Greens Update

The greens crew has been working extremely hard to recover the greens areas that were lost from the past winter.  There are a few thin areas on edges of greens, but we have been very successful in growing a lot of grass on the turf surface.  All of the greens have been but in play, but still require significant attention and, many grooming practices to improve how they play.

This week we started that journey.  The greens were verti-cut on Wednesday, to eliminate some lateral growth as well as thinning out some of the dense POA areas.  Many seed heads from new POA that re-established itself was removed during this process.

Cleaning up the debris after verti-cutting

On Thursday we top dressed the greens as well as brushed the sand into the canopy.  The drag brush stood up an abundance of unwanted growth, and we were able to mow quite a bit of this grass off the greens.

Long runners standing up after brushing

POA plant that was stood up from brushing in foreground.   #3 Green in the back ground with tons of grass standing up waiting to be cut.

Mower has arrived

These processes removed some of the puffiness feel out of the greens, and created a better surface.  The greens this weekend have shown a little injury from our maintenance but will continue to improve.   You will see similar processes as above being preformed over the next few weeks as we slowly restore the greens into form. 

Divot Repair

Just a quick reminder that you can help improve the course while enjoying your golf round.

- Repair your Ball Marks and 1 other

- Repair your Divots with Divot first, using sand as a second option

- Keep your Carts on Cart Paths where possible and provided

Improper Divot Repair using sand with divots available

Proper Divot Repair using the divots left beside the hitting location

Greens update

June has arrived and the golf calender is full of events.  We have made tremendous progress on the golf course with the main focus on opening up all 18 greens.  June 14/15 all 18 greens were opened up for play for the member/member, followed by the greens being open for the Lady's Invite.  We are hoping to keep these greens open on a daily basis, as long as their health keeps moving in a positive direction.  If needed we will use provisional greens under certain situations.  There are still some thin spots on some greens, mostly isolated on the edges, which are improving daily.  We are working on increasing plant density in these areas.   Through the month of June we will be doing many things to promote recovery, and are forecasting being able to focus on greens speed in the near future.  As we have found through this recovery process, comparing pictures of progression was helpful in recognizing successes and failures.  Below are a few pictures of #12 green.
 

April 7, 2014

May 23, 2014

June 14, 2014

 The pictures above show a story of the of POA that survived the winter, or has rebounded with warmer soil temperatures.  On June 14th you can clearly see distinct color differences between the POA that survived and the Bent grass grown from seed that has filled in the putting surface.  We have also noticed a lot of seed head being produced through the month of June.  This can cause chattering of putts, which is more noticeable during afternoon rounds

POA seed on #13 green

A couple of photos taken over the last couple weeks;

Morning of June 19th, looking East from 11 green

1 of 4 Snapping Turtles hanging out on the Driving range during high water

Coopers Hawk by #14 green who just caught a Sparrow

Golf course update

It's an exciting day for Ladies and Men's league at Forest Lake.  As we turn the corner in the recovery of our playing surfaces we have introduced 6 greens into play.  Although not perfect, these greens have recovered significantly to handle routine play.  As June moves along we will start introducing others once ready, and will look forward to move away from the provisional pins in the near future.  The mowing heights for the greens will be mowed higher then traditional years.  As the canopy becomes denser and the greens remain in good health, we will slowly lower our mowing heights to improve greens speed.

2 Green April 3st

2 Green open for play June 5th

We have been updating weekly on the situation of our greens, but the greens crew has been quite busy everywhere on the golf course.  Flowers have been planted all around the club, and the crew is starting to move through the mulch gardens through out the property. Grass has been jumping out of the ground and rough areas have been very difficult to keep under control.  Also we would like to share some photos of a few tree and planting projects that are close to being complete.  Thank you for supporting the greens crew's hard efforts .

