Our normal transition of cool season turf dying (overseeded rye and poa annua), and warm season (bermuda) turf filling in has come early this year. We have just completed one of the warmest Spring temperatures on record. According to NOAA, March was the warmest it has ever been on record. What this has done is forced this transition into early June instead of July or August. In one respect this is a tough time for us to deal with it because of major tournaments such as the MGA Club Championship & WGA Member/Guest. In another respect, this will be a long-term benefit to the course as we will have more months to grow bermuda turf in before we overseed again. If you remember, last year we didn't have any heat or transition issues until August (right before we overseeded the course again). We have an aggressive plan to improve summer conditions that will begin June 11th. Here are our plans for the North Course roughs:
1. We are going to sod areas that are extremely poor or in high profile areas with bermuda. We are planning to sod about 40,000 square feet.
2. We are going to lower the height of the roughs from 2 inches to 1.25 inches. This may seem like a slight change, but will be the biggest impact to improving turf conditions. Bermuda needs lower mowing heights and it allows the grass to get adaquete sun light.
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| By lowering the height of the rough, more sunlight will penetrate to the bermuda below and allow the turf to fill in. |
3. We will be aerifying all of the roughs to help water penetrate into slopes and hills.
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| You can see how green it is right around the sprinkler head where it stays wet, but the high traffic slope on either side is having issues with the water penetrating. |
4. In areas where the poa annua has died and has turned into a dead mat of turf, we are going to use a vertical mower to remove that dead mat and allow the bermuda to fill in quickly.
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| We will use a vertical mower to remove the dead material you see here and allow the bermuda to fill in. |
5. We will continue our ongoing efforts of using wetting agents, fertilizer and irrigation system improvements to improve these areas.
We have implimented many of these techniques and financial resources on the fairways over the past few years. You will notice that the North fairways are in very good shape right now and should continue to improve. The South fairways that have not been overseeded the past two years are also in fantastic shape right now. They are showing the results of removing the competing ryegrass and poa annua.
I hope this helps answer the questions we have been getting and also informs you of the plans we have to help mitigate these issues.
