Winter rules

During the winter, we are often questioned about a couple of winter rules.  The first item is frost delays.  Frost delays happen at any golf course and they are as difficult for us as they are for you.  Even though it may be good for coffee sales, we would prefer you on the course, not in the pro shop.  Because of our geographic location, our delays tend to last a little longer than other courses in the area.  For some reason it is normally a little colder in Moseley.

Frost Delays

Frost delays are used to protect the turf, especially our greens.  When frost is present on the plant, the majority of the time, this means that the plant is frozen.  When the plant freezes, the plants become rigid and cannot handle traffic.  Traffic that is put on frozen plants, crushes the plant cells and the turf can die.

This picture illustrates the damage that can be done by one foursome

This is what the damage actually looks like

Cart Path Only 

The other winter rule that we are asked about is our winter cart rule.  At the beginning of December, we go cart path only for the winter and stay that way until the March or April, depending on the weather.  As some of you may remember, in 2011, the bermudagrass at Westham was not in great shape coming out of dormancy.  After that spring, we decided, as a management team, that we would try being cart path only for the next winter to see if this would help the bermudagrass.  In 2012, we looked great. 

During the growing season, the turf is able to recover from injury, whether it is from traffic, drought, etc.  When the turf is dormant, it is not able to “grow out” of these stresses.  Dormant bermudagrass is especially susceptible to cart traffic injury.  When the bermudagrass is dormant, the leaf tissue becomes very brittle.  When a cart is driven over the turf, the leaves break off and left with only the crown of the plant.  Not only does this leave the plants open to other issues, it can also look really bad after an entire winter of carts driving on the fairways. 

Thank you for coming out and playing at Westham!  I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

Liquid overseed

This week we started painting the new sprigs and our tees and fairways on the existing ten holes.  Over the last few years, we have been experimenting with turf paints on our dormant bermudagrass.  We have found that the paint has really helped us with the green-up process in the spring.  The painted bermudgrass has come out of dormancy about a month earlier than the areas that have not been painted.  We have done a few different tests.  The first year we split a fairway right down the middle.  The next year we painted just tees and the last year we painted one of the last fairways to green up.  In all cases, the bermudagrass came out of dormancy much quicker when painted. 

This year we are painting all tees and fairways on the existing ten holes and all of the newly sprigged areas.  The existing ten holes are being painted to help green up earlier, but it also looks pretty cool.  In our testing, we have figured out how to get the paint job to look pretty good.  Painting the sprigged areas will give us a huge advantage in the spring.  The earlier we can get the new side to come out of dormancy, the quicker the can start fertilizing to finish the grow-in. 

We are looking forward to an exciting new year at Westham!

#2 after painting

Construction and grow in update

What a summer! The past month and a half the turf care crew has been going non-stop.  We have made huge strides with the grow-in.  With the exception of the driving range, construction is complete!!!  The driving range should be wrapped up by the end of next week.

I have attached some pictures showing the progress of the grow-in of the golf course.  We have mowed all of the bermudagrass at least once and greens are being mowed on a daily basis.  

2 tee

 3 tee

 4 approach

 5 approach

 6 approach

 7 tee

 8 tee

9 tee

The chipping and pitching greens still need to be seeded and that will be done this week.  The entire short game area has been sodded and looks great!  When the driving range is complete, we will have one of the best practice facilities in the state!

Green grass and army worms

Very exciting times the last couple of weeks!  We have one hole left to sprig and that should be complete next week.  We have bentgrass germination on 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 greens!  Six and seven greens will be mowed for the first time on Monday. 

6 green. Almost ready for its first cut!

Close up of 6 green

Our bermudagrass sprigs are doing pretty well.  All of them took and then we had a minor setback.  There has been a pretty significant army worm infestation.  Fall army worms have shown up on all of the new holes, but they have really enjoyed eating the sod on #7.  These worms can do a significant amount of damage in a very short period of time.  They go through an area and eat all of the leaf material off of the grass.  They especially like newly establishing sod, so we have been a never-ending buffet for them.  Within three hours, almost the entire green surround on #7 had been damaged.  It's certainly a scary site.  The good thing is, they don't normally kill bermudagrass.  Everything that they have damaged, is starting to recover.  We were able to act quickly and make a pesticide application. 

This little worm works very quickly!

 





You can see the damage on the left.

More army worm damage

Luis is making our insecticide application

 

 







Sprigs!!!

Big week for our construction!  The first sprigs have hit the ground!  Six and seven have been sprigged, hydro-seeded and the greens have been seeded.  Now we get to make grass grow!!!  Next week we should have 4, 5 and maybe 3 sprigged and greens seeded. 