15 Green

15 Green Cedars removed

Locust Trees #7

Locust Trees #7 removed

16 Tee

16 Tee New Arborvitaes planted

Golf Course Update

A tremendous amount of things are happening all at once on the golf course. Soil temperatures have started to warm up and have caused grass to start growing rapidly.  While trying to keep up on mowing roughs and other areas, our main focus is still on greens recovery.  It is very tough sometimes to judge progression when you are looking at the same green everyday trying to pick out the positive advancements.  We have been taking periodic pictures of the greens better monitor this.  Shown below are pictures of #2 and #13 greens, with the first photos from April 7th, and last on May 23rd.  Our recovery is very much related to the damage that a particular green has received. There are additional factors such as moisture management, percent of seed germination, algae and fertility that also playing  a role in recovery. We are addressing these hurdles as we run into them.  The greens are moving along, but are not perfect, that will come in time.  We are looking at introducing some greens in play at the start of June and progressively be playing others as the turf canopy becomes dense enough to support daily play.  Although these putting surfaces will be played, expect to have slower greens speeds, and some bumpy ball rolls at first.  As the surface matures and we are able to put into effect more maintenance stresses the greens will consistently  improve.

2 Green April 7, 2014

2 Green April 31,2014

2 Green May 12,2014

2 Green May 23,2014

13 Green April 7,2014

13 Green April 31,2014

13 Green May 12,2014

13 Green May 23,2014

Golf Course Update

We are going to hit 30 days after seeding our greens this coming weekend (May 16,17 and 18th to be factual).  Even though we have encountered some frustrating cool weather, we have been able to make some significant progress especially from the warm rains over the past 7 days.  All of the greens are showing significant recovery but will remain out of play at the moment.  At this point we have a very mixed bag of greens in our recovery process, which range from looking very fairly close to being put back in play to a handful of greens that it is too early to make that determination.  This is too be expected, where in general, the greens that are closer to play had less winter damage and grass that survived, where the greens with excess of 80% winter kill will be recovering from almost all seed.

Pictures of a couple examples from both ends of the spectrum.

#9 Green - Approximately 1/3 of this green appeared alive in mid April.  Also there were signs of other grass in a dormant state making a recovery.

9 Green Mid April

9 Green Mid May

#18 Green - 90% of this green suffered winter kill.  There has been a small portion of this green that was dormant and trying to rebound, but a large part of this greens recovery is relying on new seedlings.

18 Green Mid April

18 Green Mid May

As the pictures show, 9 green will be ready for play earlier then 18 green.  Not to be discouraged.  As we have started to mow all of the greens, we continue to see positive improvements, where the seedlings are becoming dense and starting to fill in the voids between them.  

As we look at these pictures of the greens on weekly and monthly comparisons we notice very positive results. We will continue to show progress pictures of the greens weekly.  

 

Greens Update

It has been 3 weeks since we have seeded the greens to aid in recovery of our playing surfaces.   We have definitely seen some significant advancements in the greens despite having cooler temperatures for the first 14 days after seeding.  By covering the greens with tarps we were able to slightly increase the the temperatures, and were effective in keeping the seed bed moist.  We have achieved germination in most of  the greens by doing this. Along side existing turf that survived the winter we have quite a bit of grass to work with.

This past week we warmer spring temperatures arrived!  We have removed all of the covers until the next cool days, to allow the seedlings to have 100% sunlight.  This also gave us the ability to put our first mow on all of the greens that have germinated.  Some of the greens that are further along in recovery were mowed multiple times.  The covers will be moved on and off the greens as needed during the recovery process, as we move through the variable weather cycles of spring. 

#4 Green April 30th

#4 Green May 9th

#4 Green from 150 yards May 9th

The visible differences are very positive and encouraging as in the above pictures of #4 Green.  Our greens that have incurred more damage are slightly behind in growth.  From afar our greens appear restored as new seedlings and existing turf give off a green hue.  We have a lot of work ahead of us still, as we wait for the new seedlings to mature and start spreading laterally.  Mowing, watering and fertilizer applications will be done frequently over the next weeks to encourage a denser surface.

New Bent grass seedlings on #7 greens