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!
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