On The Course July 31st

Welcome Back Jason! Nothing like a couple of BIG irrigation holes to dig on a Monday

 We had a very busy Monday with the Sathers Memorial Tournament and several irrigation leaks. We had a slow leak in front of 9 green that Jason and Joel worked on yesterday morning. There was another slow leak on 12 tee over the weekend that started to create a bubble in the turf yesterday morning. The leak was a gasket joint on the old transite pipe and as usual not very easy to fix. The crew worked late into the evening and was able to get the system pressurized. We will be working on some back filling and sod work of this area later this morning.

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning and will be hand watering greens later today. Fairways, collars and approaches will be mowed today. We will also be working on mowing some natural areas of the golf course. We have a very nice cool morning today but it is forecasted to be close to 90 degrees for the high temperature. Strong thunderstorms are forecasted for tomorrow evening and then some cooler weather should move into the area. Jason will be working on some irrigation around the pool area today.

Joel working on removing water out of the irrigation hole on #9.

We have contracted a company called SkyTree to inventory some of our trees on the property. The information is tied into a GIS program called SkyCourse. We will have each tree tagged with a GPS location which has data attached to that location. The data consists of tree type, diameter at breast height, canopy width and condition. We can utilize this information when making tree planting plans and tree trimming schedules. The program gives us a great aerial view of the course and the differentiation of tree species throughout the golf course.

Nate from SkyTree doing a tree inventory on the golf course

On The Course July 28th

Day 2 of Champs Swim Meet

 We are mowing and rolling greens this fine cool morning. What a great break from the heat and humidity yesterday was and today looks to be just as good. Javier and Jose are mowing collars and approaches. Brandon and Jason are setting the course up for play. Jason has returned to Medina this week after a 3 week sabbatical to California. It is great to have him back on the staff! Club Championships are coming up in August and we will continue to be busy with outside events.

Rubiel working on the green side bunkers on #7

On The Course July 26th

Fairways have dried out enough to mow this morning.

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. The course is starting to dry out and we have a great stretch of weather over the next couple of days. The night time temperatures are going to be in the low 60's with a high temperature of 79 degrees for tomorrow. We are mowing fairways for the first time since Monday and they will be a little messy until we are able to get around with the blowers. Carlos and Guillermo are mowing tees this morning and picking up a lot of the cutworms that are on the surface of the tees. We had a very heavy dew this morning and once it dries out a little we will be mowing some more natural areas.

Troy and Brandon are setting the course up for play today. With the softer conditions of the greens it is very important to repair ball marks in a timely fashion. I see some golfers going that extra mile and fixing more than just their ball mark and that is greatly appreciated. Please remember to work the turf back into the middle of the ball mark and do not lift the turf up. I have been working on a video showing how we would like to the ball marks fixed and will post it on the blog as soon as I can.

Very Nice Cool Morning!

We have seen a lot of cutworms on the fine turf surfaces the past couple of weeks.

On The Course July 24th

John Corness and Steve Holmquist on #18 green just before winning the Member/Member 

 Congratulations to John Corness and Steve Holmquist for winning the Member/Member Tournament. Despite the rain early on Saturday we were able to get the tournament in without any major weather delays. The Grounds Crew did a great job of getting our morning tasks done in front of the rain on saturday by coming in and starting really early. The crew has been grinding through the hot and humid weather over the past couple of weeks and will continue to push forward through the rest of summer.

We are getting some rain this morning and will be delaying or cancelling the final round of the Junior Championships. There is a lot of lightning in this system and we will be working on projects in the shop this morning until the rain passes. We are going to be catching up on some equipment maintenance and cleaning up the shop. If the weather clears we will have some work to do to get the course playable for this afternoon. We have over an inch of rain in the rain guage so far and it looks like we have more on the way. We have not been irrigating very much over the past couple of days other than to water in a fertilizer or pesticide. Our cutworm population has been increasing over the past couple of weeks and several tees and approaches are showing some signs of damage. We sprayed some of these areas yesterday and should finish after this weather system moves through and the course dries. We have made a pretty good dent in the population of Japanese Beetle on the course so please keep giving them a little "putter" treatment.

