52nd Old Capital Invitational and more........

The 2nd weekend in June the Old Capital Golf Club has its annual tournament, which is always a hit in the southern Indiana area.  This years tournament has come and gone and golfers were nothing short of impressed with the way the golf course played again.  We had great weather for the event, which always seems to be hit and miss.  We had almost a full field this year, which is a good sign people were excited to play the OCGC!  Congrats to Aaron Greenwell on his -5, 139 round for the weekend.

Preparation for the tournament begins early in the season then it carries us through the rest of our season.  My goal for the tournament is to always provide a fast and firm course for the field.  Conditions are setup for the average golfer to enjoy themselves on this fun filled weekend.  Starting about 3 weeks before the tournament I begin to taylor the greens to the speed in which I want them with practices such as topdressing, rolling, grooming,venting, and PGR apps.  My target speed is 11 on the stimp meter, this season we were rolling 10.9.  Other things done as far as tournament prep include rough control.  The rough this season at the OCGC has been thick and growing.  It was tough for us to keep up with it and control the clippings.  Needless to say the Buffalo Blower worked some OT.  With all of this work we put in from March-June it allows the course to setup for a great season.  My staff works hard to maintain the course to these conditions each and everyday.  Of course there are always things to improve upon every year. Below are some additional pictures. 

     








Now that the tournament is over we will be focusing on improvments to be made for the future.  Today we started to aerify our Bermuda fairways.  I do this to prep them for the summer heat, relieve compaction, and create water channels to allow water to penetrate the soil much easier.  The equipment used is an oldie, our Ryan pull behind on a tractor.  The thing works pretty well for what I am trying to accomplish.  As far as food for the fairways, they recieved .75 lbs N from 25-0-3 a month ago and will get monthly feedings from UFLEXX and Redox Fairway(which the verdict is still out on).  I also apply Primo to help regulate vertical growth. 

 

One thing I would like to touch on is Turf Screen.  I have made 2 applications already this season and love the stuff as much as I did last year.  I was so hesistant to even use this stuff last year.  I thought it may be another gimmick product, but with the weather we had last year I also thought it would be a great test year.  The OCGC is located in the upper transiton zone, so we get some extreme weather and last season we were in the heart of the drought in Indiana.  I used Turf Screen when the onslaught of weather set in and had really the easiest 2 weeks as far as maintaining bent.  Now when I didn't apply, which was 2 apps later, my greens struggled and the weather was milder than it was earlier when TS was applied.  Here are some observations noticed last season:

 

Check Green

105 surface temperature, soil temps quarter inch down 97-100

Roots reaching to 3.75 inches, down from 4.25 3 weeks prior

more water required, more LDS also

turf color is off, looking stressed

Turfscreen Greens

surface temps ranging from 95-97, soil temps quarter inch down 90-95

syringe cycles are more effective at cooling

retention of water in the profile

root depth ranging from 4-4.25 inches (temperature control is huge)

turf color is great, nice green color

no signs of any stress, some typical LDS but in same historical places, but much more isolated

green collars have no stress like they typically would this time of year

Below was a picture taken today, 1 day after a 2oz/M application

Other projects and improvements to be made this summer include, new back driving range tee box, drain work along 12 fairway, raising of sunken irrigation lines, bunker sand, irrigation additions, and re-leveling of some tee boxes.  As always this list will grow. 


Thanks for reading!


 

The season has begun at the OCGC

Hello everyone, I know it has been a while since my last post but trust me, it's been a wild and hectic spring. To start things off, it has been a very cool and wet spring here in Southern Indiana, but with all of that said my fairways have greened up and are ready to go!  Since March 1 we have had 12 inches of rain. 

So what has my crew done in the last 3 months?  We on March 18 we aerified our greens.  We aerify to promote root growth, allow oxygen exchange with the soil, relieve any compaction, and allow better water movement.  That is only a few of the reasons, but all golfers want to know is how long will it take to recover.  This season recovery took a little longer due to cold temperatures and minimal sunlight during our time of aerifying.  Here is a quick look at what happened one night when running irrigation.

 







My process for aerificaton is pretty straight forward.  A week before I go out with a foliar application of fertilizer to help stimulate growth.  Once we start pulling cores out comes the cleanup.  What we do is scoop up the plugs with shovels and reuse the corse in necessary areas.  After all of the plugs are harvested, we start topdressing.  We topdress to fill in the empty holes to help provide a nice growing medium for bentgrass to creep into.  The day following topdressing I will out and apply a graular fertlizer, this season it was 12-3-12.  Great product and helped fill in the holes. 

