On The Course September 29th

Assistant Troy Tschida and his new addition to the family Logan! 6 pounds 14 oz born at 3:49am
Congratulations to Troy and Stef!

 What a great start to the weekend with Troy and his Wife Stef giving birth to their first child. Logan Tschida was born this morning at 3:49am weighing in at 6 pounds 14 ounces. The weather looks to be perfect for the weekend and we will be preparing the course this morning with no frost. We have had some frost over the past couple of days and it will be nice to get our right away to prepare the course for play. Bryxton will be setting pin locations today and the greens will be blown off and rolled. With the colder temperatures we are not seeing very much growth on the greens over the past couple of days. We will be giving them a little bump of fertilizer early next week as we are to have a few more warm nights in the days ahead.

JD has been sending lots of updates from the Ryder Cup and below are a few pictures of the Minnesota Vikes crew that has been on the grounds of Medinah over the past couple of days. The US finished strong yesterday and are leading 5-3 which will make for a very fun day of golf.

The "Vikes" at the Ryder Cup sitting on the interview stand

"The Vikes" with "The Donald" yesterday during the Ryder Cup.

Most of our new equipment has arrived!

On The Course September 27th

I talked with JD this morning as he was watching the Grounds Crew prepare the putting green for the Ryder Cup at Medinah. He sent me several videos of the crew and I posted one here. If you are viewing this on a mobile device the videos sometimes do not show up but if you go to the blog page you can view the videos.

  We have a little frost on the course again this morning and will be delayed in preparing the course. We will be rolling greens later this morning and changing pin locations. The crew is headed out to pull carts and work on the barn area. Jake has finished planting the trees on the North side of the golf course and he will be bringing in a couple for the Club Lawns.

Mr. Diemand sponsored some Wounded Military Veterans out on the course yesterday.

On The Course September 26th

New Spruce Trees being planted behind 11 green

 We have a little frost delay this morning. The crew is working on some frost projects around the course getting equipment cleaned up and cleaning up the barn area. We will be mowing greens this morning after the frost has lifted and will be setting the course for play. Fairways will be mowed and we will be putting some more sand down on #6 fairway.

Jake has been spading in some trees behind #11 over the past couple of days and should have those wrapped up today. We will be also adding several trees to the club lawn early next week. SkyTree will be back out next week to finish up our tree inventory and map. This will be a very valuable tool going into the future to manage our tree plan.

'Patriot' Elm tree behind #11 Green

Congratulations to Bob Davidson on his perfect shot on #4! Wanted to see if he could follow it up on here on #8.

On The Course September 22nd

We are mowing and rolling greens on the chilly morning with a temperature of only 41 degrees. Jason and Brandon are setting the course for play this morning. It is a little windy this morning and we will be blowing leaves off the fairways and fine turf areas. Tomorrow is forecasted to be closer to 32 degrees for a morning temperature. With no cloud cover expected overnight it could be a really frosty morning tomorrow.

Next week we will have the spade truck out placing some spruce trees behind #11. We also will be spading in a couple maples and a Patriot Elm on #11. We have several other areas of the club house lawns that we will be adding several trees over the next couple of weeks. We are working on plan for the area along the left side of #2 that will help with some screening problems.

On The Course September 21st

Brandon and Rubiel tamping the trench lines on #12

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Fairways, collars and approaches will also be mowed. Once the greens mowers are finished we will be working on replacing the sod on #12 fairway over the drainage lines. We were able to install all of the pipe, pea gravel and top mix yesterday. The trenches were watered to help settle some of the sand/soil and Fernando and the crew will replace all of the sod. We will keep the fairway cart path only for a couple days to give the sod a chance to take hold. The sod will be hand watered over the next couple of days.

We have topdressed a couple small fairways and will continue this into the beginning of next week. There are only a couple of fairways left to solid tine and scarify and we should be done with that work on Tuesday. Brandon and Jason will be setting the course for play this morning and we should have a cooler but sunny weekend. Warmer temperatures return for next week which will help with the turf building roots.