Steve Holmquist out of the greenside bunker on #18

Brain Scates out of the bunker on #13 with playing partner John Thorvilson watching

On The Course July 21st

Guillermo mowing #4 green this morning in the dark.

 We are mowing greens this morning and preparing the course for the Member/Member Tournament. Troy is setting pin locations today and Javier is doing tee service. Bill, Ron, Dick and Sheldon came in at 4:30am to mow fairways and triplex approaches. We dodged most of the overnight rain and are looking at a little gap between the next wave that should move in later this morning. We hope it doesn't develop into much and slides just south of the course.

Radar image at 5am this morning.

2.5 second exposure setting on the camera

On The Course July 20th

Friday of Member/Member weekend last year we ended up with 4.49 inches of rain.

 What a difference a year can make! Last year the Friday/Saturday of the Member/Member Tournament we received 4.49 inches of rain and we had to cancel the first round of the tournament. There is some rain on the radar to the west of us but appears to be moving to the south. We are in for a great weekend for golf. Today, we are mowing and rolling greens. We are mowing tees and fairways this morning and will continue with some detail projects later today. We will be hand watering some areas of the course throughout the day today. We have some areas of the fairways that are still a little wet and others that are starting to dry out too much.

Troy and Brandon worked on topdressing some areas of the Executive course yesterday. Fernando was able to double aerify the new fairway on #1 and #2 Executive course and Brandon seeding in some of the thin areas. The fairway is starting to fill in pretty good except for a couple areas where the rain water has been sitting.

Brandon Topdressing the new fairway on #1 of the Executive Course

On The Course July 19th

Lloyd blowing debris off the fairways

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. We had some rain move through yesterday and give us a break from the heat but it will back today and into the weekend. We will be mowing some fairways later this morning as they dry out. We still have a few spots on the back nine that are a little soft but should dry out today. We were able to get a lot of the tee and fairway divots filled yesterday and will continue that as we go through the week. We typically will fill tee divots several times per week and look at fairway divots once a week.

We are going to be mowing some naturalized areas of the golf course today as long as it is not too wet. This should help clean up some of the weed and volunteer trees that are growing in these areas. Japanese beetles and cutworms have been seen in more numbers this year than in the past and we are taking some measures to prevent any turf damage. Member/Member tournament this weekend and it should be another hot weekend. Last year before the Member/Member the course received almost 5 inches of rain and the first day of the tournament was cancelled. We are not looking to repeat that this year and the forecast is calling for mid 80's and sunny.

Gustavo and Jose raking fairway bunkers

On The Course July 17th

Brown Patch #15 Fairway

Monday, July 16th was a very busy day on the golf course with Friendship Ventures having a double shotgun. We tried to fit in as much work as we could and were able to get greens, tees, fairways collars and approaches mowed. We were also able to spray greens and several fairways with plant protectants and wetting agents. We have seen a lot of different pathogens in the rough areas over the past couple of weeks and our protection on our fairways and tees were nearing its end. We started to see some Brown Patch in a couple of fairways on the back nine. We were able to get those fairways as well as a couple on the front nine sprayed yesterday. We will be finishing fairways today and also will be spraying tees.

We will be mowing greens today but will not be rolling due the heat stress of yesterday and the stress the turf grass plants have been in over the past couple of days. The greens have held in very nicely over the past couple of heat stretches and it appears we have a couple more coming up.

On The Course July 14th

Brandon, Fernando and Joel working on the irrigation leak on #5 tee

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Yesterday afternoon a couple of rain showers had popped up and we ended up with 0.65 inches of rain. The fairways are a little wet this morning but we will remain 90 degree rule with the exception of a few holes that will have signs directing traffic. Brandon is changing pin locations today and Javier is doing tee service. We have had a couple of the combo markers that have been misplaced over the past week and we are making sure that they are correct this morning.


Pin hole leak in a steel pipe on #5 tee loop

Fernando and Joel were able to find the leak on #5 tee very quickly yesterday. We put a pressure clamp on the pin hole leak in the pipe, opened the valve and checked the seal only to find another pin hole leak 2 feet from the first. The steel pipe on the course was installed in 1968-69 when the course was built and we are starting to see more and more pin hole leaks. Most of them have been on the tee lateral that has all of the quick couplers. We have had 6 of this type of leak so far this season.




