Wells, Transition & Recovery

Last week we finally got our well on 6 after almost a month of being under repair. What does this mean? This means that finally we can water the golf course back up to its full requirements of water needs. Over the past month we have been short on daily irrigation from 500,000 to 700,000 gallon per day on average thus now with the additional irrigation inputs the recovery process during transition will increase.

Transition is always a tough time for both the member and the staff. Many forget from year to year just how bad at first this process can be especially after experiencing such great conditions as we did during the overseeding season. The bad news is that the better the overseeding season the worse the transition is historically. The good news is that is our main focus to improve for a couple of reasons. First, of course for the members and their guest that remain during the summer months and second, the better recovery we get during the summer months the better overseeding season we will have coming up in October.

In the sunny areas around the golf course the turf is almost 100% recovered, however, in the shaded areas such as 16 & 17 (only getting less than 2 hours of direct sunlight per day) and the edges of the fairways where the tree roots complete with the turf recovery has a long way to go.

The good news is that we are recovering and believe it or not we are better recovered this year than we have been in past year's. I have been taking pictures of the course over the five years I have been here and the golf course has improved every year. From my first year where only 40% of the fairways where alive even in August to this year where most of the fairways have already recovered (exceptions to be noted) we are leaps and bounds above where we started together.

Trust me when I say the golf course will recover ... fully ... no. Areas affected by tree roots may not every recover in the summer months but the good news is that we are addressing them everyday. When I grew turf back east in Florida we use to address these areas under the trees with Round Up (for the weeds) and pine straw to make these areas look great ... sadly, that is not part of our design here at Avondale thus we continue every year to try our very best to establish turf in these areas.

First Day of Aerification

Today we started the aerification of the greens, fairways & tees. The greens are progressing quickly thanks to a trailer that we bought last year to haul the aerifiers from green to green. Thanks to this one piece of equipment we were able to complete three more greens than we have ever done in the years before ... and with less staff. One day we will purchase a sand hauler and we will shorten the time even further.

We started the aerification of the fairways and tees as well, however, we noticed too late the the range had over 200 balls on it (most were yellow) even though it was cleaned picked. Most likely this means that someone had golf balls stockpiled at home and used them after the range had closed. The sad part is that all those golf balls are destroyed now and the Club suffers a loss in money.

If everything goes right tomorrow we will be done with the greens and Wednesday will be used for clean up, finishing fairways & tees, and several applications including grub and fairy ring control as well as fertilization. Whatever, is left will be finished Thursday morning before the first tee time at 9:00 am.

We are still on hold for the use of the well on 6 and hopefully will have it back operational soon.

Lake Levels

You may have noticed the lake levels have been down for the past couple of days ... this is because we have one well out and the other is having electrical panel problems. By this weekend we should be back up to normal.

Oleander Trimming & Stuff

The oleander trimming started today and for the most will be completed today as well. This is a big process that requires most of my team to get completed in one day thus there will be very few crew members on the golf course.

On greens 1, 2, 12 & 15 you may notice a slight bit of scalping from the greens mower. The machine was having problems that included dropping the reels on its own after being lifted from the mowing of the green. Good news is that areas will heal quickly and the machine is in repair.

Spraying of the nutsedge starts today and it herbicide application will take out the ryegrass along with the sedge; however, this application will NOT harm the bermudagrass which will fill in the areas over time.