On The Course September 20th

Fernando and Gustavo moving sod from the drainage area.

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. They are getting better ever day and with the exception of a couple are getting close to being back to normal. We will be trying to finish the drainage on #12 today as we should have most of the day to work. Yesterday we did not want to fight working through the Guest Day with over 80 players. Brandon will be working on spraying fairways this morning and should have all of them done with the exception of #12 which we will have to finish once the drainage is done. We are in for some cooler weather this weekend but back into the low 70's next week.

Yesterday we were able to topdress #13 and #4 approaches and will continue that process going into next week. We should have most of our aerification and scarifying done early next week. We will be deep tining fairways later in October depending on the weather. This will help with surface drainage as well as to get some soil fracturing during the frost of winter. The deep tine hole will provide an access point for water prior to the winter freeze. When this water freezes in to hole it will help fracture the soil under the turf surface to open more channels for air, water and roots.

One of the larger drainage projects we have done in awhile.

Troy and Jason trenching some drainage in #12 Fairway

On The Course September 18th

We are mowing greens this morning and will be starting several projects on the course. Troy and Jason will be working on adding some drainage to the corner of #12 fairway. This project will take several days to complete and we will have open holes that will need to be played as ground under repair. Brandon is spraying the front nine fairways this morning with some fertilizer and a wetting agent that will help pull water off the surface and into the soil.

Bryxton is setting the course for play today and we are mowing fairways, collars and approaches. We will be testing a new large area topdresser later this morning on several approaches. Once the sand has had a chance to dry it will be brushed into the turf canopy. Leaves are starting to fall at a heavier rate and I do not think we are going to see very good fall color this year with the dry conditions and heat stress the trees have been under. Grounds Committee meeting today and we will be taking a tour of the property and look as specific projects and issues that we are dealing with.

On The Course September 17th

We have entered a pretty good cool down in the weather and have received 0.4" of rain so far today. There are scattered showers on the radar for the rest of the morning but should clear off for later today. #14 fairway will be solid tined today and we will be scarifying some approaches if the rain passes through. Jason and Fernando are working on a irrigation leak on #5 tee and will work on a small leak on #12 later today. Greens are being blown off today and we will be spraying greens if the weather clears out later this morning. Brandon is spraying bunker banks and rough areas with fertilizer. We are going to start a drainage project on #12 this week and it will take several days to complete.

Grounds Committee will be meeting tomorrow at 2pm. We will be looking at some projects on the course as well as some replacement tree locations. Over the next couple of weeks we will be topdressing approaches and several fairways on the golf course. The greens continue to heal in very well from aerification and we will be getting the walk mowers back out this week.

Javier working on tee service this past weekend

Troy and TJ Duerr Bear Hunting in Northern Wisconsin
 

This past weekend was a very exciting one for an 11 year old from St. Michael, Minnesota. I was able to transfer my 2012 Wisconsin Bear Tag to TJ and he was able to do something not many young kids will never be able to do, Harvest a 300 pound black bear. With the help of my father in law, Joe Trumble,  and his bear hunting group we were able to get right in with the bear on the ground in the Northern Wisconsin woods. TJ was able to take a clear shot at less than 10 feet and will have quite a story to tell everyone in the future. If there is anybody that doesn't believe him I was able to get almost all of the experience on Video and we have plenty of pictures.

On The Course September 13th

Scarifying #7 fairway

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning getting the course ready for member play and Ian Leonard's Bad Pants Open. Should be a great day for golf and great event. Ron and Bill are out on the fairway mowers and Dick is mowing the Executive Greens before he heads out to triplex approaches. The greens continue to improve each day and we are getting some good growth on them right now. There is a slight chance of some frost for tomorrow morning which will help with rag weed allergies. We have been using the mechanical rake in the bunker over the past week and will get back to hand raking bunkers for the weekend.

