Glen Eagle Golf Maintenance (7/21/23)

Golf Maintenance

Another very hot and dry week. The news is reporting drought indexes in July! Living here my entire life I don’t ever remember that happening. The numbers in the pictures below show the rain deficits this year versus normal year-to-date rainfall. Here at Glen Eagle are 20.46” behind last year in rainfall.. I keep thinking that any day it will start raining and we will be begging for it to stop but we haven’t seen it yet.

The heat and lack of rainfall haven’t slowed us down during the second week of our closure. We have been topdressing tees & fairways.

Finished root pruning the course

And flail mowed the collars

Flail mowing is a process where we use the machine above to “plane” the turf. This picture shows the head of the machine which has flat tips on the blades. As the head spins, the blades take the top off the turf essentially flattening or planing it.

We are performing this flail mowing for two primary reasons. The first is to lower the edge of the collar so that the transition between green and collar doesn’t have a lip. The second is to remove the dams that naturally build up as we topdress greens. When the collar gets higher than the green it dams up the water and holds it on the green. When we think about greens drainage, we generally think about the drain lines that are built into the greens but just as important is the surface drainage that moves excess water off the greens via surface flow designed into the greens. If the collar dams up the surface drainage the greens will stay wetter than we want and wet greens can lead to issues such as excess disease pressure.

Collar prior to flail mowing

Up close view of green/collar interface

Collar after flail mowing

We use vacuums and blowers to remove the excess material that has been cut out and are left with scalped turf.

Up close of then new green/collar interface

Please be patient as it will take a few weeks for the collars to green up and get thick again but when they do they should be great for the next year.

Common Grounds

Paulino and Esther have been working on adding some color in a couple visible spots this week.

Behind #12 green along the road.

It is hard to tell in these pictures due to the shade but adding some color around the palms really pops when you are driving down the road.

More color in front of the clubhouse

Facilities

Hector broke out the paint brush this week and started painting the awnings at the clubhouse. They are being painted the color of the trim on the building and have really turned out nice.

Before

After

Before

After

I look forward to seeing everyone on the course or in the facilities, and as always, if you have any questions, flag me down or shoot me an email. I always enjoy talking turf and facilities too!

A quick editors note: I’m on vacation next week so more updates in two weeks.

Glen Eagle Maintenance (7/13/23)

 Golf Course

It’s that time of year when our maintenance staff has a lot going on. This post is lengthy but I hope gives you a feel for the amount of work we undertake during our closures. I know two weeks is a long time without your home course but we need every minute to get critical work done which helps keep the course in great condition year around.

This week started our 2nd of 3 course maintenance closures. The organic layer in the greens gets deeper with age. It is critical that we break thru the organic layer and create channels that reach the sand layer. These channels will allow water and air to penetrate, gas to escape but getting below the organic matter really helps the greens drain.

Here are some videos of the process

Slow motion

Core harvesting

Filling those holes with fresh sand

Slow motion

After applying the sand we brush the greens two directions then roll the greens daily to smooth them out.

We are also spike aerifying and core aerifying Tees, Fairways and Roughs. After the two types of aerification, the turf is scalped and either blown off or vacuumed up. Both types of aerification releive compaction but the deep spike aerifier can also help break up our rocky soils. Since rock is hard to grow roots in, breaking up the rock or pushing it down further into the soil, will make it easier to grow roots which will lead to growing better turf.

Slow motion

We contracted at different company to perform root pruning along the perimeter of the course. As trees like oaks and cypress grow, their roots expand under the surface of the turf. As they do, they compete with the turf for nutrients, and water. Since the tree roots are much bigger than the turf roots, they often outcompete the turf and leave us with thin turn along the perimeters of the course.

Unfortunately we have so much rock that the equipment broke half way thru hole #8. This is nothing new in when it comes to maintenance equipment, stuff breaks down all the time. They will get the equipment repaired and be back to finish the job next week.

Here are the blades on the machine

Video of the root pruner in action

You can see the machine cutting thru the oak tree roots near the putting green. Also visible, the turf is weak around the tree due from root competition. Sorry the video was too long so I had to add the link from youtube. I am expecting in a month or so that there will be a distinct difference in the turf quality now that the tree roots have been dealt with.

https://youtu.be/AC_o5x3INMc

Next week we are going to flail mow collars to remove collar damns that have accumulated due to topdressing buildup. It will be invasive and take a couple months to heal but will be well worth it both in playability and improved greens surface drainage. It will look like we tore up the collars and that the turf won’t come back but it will and be better than ever.

Here is a video and some before, during and after pictures of what a flail mower can do.

These pictures show how much material is removed during the process

Before and after profiles

After a couple weeks of growth. You can still see how level the flail mowed areas are compared to areas we skipped as comparison strips

Facilities

Hector has been replacing things and painting things….as usual 😁

Replaced the bleeder valve on the fertigation line at the pump station

Put the light back in the pool after the conduit for the wire was epoxied

Painted safety line on the curb at the back dock of the kitchen

I look forward to seeing everyone on the course or in the facilities, and as always, if you have any questions, flag me down or shoot me an email. I always enjoy talking turf and facilities too!

Glen Eagle Maintenance (7/7/23)

 Golf Maintenance

Summertime is in full swing here in Naples. The golf course is looking very good and turf growth is at its peak. It has been extremely hot with temperatures regularly reaching 96 (heat indexes between 110 & 115 degrees) which is 4 to 5 degrees above our norm for this time of year. Additionally we have been unusually dry for this time of year. At the end of June we were 13+ inches behind in rainfall compared to the same period in 2022. The lack of rain has kept the course very playable with virtually no cart path only conditions yet this summer.

We will be closing next Monday (7/10) thru Monday (7/24) for our second of three summer maintenance periods. During this closure we will be performing aerification, topdressing, scalping, root pruning, and flail mowing of collars to remove collar dams. I will be highlighting these practices as we perform them over the next several weeks.

Putting Green

Hole #8

Hole #15

Hole #16

Common Grounds

This years lake sediment removal project has been completed and the results look great. This work should allow the lake on #15 to drain to the lake between Saratoga and Sterling then to the irrigation lake near the divot as efficiently as possible.

Some of the sediment removed from the pipe under the road at Sterling Greens Drive

Lake on left side of #15 - before

Carefully taking equipment across the golf course

Removing excess sediment and vegetation 

Facilities

As usual, Hector was all over the property this week. Here are a couple of the items he took pictures of while working this week.

Part of the sidewalk in the parking that was a tripping hazard was replaced last week. Hector finished it off by painting it this week.

Before

Cleaning fans at divot

I look forward to seeing everyone on the course or in the facilities, and as always, if you have any questions, flag me down or shoot me an email. I always enjoy talking turf and facilities too!