This has been an unusual season so far! We went from opening a few weeks early with drought conditions, to having almost 8 inches of rain and summer humidity in the beginning of June and July was not much better with about 7 inches. This could be a rough season for our department. I was complaining about no rain but now, just like everyone, I wish the rain would stop. Next thing you know, we will be begging for rain by the end of August.

It has been a struggle keeping up with course maintenance, especially the greens. Just when we get things headed in the right direction for greens roll and firmness, we have to skip cutting the greens due to the wet conditions.

“Why do you have to skip cutting the greens?” The greens here at Northbrook hold a lot of moisture due to the thatch accumulation and black layer. Black layer is the combination of thatch accumulation and compaction which leads to anaerobic condition (lack of oxygen) resulting in poor green performance and makes the soil smell like a swamp. These two conditions create a sponge and a perched water table in the top ½ to ¾ inch of the soil profile. It is only in the top portion of the soil profile due to the topdressing we have added. Underneath the topdressing is the black layer which water is slow to percolate through. The water can get through where we have aerified, but in the big picture over about 2.5 acres, there are very few of our aerification holes in the green as compared to the years before I arrived. The more we can get through the black layer and continually topdress, the more unblocked channels we create to get the water to move through the soil quicker. If we do not topdress continually we will seal off the aerification holes and continue to have the current problem.

If our staff were to cut the greens while they are at their saturation point, the tires from the riding mowers create ruts, set the greens up for higher disease pressure, continually bumpy greens, and even green failure. Our staff has been able to cut while the greens are soft only with our walk mowers though to minimize the damage. Let’s just hope the trend of wet weather breaks for the rest of the summer.

We recently worked on alleviating the compaction and black layer problem. Our staff was given the opportunity to core aerify with the smallest coring tines available. This allowed us to get some of the black layer out, add more sand, help firm up the greens quicker, and roll them out to remove the bumps from the riding greens mowers and foot traffic under the saturated conditions. Our staff did this with minimal disruption of play and very little inconvenience to the golfer. Many courses do this on a regular basis in the summer because of the quick healing and almost playable conditions instantaneously. The greens took the aerification well, but algae is causing the bad greens from the past to struggle. Rainy weather and a perched water table is actually perfect growing conditions for algae. Algae suffocates the turf by blocking sunlight and not allowing the turf to dry out. We have treated the worst greens and will continue to treat them as long as the rainy conditions continue. Aerification is one of the best this for this so we did the right thing by aerifying. Our staff also used spikers to put small holes in to the algae infected areas to dry it out and allow grass to grow. We also began walk mowing the worst greens again to have less stress on the plant to make it through the rest of the summer. It will take some time to recover but with a little babysitting they should be just fine. We will continually improve the areas surrounding the bad greens to increase the airflow to try to minimize this issue in the future. Number 15 has already improved over the last week.

Even with all of the rain, the new practices that we have employed over the last two years have allowed our greens to come through the miserable summer with flying colors. Northbrook was very fortunate, all of the putting surfaces are in great condition and ready to challenge your game.

Before the rains came, our staff did some grooming of the greens to try to make them smoother with the equipment we have. We did verticut twice and hope to do it again as soon as conditions permit. Instead of verticutting, brushing has been implemented to try to remove the grain of the greens to allow the ball to roll out and remove the veering of the ball. Brushing also allows us to get the grass to stand up and dry off before we cut it which ensures a nice even cut. We hope to get back to our grooming practices as soon as possible to make these greens the best they can.

Even with the rain, all of the outings have taken place. It could be much worse - it could revert back to winter, after all this is Wisconsin. We are getting caught up with cutting the rough and line trimming so now it is time to concentrate on the greens again.

I would like to thank everyone for their patience with the wet conditions and obeying all of the signs and rope in order to keep the carts on the course. Even with the saturated conditions, there has not too much damage created from the carts. We try to let the carts out as much as possible and guide them through the rough. If there ever was damage, the rough is much more affordable to repair than the fairways. Ray and his staff have been doing a great job informing the golfers as well. Thank you.

We hope everyone is enjoying the summer so far and taking advantage of what nice days we do get. See you out on the course.

Dave Marach
Superintendent