Course Update

Last week was definitely one to remember.  Temperatures were in the 90's all week with Wednesday and Friday having recorded temperatures of 100 degrees.  The last article in this blog showed the tree damage that we incurred on Thursday morning.  We also lost power to our pump house that morning and were not able to irrigate until Sunday at midnight.  The maintenance crew worked extremely hard all day on Saturday and Sunday using our 3 spray rigs to keep moisture on the greens.  Their efforts held off major heat stress to the greens surfaces.  We have spent this week playing catch-up on irrigating the golf course and the majority of turf survived through the heat.

We did have an outbreak of Pythium on the course sporadically in low lying fairway areas, drain lines and in the roughs.  Although we try to manage this disease preventatively we did have some minor occurrences, most significant 16 fairway. Pythium blight is an infectious disease on turf that can spread rapidly under hot, humid conditions, and readily available moisture over a 2-3 day period.  We definitely met and exceeded those conditions.

Pythium kills turf rapidly and can be spread easily by equipment and moving water.  Below are a few pictures of the active disease and the grass 24 hours after the infection.  The areas that were affected and have damaged grass will be over seeded and top dressed.

#6 fairway, Pythium active spreading downhill

The Day after Pythium infection was noticed