 

The spacing that we use on the aerifer is 2x2 with half inch diameter tines.  The tines on average penetrate the green to a depth of 3-4 inches 

 

Another project that we accomplished this spring was some drain work in approaches and bunkers.  Lets start with #13 approach.  My foreman and I were puzzled when we dug up a  drain pipe to find out that it had no outlet, just emptied in the approach.  What we ended up doing was tieing into the same drain pipe and adding 30 of new drain tile to capture more water.  While we are on the topic of drains I must say this, our bunker drainage is awful.  We tired to remedy a couple holes though.  What we did was go into the bunker drains, dig them up, add new gravel, and add fresh sand over the line so the old silt contaminated sand would not stop water movement.  As you can see in the picture to the right we copletely dug a new line becuase the original drain path did not drain down slope but up slope.

 

 

 

A few other things that were accomplished at the OCGC were fertlizer and pre emergent herbicide applications to the roughs, fairways, and tees.  Along with a pre emergent going out, I applicated 2-4d for control of spring weeds that we encountered.

 

With every season there is some sort of change, well this year mine was to my fertilizer package that I apply to fairways.  Redox.  The products that I am using are C85 and the Fairway flowable.  My obervations thus are positive and I will keep anyone updated. 

 

One last thing I would like to point out, on #9 we have a 3 level lake with 3 water falls.  I have had problems with this feature ever since I took over here.  The problem lies in the lower pond.  It is plenty deep but not wide enough, so when the pump is pumping the water up the hill it drops the pond at least 2-3 feet.  What I did was add a new lip/damn on the back of the feature where water actually flows into the rough on #9.  What I did was take some clay and shape it to fit the present contour then packed it with Bentonite to help seal any holes.  Here is the presod finished product.   



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And finally the big screw up is what I like to call it.  Starting in the spring time I need to get out and make fungicide applicaions to the greens, well with those fungicides I mix in fertlizer and PGRs.  What I am confident happened was the amount of PGR and DMI fungicide I had in 1 spray tank was.  The biggest issue I am having with this is the color of the turfgrass.  It started as an ugly bronze brown to becomea nice green again.  The photo on the bottom shows a before picture of a green taken last Monday.  On the right is a picture taken today. 



 

 

 

 

This is very interesting to observe every day.  I notice different dew patterns in the morning which has my pro worried to death it seems. 

Notice the right of this picture where the dew pattern in constant and heavy, that is an area that wasn't sprayed, but notice the area on the left that was sprayed, looks very stressd out.  The clipping yield has yet to get back to normal, but the color is getting there. Last Monday I applied .06 lbs of N in the form of 18-3-6 Foliar Pak, and just yesterday I applied another .06 lbs of N in the form o 18-3-6 Foliar Pak along with Promote 4-0-1, fungicide, and only 1 PGR to hold off any rebound effect I may run into. 

 

 

Well again,thanks for listening to me talk about nothing maybe.  Hopefully some of you supertintendents out there learn a lesson from me on not applying too much PGR with DMI in the tank.  I know I learned my lesson. 

 

 

Chase





Spring is getting close.......

          Sorry everyone I don't have any fun exciting pictures for this round of talk.  The positive is that Feburary is coming to an end, but the negative is that cold weather has come back into the region.  The last week of Feburary, this always happens.  We get a good warm stretch and I feel like the season is about to begin, then BOOM! Cold again....
          In the past few weeks we have accomplished quite a bit here at the OCGC.  I finally have my second hand man back, Abel.  We have been cutting down ornamental grasses, picking up limbs, and redistributing sand in bunkers.  The big thing was getting the greens rolled and mowed for the first time this year.  The greens have had a freeze layer for the majority of the winter and I have not been able to do anything with them.  Every 2 days I go out with a probe and check to see if this layer has thawed or is still in place.  Every chance we get we at least roll the greens, but if I get a good warm stretch I will choose to mow.  Just helps makes the golfers happy. 
          Finally, the fairways have all been sprayed with Glystar Pro and Prodiamine.  The Glystar is a non selective herbicide that will kill anything green.  It is safe to use on bermuda fairways when dormant and even in your home lawns(if it is bermuda grass).  What this does is clean up any weeds that may be present, in our case it is mainy Poa, volunteer ryegrass, and clover.  The Prodiamine is applied as a preemergent for crabgrass.  This past year we had a drought in our area, as did much of the state.  The effect this had on our fairways was very noticable this past winter.  We have quite a few weak areas where Poa annua is present, which leads me to believe I need to improve irrigation and nutrition in these areas to help the bermuda out in the summer months.  Poa annua will thrive where the dominate species of turf is weak, this is why it is important for me to have a good water and nutrition program in place on fairways and greens.
          Some important dates I have upcoming for the course are as follows:
--March 11, target date for irrigation start up
--March 18, aerification of greens

          Also on a quick note, we have new membership options avaliable here at the OCGC.  Call the Pro Shop to inquire 812-738-2277


Have a good day! 

