Pinnacle Peak Country Club Agronomy

July 2018

We hope everyone is enjoying their summer wherever you may be. Monsoon is definitely setting in. We have seen dew points in the upper 50’s and low 60’s. With the dew points and humidity setting the weather will now play a significant role in our golf course care. It will be especially important on the greens as the soil temperatures rise to a level that is not ideal for the bentgrass. To combat the detrimental conditons we will move to a protective approach to preserving the health of the greens. This includes raising the heights, reduced rolling, and more monitoring. Our goal will continue to provide a great playing surface with a target of 9-10 on the stimp meter. These conditions can be expected to last until early-mid September when the adverse weather conditions subside.

The greens and grounds department is moving full steam ahead with our summer culture practices. So far we have aerified all the roughs 1x and heavily verti-cut and top-dressed all the approaches and tees. After looking at the soil conditions in the fairways we have decided to change our plan. We will be forgoing the aerification on the fairways this year due to the tremendous amount of progress we have made on the past few summer with amending the soil. The amount of organic material and thatch is very minimal. We will instead focus on the canopy of the fairways and perform 2 passes of heavy verti-cutting to help thin the excess amount of leaf tissue. In short, our soils in the fairways look great, and we have lots of good Bermuda grass in the fairways that needs to be thinned out. However, we will be aerifying high traffic areas in the fairways, specifically next to bunkers. Once we begin the second pass on verti-cutting and the spot aerifying in traffic areas, we will be following up with the sand topdressing program again this year. While the fairways recover we will have to reduce our mowing of the fairways temporarily to let the sand settle into the canopy and also avoid damaging our mowers.

Because we have changed methods we have shifted our schedule around compared to what was previously stated in the June blog. Weather and equipment permitting our new schedule is as follows:

July 2 – July 23 – Vert-icut / Dethatch / Aerify / Top-dress – Fairways

July 16 – August 6^th – Verti-cut and Aerify roughs 2^nd pass

Once these processes are completed we will shift out focus on catching up on the detail work. We also will have some additional small projects to complete for the remainder of the summer. The projects include leveling areas in the rough that have some “odd” depressions, adding additional drainage, finish submersing the plaques into the cart paths, and general clean-up of the deserts.

The contract tree trimming and removal should be finished up the week of July 9. We will be lowering the oleander hedge next to #10 tee / Chipping green the week of July 16. The oleander hedge is being reduced to help with air circulation and shades issues that effect the chipping green the chipping green.

We appreciate your patience while we perform these processes. The processes can be very disruptive to play but are tremendously beneficial to the golf course. If you have any questions please feel to reach out.