Club Information from Grounds Superintendent Mark Huffer

Links News

Spring has finally arrived. The staff and I were hard at work all through March.  Wet and cold weather hampered our efforts to get even the regular maintenance completed.  After several delays the Pre-emergent and Round-up applications were finished mid-month.  By the end of March the course was clean and free of any winter weeds.  The pruning of Crepe Myrtles and other trees is ongoing.  Other key projects like hole #2 pond and greens aerification took precedent.

Five green sod is growing in very well. The roots have moved down into the greens mix about 3-4 inches already. A root system 8-10 inches is the desired depth to provide a healthy resilient greens surface.  The seeded section suffered a major setback. I believe cold temperatures sometime in late February killed what good seedlings we had established. If we can obtain some A-4 bentgrass sod in early April, we will finish the left side of 5 green.  Extra A-4 will be ordered for the perimeter of 9 & 18 greens to repair/replace years of bermuda grass encroachment.

The pond expansion at hole #2 is in its final stages. After we recovered from nearly ten inches of rain in two weeks, we were able to form and pour the concrete footer for the rock wall.  We had the wall built by an independent contractor to save time and labor.  While the wall was being constructed we worked on the turf areas surrounding the pond and green.  All areas will slope towards the pond.  The collar and approach will be re-grassed to “Zorro” zoysia grass and the remaining areas around the pond grassed with 419-bermuda grass in early April.  It will be ready for Fun Fest Weekend. 

Other projects we worked on were spot sodding some areas on 10 green. I downsized the practice green ever so slightly to obtain enough sod to repair 10 green.  The area on the putting green I took the sod from was converted to a zoysia grass collar.  The collar was partially leveled and re-sodded.  When we receive the zoysia sod for #2, we will finish the putting green collar & green restoration. 

The greens aerification went very well. This year in order to take advantage of dry weather we started aerifying on Sunday and finished on Monday before the 5-inch deluge set in on Tuesday.  The greens are healing in as expected and will be back to normal by early April.         

Hope to see you out on the course soon to see the new changes we have done to the course over the winter.  Our goal is to provide you a different experience every time you come out to play.

Daniel J. Nagy

Golf Course Superintendent