rebuilt the black tee of #10
  •         Completed trimming of all trees

With the completion of these summer projects, we have spent the last several weeks catching up on detail work and desert clean-up throughout the property.

The plan for overseed this season is the same as the previous two years. We will be overseeding the fairways, approaches, tees tops and greens surrounds. None of the bunker faces or rough will be overseeded. We have seen tremendous gains in the health of the Bermudagrass by not overseeding the rough. This past winter season, dormant rough was significantly healthier and produced much better playing conditions throughout the summer.

We are now beginning to prepare for overseed. There are several important steps we take leading up to our closure that help ensure a successful overseed. Starting the week of Sept. 11, we will begin to spray a pre-emergent herbicide along the lines of the fairways and greens surround where the Bermuda will not be overseeded. This product will help ensure that no ryegrass can germinate in the areas we do not wish to have overseed.

Beginning the following week, we will begin to spray herbicides that will aid in the preparation of the overseed areas. On September 18, we will apply a growth regulator that will suppress the Bermuda. This product helps to keep the Bermuda grass from competing with the new ryegrass and will allow the ryegrass to outgrow the Bermuda. Around September 21, we will spray another product that will turn the Bermudagrass brown. This product does not kill the Bermuda.  It simply de-hydrates the leaf tissue temporarily to make the mechanical preparations of the Bermuda much easier. This is the same chemical we spray during the winter season to give the dormant Bermuda it’s uniform, golden color.  Members can expect the course to go significantly off color during this week.

In addition to these applications, we will also be spraying the Bermuda encroachment out of the collars. The collars were designed as an expendable buffer between the bentgrass putting surface and the surrounding Bermuda. As many of you have seen, we have struggled with the collars this summer. A majority of the short falls have come where the collar was predominantly ryegrass and was unable to survive the summer heat and humidity. A majority of the success came where the collars were predominately bentgrass. Therefore, our goal is to re-seed the collar with bentgrass this overseed to help establish a healthier and more consistent stand of bentgrass to produce a better collar year-round.


Once we have completed the mechanical prep of overseed, we plan to aerify and topdress the greens to give the greens some relief from the summer stress. This will be a small ¼ inch tine. The impact will not be noticed when the golf course re-opens. This aerification is planned after the mechanical prep of the golf course is complete to reduce the potential for any Bermudagrass contamination during mechanical prep for overseed.