Video taken from the sprigging machine

 

Hydro seeding #7

A view of the sprig installer

Lots of water once the sprigs hit the ground

 

Luis is using the knobby tires on the bunker rake to dimple the green after we seed

 

 

To get sprigs, the machine that installs them, takes a roll of sod and shreds it into very fine pieces.  Once it hits the ground the installer has a set of discs on it that cuts the sprigs into the gound.  As soon as the installer is done with an area, we take over and water, water, water.  In a couple of weeks, we will see green grass and it quickly takes over the the entire hole.  We plan on finishing the sprigging process by the end of the month. 



Course update

Last Thursday the course received 3" of rain and another .25" on Sunday.  With all of the exposed dirt from construction, I was expecting really bad things.  To my surprise, I was able to ride the entire course Friday morning and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.  There is some repair work that is taking place, but I think it could have been much worse. 

 

This bunker was completely filled with water

 



Before the rains, we were able to get final approval on 5, 6 and 7 greens.  We are still on track to start sprigging this week and we will also start seeding greens and "native areas".  Irrigation is almost done on the course and we will move right into the driving range and short game area. 

Final touches on #6 green



Last week we were able to vent all greens.  Venting greens helps relieve some compaction and helps get oxygen into the root zone.  These ventings are one of the most important agronomic practices that we will do all year.  Our greens, just like you and me, need to breathe.  Opening them up with these solid tine aerifications really allow our greens to breathe.

We also had a little fun last week.  Our friends at the Timmons Group came out with one of their quad copter drones. We were able to get some footage of the existing course and some of the new construction.  We should have everything edited this week.  As soon as it's ready, I will post the video for everyone to see. 

The Timmons drone taking flight!



Bunkers, concrete, grass and irrigation!!!

We are moving right along on the construction.  We now have irrigation on 4, 5, 6 and 7.  It has been started on 3 as well.  The main line should be completely looped around the course by Wednesday!  Bunker construction started on Saturday along with some grassing.  The last two greens on the course have been approved for drainage, gravel and mix.  These will be completed this week.  The Nicklaus architect will be back out for three days on the week of July 23 and will start floating greens.  Once the greens have been floated, will will start seeding and growing them in.  The plan is to start spigging tees, fairways and rough this week as well!

 

Here is the 1st bunker in the construction process. Sand should be finished today

 

New path on #7

 

 

Last week, we also started our tee and collar conversion.  Collars should be finished by Wednesday and tees within the next two weeks.

 

Existing grass being stripped from 3 tee surround

 

 

Stay tuned for another update in the next week or so.  Have a great week!





Construction update

We have had a great couple of weeks! Irrigation has been installed on 6 and 7 and started on 5.  We should be done with 5 this week.  Once the heads are installed, a box is built around each head, similar to a form used for concrete.  These are used as a template to get a 4" layer of topsoil around each head.  This helps the person spreading the rest of the topsoil stay away from the heads.  Topsoil is being spread as I am typing this.  They will work backwards from 7 with topsoil.

Topsoil on #7 before it's spread

 

Topsoil around an irrigation head

 

Wire set up on the irrigation trailer, ready to go

 

 

Last week we had a visit from Chris, the Nicklaus architect.  The weather held out for us and it was a very productive meeting.  We were able to mark the grassing lines on 5, 6 and 7.  The fairway bunkers on 4 were laid out and we have since rough shaped these bunkers.  Chris was able to spend some time on 2 and 8, as well.  He gave us his idea of what he wants on those holes and the rough grading has begun. 

 

Deciding where the fairway bunkers are going to on #4

 

 

I believe Chris will make another visit next week and we should have bermudagrass on the ground by the second week in July.  This morning we made a lime application in preparation of sod and sprigs and water should be turned on the beginning of next week!



 



Construction update

We have finally had some good construction weather!  Twelve of the last fourteen days and been dry and it shows with the progress being made on the course.  Five, six and seven greens all have drainage, gravel and mix in them.  Drainage, gravel and greens mix are being installed on three and four this week, as well.  Storm drainage is complete on five and seven.  Six will be complete this week.  We will also begin installing irrigation this week.  The Sanders irrigation crew arrived last night and this should really get things moving.

As far as grassing goes, we are waiting on turf farms.  They all seem to be three to four weeks behind because of the cold winter and wet spring.  Once the farms are ready to start harvesting sod and sprigs, the irrigation will be in the ground and we will be ready to start growing some grass!!

On the existing holes, the crew has been working very hard over the last couple of weeks to get the bunkers in great shape.  All bunkers surrounds have been mowed and we are in the process of edging all of the zoysia grass.  We are also making sure that all of the sand depth is consistent.  So far they look great!



Spring is finally here!