We will continue to work on fairway aerification next week and have made some progress this week. Tuesday, September 18th we are having a Grounds Committee meeting and will be conducting a course tour to look at several areas of the golf course. We will also be looking at getting a couple of irrigation or drainage projects done next week.

Sheldon Pigeon mowing greens with a triplex mower.

Greens are healing very well and will continue to improve going into the weekend.

A Picture from the "Bad Pants Open" 2011. Should be another great event today!

On The Course September 12th

We will be getting some relief from the heat today with a cold front that has moved in and is bringing some more seasonal temperatures with it.  We may also receive some rain today but it will most likely be light.  We are mowing and rolling greens this morning, fairways and approaches are also being mowed.  The greens are continuing to grow nicely and are looking better each day.  We will be spending the rest of the day getting the course into shape for tomorrows Bad Pants Open. 

On The Course September 11th

Swans north of Grantsburg, Wisconsin

We are mowing with triplexes and rolling greens this morning. The mowers are getting a pretty good amount of clippings off of most of the greens. The aerification holes are filling in very nicely and I would put us a couple days in front of where we were last year. There is still some sand and holes on the greens. It has been only 7 days since we have aerified the greens and by mowing and rolling them over the next couple of days they should be pretty good for the weekend.  We will be spot watering and hand watering the course throughout the day today. It is going to be another hot and blustery day with a possible chance of rain tomorrow. The front line looks to be coming through a little quicker than the weather stations are reporting. There are some spotty showers on the radar in Western Minnesota this morning but I would imagine they will be absorbed by the very dry air that has been over us the past couple of days.

We have a small group of members this morning. There is a group of 141 golfers for the afternoon shotgun. Yesterday we were able to get 9, 16 and 18 fairways solid tined and we scarified #11 fairway. We will continue on the aerification next week as we have a lot of golf to be played the rest of this week and a little Fall Mixer this weekend.

On The Course September 10th

Cristian aerifying #1 fairway last week

 We made very good progress with our aerification last week. The greens are healing in very well and we will be back to a regular mowing schedule later this week. We are mowing greens today with triplex mowers. The front nine will be mowed and then Shaun (mechanic) will back lap the mowers and put a fresh edge on them before we mow the back nine greens. The greens will be fertilized today with a granular ammonium sulfate fertilizer to get some more growth going and try to heal the greens in as fast as we can. We have a couple of warmer days in front of us with a possible rain shower on Wednesday. We will continue our aerification of fairways today. We were able to solid tine 1, 2 and 3 fairways last week as well as scarify 10 and 13 fairways. We will continue to solid tine and scarify fairways today with 9, 18 and 16 being solid tined. Scarifying fairways is a deeper and more aggressive verticut where we have vertical knives on the Weidenmann Super 500 that will pull thatch out of the fairways. We will be doing this on a select few fairways as we have time over the next couple of weeks.

Our plan for the greens this week is to keep mowing and rolling them as often as possible.  We will be mowing and rolling greens Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We will have a little more time on Friday to sharpen mowers and get them ready for the weekend. We have several Shotgun Tournaments this week which will limit the amount of fairway aerification we will get done. We will also be topdressing approaches if we can fit it into the schedule this week. Should be a very busy week for us and the golf course.


Brandon topdressing tees

Bryxton aerifying tees last week

On The Course September 6th

We have had a couple of busy days with greens and tee aerification Tuesday and Wednesday. Above is a short video of some of the work that was completed. The greens were aerified with a larger tine than we used in the spring but the same size we used last year. The weather turned out to be perfect as the topdressing sand was able to dry fairly quickly. We still had some dragging and brushing to do on Wednesday but the greens are looking really good after the process. We finished the Executive course greens yesterday and will be rolling and brushing them this morning. Tees were aerified on Tuesday and we finished cleaning them up yesterday. We will be topdressing them this morning and dragging the sand in later this morning. Greens were rolled yesterday and will be rolled later this morning after the surfaces have had a chance to dry out.