Cold weather arrives at the OCGC

 

Cold temperatures have arrived here this week at the Old Cap.  The temperatures in the next few days look to bottom out around 10F with a chance of snow flurries coming on Wednesday.  The course is now getting over the last precipation scenario we had.  In the last 2 weeks we have went from a warm rain to freezing rain, which left alot of the playing surfaces covered in ice. The total we recieved was a little over 3.5 inches.  Spring cannot get here soon enough, I am ready to be out in the field more working with my crew.  With my crew gone for the winter, it has been quite the boring place to be in my shop.  Luckily I have my sidekick Eli with me to pass the time.   


Last week round up/ pre emergent  applications were started to the fairways.  This is done to clean up the dormant bermuda from various species of weeds and unwelcome grass species.  Mainly here its poa annua, clover, some dandelion, and rye grasses.  Indiana Creek, when it floods, will help out the seed bank in the soil for new weeds to germinate.


Finally, I have started doing one of the more relaxing jobs of the winter, grinding.  It has been about 2 years since I have truly done the grinding, but I was able to catch on quick after I was started.  When we grind there are plenty of things we look for, real durability, bedknife assessment, bearing wear, grease need, and relief grind.  The first set has gone pretty smooth, finger was caught only 2 times, but no damage.

 

 

Real quick I want to touch on a few other things.  Before I started this blog venture we had a crazy summer last year.  One of the things that was very interesting was the lighting strike that #17 green took.  This has never happened while I have been on a golf course.  So after some research it was decided that we would simply topdress the affected area lightly.  Well to my suprise there was no damage visible after 4 days.  But the true damage hit me on my irrigation box and the 4-pack decoder we had on the green.  Costly fix there.

 

 

 

One last thing we did in the fall before everyone left was convert some zoysia areas to tall fescue in order to help turf and playing conditions.  Our process was simple, we cut out the zoysia sod very deep, if I felt any area needed some glyphosate I applied by spot spraying, laid tall fescue sod, and applied some Nature Safe fertilizer, which amounted to 1/2lbs N.  Attached below are the photos from that project.  We did this because we would get alot of overspray from our greens onto the surrounds which would stunt the zoysia alot more to the point to where it was unplayable in my eyes.  I also feel that this gives the whole green complex better character.  More and more of our golfers are liking the idea of our green slopes being like this, so it might be a year to year project.  None of these slopes are south facing so I feel like we will be able to susatin them as tall fescue.   

 

 

 

 

As always have a good day and stay warm.  

Also check out the updated photos section!

  

                                                                                         

  

The long winter.......

The question I always get is, "What do I do to stay busy all winter?"  My answer is "stay busy."  With only myself on staff for my department it is hard to get alot accomplished.  Usually I try to knock my budget out right off the bat.  This by far has become one of the more easier things for me to do.  I will get out and do tree work, such as trimming canopys, dead trees, and any that need to be removed.  This helps the turf around these areas thrive during the growing season.  If able, we chip the limbs up and reuse for mulch areas, which helps me save money.  I also knock down the ornamental grasses.   

My big project during the winter is equipment maintenance.  Anything from spin griding reels, sharpening rotary blades, changing fluids, greasing bearings, and rebulding reels if needed.  I do what I can up until March, which is when I get my mechanic back. 

This season I have started to do some bunker work.  What I would like to accomplish is getting sand back in the middle of the bunkers.  We use a sand pro to rake bunkers in season, so alot of the time the operator will drag the sand to the edges.  We need to break this habit.  Also with that, the edge will get depressed, we need to re edge that and build it back up. 

Also this winter, while I had staff, we took out some of our zoysia sod banks around 2 greens and installed tall fescue.  The reason I wanted to do this was because the zoysia around the greens catches my over spray from greens and really stunts the zoysia.  Also compaction in those areas from traffic really effects the growth.  My goal is to provide good playing turf in those areas. 

Finally, I work the pro shop 2 days out of the week.  It is just myself and the golf pro for 2 months so I am trying to share the load and help him.  Part of the game I guess. 


Have a good day!

Welcome to the OCGC

Welcome to the Old Capital Golf Club blog.  In this blog you will not only read about what is going on on the maintenance end, but also other happenings at the OCGC.  I, Chase Best, have been wanting to do this for a while so that I can give fellow superintendents, turf students, and anyone else interested in turf, the opportunity to know what goes on at a golf course other than mowing grass.  I hope that you find this interesting! Thanks