Fall Course Conditions

Summer has come and gone.  I guess the real question is did summer ever come.  With the cool temperatures and very few days in the 90’s, it is hard to believe that it was even here.  Despite the drought conditions, this year’s summer growing season was great for growing grass with low disease pressure and very little heat stress.

The biggest issue we had this year was the drought conditions.  In September, we had the longest stretch in 10 years without rain.  This was great for everyone who wanted to golf, but at times we could not keep up with irrigation.  I know some of you are going to say, “the course was saturated at times in the summer, how can you say that you were not able to keep up with irrigation”.  I tried addressed this issue in my previous article and I hope it was easy to understand.  If not, as always, I would be glad to discuss it further via email or a phone call.  This time of year it is very easy to over water since the sun is less intense and lower in the sky and therefore adjustments have been made.  We still have to water in the fall though to water in fertilizer, topdressing, wetting agents or after we aerify fairways or tees.  Irrigation after aerification is very tricky so we either use a hose, or only water the areas that need it with the irrigation system.  This allows us to make the roots search for moisture in the soil and gives us the chance to still mow the aerified areas without getting too muddy.

One big change we added to our maintenance program this year was aerifying the greens in August.  You may ask, “Why did you aerify greens in the middle of the golf season?”  Well, it comes down to a few key points.  The first is the turf health going into the fall.  Your greens were approximately 95% healed after 1 week.  With peak growing weather in August, recovering from this process is extremely fast and allows the turf to start the root recovery from the summer stress sooner and while also allowing the turf to start building up carbohydrate reserves for next year.  If we would wait until after Labor Day to aerify, the weather starts to become very unpredictable and very damp which delays.  This late September and early October was a great example of poor healing conditions with the cool damp weather.  If the greens aren’t healed completely in the fall, they will ultimately struggle right from the start next year and your golfing experience will not be as pleasant.  Before the aerification process, our roots on the green ins August were only a few inches deep.  When I changed cups the last time, I was seeing a few roots at the bottom of the cup on our best greens. 

My second reason for aerifiying early has to do with labor.  All of the college age employees were still here which allowed us to keep up our summer mowing routine and still perform the aerification practice.  We did not get behind in any area of mowing throughout the entire process.  With this process all done, the members and the public can enjoy quality greens in great condition all fall which just makes for a more enjoyable golfing experience.  Not only would the healing time have been longer, but the whole process would have taken longer due to fewer employees and we would still be in our summer mowing routine.

I am aware that not all courses aerify in August, but that is to our benefit.  When other courses are starting their aerification in the fall, we can take advantage of the fact that not too many people like to play on aerified greens.  Our early greens aerification also allows us to work on fairway aerification without jumping to another area of aerification at the end of the year when it is already difficult to get the day to day duties done.

When we scheduled this early in the year, there were no outings booked at that time and the groups that were added later were informed by Ray and his staff that this was going to be done and they still went through with the outing.  Once again Ray did a great job of informing the golfers when this was going to take place and a large number of people came out anyway.

We are not completely done with aerification yet.  The greens and collars are done, but we still have to finish up about one third of the tees for the second time as well as most of the fairways.  This, of course, depends upon the weather.  We are going to core the fairways since we still have time left.  Steve and Scott came up with a great way to bust up the cores before we drag them.  However if the weather does not stay sunny and dry we will go back to just solid tine the fairways as we did last year.  September is the last big push to finish the year with healthy turf before we put the course to bed for the winter.

Not only have we cut back in the amount of mowing this time of year, but we are slowly raising the heights on the greens mowers.  Yes, the greens will be slower but we are trying to get the turf as healthy as possible before winter comes.  There is a direct correlation between the height of cut and the depth of the roots.  As the height of cut goes up, the depth of the roots go down.  This is key for healthy greens for next year, as it not only increases root storage but it also increases drainage.  As the deeper roots decay, the holes left by these roots create channels for the water infiltrate. 

Besides aerifying, our time is now focused on day to day duties.  Our normal summer routine has now changed to cutting less (due to the slow growth of the turf), blowing leaves, working on budgets and planning for next year.  It has been a great year again and hopefully everyone has a little time to enjoy the course conditions and get those last few rounds out of their system before the snow flies.  Have a great fall golf season!

Dave Marach
Superintendent