We are going to continue with our aerification process and get several fairways done today. We are going to be solid tining #1, 2 and 3 today. Please acknowledge the equipment operators before you hit into them today. We will be working on more fairways as we go through the week next week. Jason is working on some irrigation issues today and will be running some different stations throughout the day today. The air is a lot cooler this morning and another cold front is moving into the are later this evening into the overnight.

Troy, Rubiel and Fernando on #6 green

Brandon Howard spreading some fertilizer

The view from my office (#1 green back towards clubhouse)!

On The Course September 4th

Fernando  with the first past of greens aerification on the Chipping Green.

 Last night we began our greens aerification process and were able to get the Chipping Green, #1, #2 and #3 done last night. This will give us a great start to the day. Our process is to aerify with a 0.5" I.D. side eject hollow tine, core harvest, fertilize, topdress, drag and broom the greens. We will continue to work the topdressing sand into the holes into the day Wednesday and expect the greens to be sandy through the weekend. The process is disruptive but very beneficial to the health of the turfgrass. We will end up applying almost 100 tons of sand today to the greens.

I have been hearing a few comments on the softness of our fairways and questions as to "over watering" the fairways. I plan the watering cycle each day with many factors to include but mostly based on weather. Over the past couple of days we have had high temperatures and low humidity which leads to a higher evapotraspiration rate. I look at the number of golfers we are going to have and the conditions of the course when setting up an irrigation cycle. When I look at the course I am not just looking at the middle of the fairways or greens but the edges and surrounds where most of our cart traffic occurs. My goal is to maintain turf on the edges of the fairways as much as possible and if you take a look at most of the edges of the fairways we are losing turf in high traffic areas. I try to balance the turf loss on the edges to a minimum but want to have some turf left on the edges to have the areas recover once we get into weather that will allow us to dry down the middle of the fairways without losing too much turf on the edges. If anyone has any specific questions or areas of concern please feel free to email or call me anytime. I would more than happy to take anyone on a course tour to explain some of the practices that we follow when maintaining the golf course.

Troy harvesting cores off the Chipping Green.

 We are mowing several greens this morning before we continue our aerification process. We are hopeful that the weather will be dry enough today so we can complete this process. Troy, Jason, Fernando, Rubiel and Jose were able to get a good jump on the process last night and we are hoping ot keep that rolling throughout the day today. We will be working on tee aerification today once we get far enough ahead on greens aerification. Later this week we will be working on fairway aerification which will involve a combination of deep tine, core and solid tine aerification.

Rubiel shoveling cores in the back of the ProGator to make room for more.

On The Course September 3rd

Troy hand watering #9 fairway

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. There are a few rain showers in the area but nothing has hit the golf course and the front line has moved through into Wisconsin. Fairways are being mowed and blown off this morning. Sheldon mowed the range floor this morning before heading out to help with fairways. The crew will be working a short day today due to the Holiday and a full tee sheet. Troy, Fernando and Rubiel are going to start greens aerification later this evening. They will start on #1 green and try to get a couple of greens aerified and picked up this evening to get a good jump start on tomorrow. The golf course is closed tomorrow for aerification. We will be working on greens and tees as a priority. Once the greens and tees are to a point where we can free up some labor we will start right into fairways. This year we will be coring some fairways and solid tining others. We will also be deep tining the fairways as weather and labor allow over the next couple of weeks. Our priority for tomorrow is to finish all of the greens and get the topdressing sand worked into the holes. The greens are growing very good right now and should heal pretty quickly.

On The Course September 2nd

It is another nice and cool morning on the course.  We are expecting temps to rise into the high 80's this afternoon which means we will be checking the course for areas that need to be hand watered.  There is some much needed rain in the forecast for this evening into early tomorrow morning which would help some of the unirrigated turf on the course.  We are single cutting greens this morning and raking the bunkers and Bryxton and Javier are out setting the course.  We will also be blowing a few fairways that have some debris on them.  We are beginning to see a lot for acorns falling from the Oak tress which always causes a mess in the fairways.  Have a great day out at the club!