Winter damage

Many areas in the Mid-Atlantic have been hit pretty hard with winter kill on bemudagrass playing surfaces.  Damage has been seen in Virginia and the Carolina's.  We did not escape winter damage on our newly sprigged areas on the front nine.  The existing ten holes look pretty good, with no major issues.  The areas on the front nine that we sodded last fall look good as well. The areas that were hit the hardest were areas that had prolonged shade and saturated soils.

Last year's mild summer, this year's extremely cold winter, and another cold spring were not a good recipe for a newly established golf course.  In an effort to get the course open quickly, our ownership has decided to invest in sodding the areas that have been damaged.  Sod has been ordered and it will be installed as soon as possible.  

Thanks for your continued patience and support.  

Aerification was a success!

Aerification was a success!! We had a couple of minor equipment issues, but the results were great.  A couple of members have let us know that the greens are rolling great, especially, this soon after the aerification.  This is a frustrating, but necessary process.  Aerification helps to remove unwanted organic material and allows us to create new channels of sand for water, oxygen and nutrients.  This helps us get through the season with consistent, healthy putting surfaces.  

On another note, both happy and sad, Chad Karr will be leaving us at the end of next week.  He has accepted the Superintendent position Hermitage Country Club and will be overseeing the Manakin course during his tenure.  Chad has been with us for the last three years and we wouldn't be the course we are now without him.  I truly appreciate everything that he has done and his absence will not go unnoticed.  If you see Chad this weekend or next week, make sure to wish him luck on his next adventure.  I know that he will make a great Superintendent.

Spring is here! Maybe...

It looks like we have finally seen the beginning of Spring.  Other than the wet conditions, this has been a great week.  Hopefully, we will continue to have these warm temperatures and see some green up in the bermudagrass.

We were able to mow greens twice this week, already.  The greens look better and are rolling great. This winter, the greens went almost completely dormant.  I can't remember a winter when greens got as brown as ours, except for when I was maintaining bermudagrass greens.  Once we start mowing on a regular basis, the wind burned, dormant leaf will be mowed off and we will begin to see more green grass.

Very little green in this green

While we are waiting for our green up, we have a long list of project work to be completed this Spring.  We are in the process of cleaning up and beautifying our tee beds.  We also have a lot to do on the new nine holes in preparation of the grand opening!  We will keep everyone updated on the progress we make throughout the Spring.  Have a great weekend and we hope to see everyone on the course!

We are going away from the pavers to a more natural looking stone

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