I believe we have finally made it to Spring, with the next two days feeling a little like Summer.  Greens have healed from aerification and bermudagrass is finally growing.  There is some disease on the bermuda.  It isn't damaging anything, it's just unattractive.  Large patch is something that we get a little bit of every year, but with the cool, wet spring that we have had, there seems to be quite a bit more than usual.  As the temperature goes up, the bermuda will grow right out of it.

 

 

This week, the installation of the fan on seven was finally finished.  We are waiting on Dominion Power to make their connections and we should have power within the next seven days.

 

 

 

On Monday, we had the chance to demo a couple of new pieces of equipment.  The first was a verti-cutter/flail mower/vacuum.  The Wiedenmann Super-Vac 600 has the ability to verti-cut our fine maintained turf or mow down our native areas.  While performing either of these tasks, it vacuums up all of the debris at the same time.  This allows us to eliminate one part of the process and golfers don't have to deal with the delay in cleanup time. 

 

As you can see, there is nothing left to clean up

 

The second piece that we were able to demo was a deep tine aerifier.  This aerifier will be able to break through our very hard, clay soils to a depth of 11".  Aerifying that deep helps greatly with compaction and rooting.  It will help with drainage, as well.  When our soils dry out, there is nowhere for the water to go.  These deep channels will help get water into the soil, instead of just running off to the low areas around the course. 

 

When using solid tines, there is very little disruption to the playing surface

We have been very busy over the last couple of weeks and our summer help can't get here soon enough! 







Construction update

The last week has been great!  A lot of progress has been made on the construction of the new nine holes.  The Nicklaus architect was here for two days this week.  While he was here he put his stamp on #6 green and #7 green, fairway and tee.  We look forward to him coming back at the beginning of May. 





Most of #7 fairway has been shaped.  Drainage is being installed on #7 fairway.  Drainage will be installed on #7 green this week.  Tees have been shaped and cored out.  Drainage will be installed in the tees this week, as well.  The next step is to get approval on the entire hole and start installing irrigation.

Drainage being installed on #7 fairway

 

The black tee on #7 after it's been cored. Waiting on drainage and sand

 

#6 green has been shaped and is ready for drainage this week.  The tees are currently being shaped and we will get started on the fairway this week. 

#5 was also started last week.  The green complex was rough graded.  That includes the green, bunkers and other features around the green.  This seems to be a really cool green surround.  I don't think it's going to be easy, but it looks good. 

My helpers giving some perspective on the depth of the greenside bunker on #5. My youngest is in the middle of the bunker and his older brother is on the top of the bunker.

 

 

 

This week looks like it will be another productive week.  We dodged a storm this weekend.  If we could dodge another this week, we will be able to get a bunch accomplished.  As always, if anyone has any questions, just let Chad or me know.  

Construction update and Green bermudagrass!!

Last week was a great week for construction. The crew was able to get 6 and 7 green surrounds finished. They are now waiting on approval from the architect. Number five green surround will also be finished this week. Tee complexes and bunkers will be shaped before the architect makes another visit next week. Once he approves an entire hole, the irrigation is then installed and we wait for the weather to cooperate and we start grassing those holes.

#6 green surround

#7 green surround

After a few warm days last week, we have some green bermudagrass!!!  It's not a lot, but we will take whatever we can get.  With the inch of rain we got yesterday and with a low of 60 last night, we should start to see quite a bit more popping up this week.  It looks like no freezing temperatures in the next ten days, so hopefully no setbacks.  Last week we also got greens aerified and a bulk lime application was made.  We pulled 5/8" cores on a 2" spacing.  This helps reduce the amount of organic material that is built up throughout the year and also creates channels to let water, oxygen and nutrients move into the rootzone.  The greens are healing nicely and should be in great shape by the beginning of next week. 

This picture was taken the day after aerification





Construction has begun!

Last week, Sanders Golf arrived to start construction on the new nine holes. Unfortunately, so did the weather. The beginning of the week was a little slow, but we were able get a few things accomplished once the sun came out.

All of the irrigation heads and valves that were installed on #8 and #9 during the original construction have been found and removed. All of these will be inspected and used if they are good. During the first construction, the greens and tees on #8 and #9 were basically built. The gravel and mix was installed along with the irrigation and drainage. The mix and gravel were contaminated, so it all needed to be removed. As you can see in the first picture, there were pine trees growing out of the green and bunker cavity.

On the existing holes, we were also busy. We finally finished applying our Round Up and pre-emergent herbicide. The tees and approaches were also painted this week. This gives them a nice look and it also helps to warm up the soil. This will help these areas green up quicker this Spring. After the winter that we have had, the bermudagrass needs every advantage that we can give it.