Magnolia Green Golf Club

Bunker project

Over the last couple of weeks we have been busy repairing some of the bunkers on the existing holes. The construction on most of these bunkers were not up to our standards.  Since we have opened, some of the bunkers have had the gravel that is used in drainage ditches begin to float to the top of the sand.  This gravel is then hit out of the bunkers and onto the greens.  Obviously, that's not ideal for the greens or the golfers.  

We have taken the worst bunkers and started repairing them.  Below are some pictures of the process.

First step is getting the sand out of them.

Once the sand is out, we've had to repair and replace the drainage.  Liner is added next, followed by new sand.

This bunker has had about 2" of sand that has built up on the face over the last 4.5 years.

Once we are finished with these bunkers, they will be pretty soft for about six months.  We will continue tamping them to get them to firm up as quickly as possible.

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.