Cart traffic driving in the naturalized area on #9.

On The Course July 13th

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. We had a few passing showers overnight but nothing that has hit the golf course yet. There is more rain in the forecast for today and tomorrow but not much on the radar to the west. We are mowing fairways, collars and approaches. Tees will be sprayed today with a wetting agent to help get the irrigation water penetrate the turf canopy and get into the soil.

The drainage project on #14 that we have been working on has been completed. This area is outside the irrigation loop and therefore will not get watered. We will have to hand water this area an baby it through the rest of the summer to get the turf to establish. Please keep carts out of this area at all times. We have started to mow some of the Naturalized areas down to a height of 4-6 inches to help with play and get rid of some of the weeds. I have been seeing a lot of cart traffic going into some of these areas. We would like to keep all traffic out of these areas at all times. We will be putting up some signs on a few of these areas to remind people to keep carts out. As we go through a pretty dry stretch of weather please be aware of any heat stress areas in the fairways and rough on the course. We have cart directional signs near the approaches that are to direct traffic to the path and we would like the carts to stay on the path around all greens and tees.

When we try to dry the fairways down we get areas like this along the edges of the fairways.

On The Course July 12th

Rubiel and Joel working on mowing greens this morning.

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Brandon will be setting pin locations for the day and Javier is servicing the tees. Troy is working on some irrigation issues around the Clubhouse and will be spot watering areas of the golf course later this morning. When we get into a long run of really dry weather our outdated irrigation system really starts to show its weaknesses. As we identify some of the issues we are able to make some adjustments  to correct the problems but sometimes it is just a matter of irrigation head spacing or lack of coverage on some areas.

We have a weather system moving into to Western Minnesota this morning that could affect the Twin Cities later this afternoon. As we have seen in the past couple of weeks most of the rain systems that move through during the day dissipate as they get closer to the course. The humidity is a little higher this morning and  that might allow some of the rain to actually get to us. The forecast temperatures and dew points are looking to be getting into the "tropical" range over the next couple of days. We will be adjusting our irrigation practices to account for some of the higher dew points and humidity levels. The course made it through the last heat stretch in pretty good shape and we want to make sure we continue that through this weekend and into the beginning of next week.

Brown Patch ring next to the lens cap from last week on #14 collar

We have been seeing some turf disease showing up in a lot of rough areas throughout the golf course. As we see these areas we can justify our fungicide program that we have in place and know that we are keeping our fine turf areas protected from most of the diseases. We have seen some Brown Patch on a couple of collars on the Championship course and have made a couple adjustments to our program to combat it. We are seeing Dollar Spot and Pythium in a few rough areas as well as the new seeded area on the Executive course. We are always scouting and looking at key areas of the golf course that we have typically seen turf diseases in the past.

On The Course July 9th

Cristian venting greens with 8mm solid tine

 We are venting greens today with 8mm solid tines. We have had a nice hot stretch of weather and we are sure to have another one before the end of summer. The venting allows air to get back into the soil and relieves a little bit of compaction. The greens have been mowed and rolled a lot since our last aerification. After Cristian and Fernando have vented the greens, Carlos and Joel will be double rolling the greens. They roll with the aerifiers on the first pass and then across on the second. After a mow and roll on Tuesday you will hardly notice we have done anything to the putting surfaces. This is the same procedure we have been using the past couple of seasons and it has helped out tremendously.

Brandon is spraying for Japanese beetle on the back nine today. We are seeing an increasing number of beetles throughout the green complexes. We will continue to spot spray areas of the course this week and monitor our populations. We will be finishing the drainage work on #14 this week as well as fixing several irrigation issues that have come up over the past week. 

Carlos double rolling greens

On The Course July 8th

Javier Sanchez working on Tee Service

It's another nice morning on the course with morning temps in the upper 60's.  Today we will be single cutting greens and resetting the course.  A reminder that tomorrow we will be needle tine venting greens to allow air and gas exchange in the greens after the hot humid weather we have experienced the last few weeks.  This type of weather is condusive to what we call greens sealing up and not allowing air into the soil profile which the greens need to stay healthy.  We will be double rolling greens immediatley after to smooth them out again.

