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.