On The Course September 1st

A few visitors on the Executive Course.

It is going to feel like the middle of July today even though the calendar has turned to September. One more hot day for the season and then normal cool temperatures for the rest of the weekend. We have a chance of storms overnight and into the morning but they should not last long into Friday.

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Fairways, collars and approaches are being mowed. The staff has been on the course in the dark with lights on getting a good start to the day. The days are getting shorter quickly and we will have to adjust our start times after the Labor Day Weekend. We will start working on some projects after aerification is done.

The temporary disturbances now will result in a better golf course later. Our aerification process last fall was disruptive and slow to heal with the cooler weather but the benefits that we recieved in early November and this spring were huge. We will be aerifying with a larger tine diameter that will help with surface drainage going into winter. If you remember last November right after we covered greens we had a snow event followed by a rain event. Rain onto frozen ground spells disaster for our greens. What helped get that rain off of the surface was the larger aerification holes from the fall aerification. The covers helped keep the ground from freezing and the aerification holes helped the rain soak into the soil and get off the surface of the greens. I know my staff and I will get a lot of comments over the next week on the aerification process. The foundation for our greens program  starts with this aerification process and building a healthy putting surface going into winter. We are going to be hopeful for good weather for a quick recovery and be able to enjoy the rest of September and October with healthy turf and a great golf course.