Monday, December 10, 2012

Keeping up with the grass

If there is any doubt what a little rain can do for the golf course, just take a look right now.  Over the past 2 months we have been seeding, fertilizing and aerifying trying to get the grass to thicken up and fill in.  With the rain we got 10 days ago, all that work finally showed up.  Now we have the task of trying to keep up with the growth! 

We weren't able get mowers out onto the course until Wednesday due to the rain that came in on Sunday night and during the day on Monday.  Now we are in full swing and have been running every mower in our fleet to get the course tightened up before the new rains arrive this week.  You'll see 6 rough mowers out between the two golf courses and you will notice us mowing fairways in the afternoon as well.  This is uncommon for us (we try not to mow fairways in play), but when the grass is wet in the morning, the clippings stick to the cutting units and the quality of cut is very poor.  So in addition to our morning mowing of fairways, we are going to cut in the afternoon as well when the grass is dry.  This will produce a tighter fairway surface and really improve playing conditions.  We should only need to do this on Tuesday of this week to get a good cut completed.

We are also going to be adding an intermediate rough cut to the North Course.  We'll start this process next week after we get through the rains this week.  This will be a slightly shorter cut of rough next to the fairways and green surrounds.  We have done this during the winter in previous years, and it seems to get positive reviews from the membership.

Also, we added a drop area on #10 North today.  Since we have added the "natural grass area" next to the tees, we wanted to establish a place to drop your ball if you hit into the trees on the right or if you hit into the tall grass.  Drop areas are a local rule and you do not have to use them, but they are there to help with pace of play and to give the golfer an option.