We will be monitoring conditions this afternoon for overhead irrigation and hand watering with the high temps that are forecasted for the afternoon.  It's going to be a great day for golf so get out and play!!



On The Course July 7th

What a difference a day can make!!!  We received some rain overnight that totaled .4 inches which helped drop the temperature down significantly.  It was 62 degrees this morning which is the lowest morning temp we have had in a week and a half.  The course took the rain pretty well but is still a little soft in some areas, we were able to turn the irrigation off last night before the rain hit so there was no added water on the course from that.  This morning we are mowing and rolling greens, cutting cups, and resetting tees.  We will also be mowing fairways and tri-plexing approaches to clean them up for weekend play.

You may have been seeing some of these green/copperish colored bugs flying around the course and walking on the greens.  They are Japanese Beetles and they are what we call a golf course pest.  They are known to defoliate certain kinds of trees and chew on turf grass a little.  We will be spraying for them this up coming week to try and keep the population in check.  Overall we do not expect to see any significant impact from them other than getting in the way of your ball when you are putting.  Feel free to squish them with your putter!

On The Course July 6th

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. We have had some geese visiting the golf course late in the evenings and they have left their "mark" on #1 green. They are chewing up the bunker bank also and we will try to deal with them over the next couple of days. Bill Ruone is mowing intermediate rough and Sheldon Pigeon is doing our "Friday" mow on rough. The course has come through the heat stress over the last couple of days and we are set up for a great weekend.

Monday we will be venting greens with 8mm solid tines. Venting is becoming a very popular agronomic practice throughout the country. The process involves really small solid tines that are used to "aerify" the putting surfaces. It is minimally invasive and most golfers do not notice the small holes. Venting is very beneficial to the turf by allowing more air to get into the soil profile. After a week like we have the greens are going to really need it.

Nick Walters in 2011 Venting Greens.

On The Course July 5th

Brandon spraying green this morning

 We are mowing rolling greens this morning. The high heat index has been stressing the course and the staff a little bit over the past couple of days. We are seeing a little Brown Patch on some collars on the Championship Course and Brandon is out spraying some fungicides this morning. We are on a pretty good preventative program but with the extreme temperature and high humidity we are always going to have some disease pressure. The putting surfaces look pretty good and we are looking for the weather to change a little bit over the next couple of days. The weekend forecast looks to be perfect with temperatures back in the low 80's. Fairways, collars and approaches are also being mowed today. The crew will be working on cleaning up some of the debris left from the fireworks show last night. We have most of it cleared of the fairway on #9 and #5 green but will have remnants around for a couple of days.

We have Senior City League on the course this afternoon at 1:30pm. Next week we will be venting greens on Monday and working on fixing some irrigation problems. We have heard several complaints over the past couple of days about the moisture on the course. Please, email or call me directly if you would like a detailed explanation as to why we water the course in a particular way and what we can do to fix the problems.

On The Course July 3rd

The crew blowing debris off greens this morning

 We had a little rain move through overnight with some heavy wind and rain. We received 0.65 inches of rain at the shop and 0.85 out by #4 tee. We had 0.78 inches in our weather station on #3. The course is pretty wet with puddles on the fairways and most of the bunkers are still holding water. The crew has blown the debris off of the greens and will start mowing them around 7am. Once the greens are mowed we will begin to fix bunker edges and rake all of the bunkers.

The wind is blowing and they are still saying high temperates near 100 degrees for today. We will be getting as much done on the course as we can before the heat sets in. The drainage area on #14 that we have been working looks like it will definitely help the ponding we have seen on the west side of the cart path.

On The Course July 1st

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Brandon and Javier are setting the course up for the shotgun this afternoon. Great morning on the course but we are still expecting the heat to continue over the next week. We will be hand watering greens later this morning if needed and will be spot watering some fairways. We had some small rain showers show up on radar this morning about 3am but did not recieve anything significant. This has kept the humidity fairly high but it is suppossed to drop as the day goes on and should be hot but pleasant today.