Glen Eagle Maintenance (6/28/24)

 Wednesday we received another 2.25” of rain bringing our June total to 19.39”. The course continues to drain well and we were back to 90 degree cart conditions Thursday morning.

The rain has kept greens soft and as with all the course turf, growing very quickly.

The clouds made for some pretty sunrises…

And plenty of green grass…

 

On Monday, we applied worm castings to thinner areas throughout the course. Worm castings are a great source of organic material. They have a small amount of Nitrogen (1% or less) and can be an excellent source of food for beneficial soil microbes. Applying organic soil amendments like worm castings help with soil structure, and increase its capacity to hold water and nutrients.

I look forward to seeing everyone on the course (when it dries out), and as always, if you have any questions, flag me down or shoot me an email. I always enjoy talking turf!

Glen Eagle Golf & Common Ground Maintenance (6/21/24)

A total of 14.18” or 134,828,183 gallons of rain fell on the Glen Eagle property last week, bringing our June total to 16.43”.

What was amazing was the rain stopped Thursday evening and by Saturday we had no cart path restrictions. We were lucky that the lakes had previously been low so there was a lot of holding capacity for all that water. The lakes did come up 46” and were full to the brim. Another factor that allowed the course to dry faster was the 45 million holes we poked in the ground over the 2 weeks prior to the rain. All those channels allowed water to penetrate deeper into the soil leaving the surface drier sooner.

We couldn’t do much if any maintenance last week so conditions this past weekend were as unkept as I have seen since being at Glen Eagle. Greens basically lost a week of filling in due to lack of sunlight and the sand we had applied was pushed out or packed more tightly into the aerification holes, leaving the green surfaces bumpy.

We hit the ground running first thing Monday morning and I am happy to say a lot of progress was made this week.

Here is a video of the tasks we focused on to get the course back in to shape and some pictures of the results…

https://youtu.be/imRdo4pW5LM?si=Y1YMjqTGZ1D3hdCq

Just a heads up, the fountain at the front entrance stopped working last week. Our lake maintenance company was out on Thursday to asses the issue and we will get it back up and running as quickly as possible. 

I look forward to seeing everyone on the course (when it dries out), and as always, if you have any questions, flag me down or shoot me an email. I always enjoy talking turf!

Glen Eagle Maintenance (6/14/24)

 Golf Course

Well, in just a few days we went from here…

To here…

Since Saturday morning, we have had 13.35” of rain, 11.55” of that was Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday and it is still raining! After this week I am sure I have given up on “normal” weather.

By comparison, last summer, May thru September, we only had 25”. Looks like we are well underway to surpassing last summers total. Keep in mind last summer was unusually dry and we will still have a ways to go to reach our normal summer total which is around 60”.

As you can see from the pictures above, with this week’s rain, our lakes are up over 40” from last week.

Here are some interesting numbers. We have approx. 65 acres of turf on the course. Water at a depth of 1 foot over 1 acre (1 acre/foot) equals very close to 326,000 gallons. So just on our course grass 21,190,000 gallons of water has fallen in the last week. I think that helps us understand why the course is cart path only. 😂

The rain has limited how much mowing we have been able to accomplish this week. As a result, we have raised the heights of fairways and have some scalping as we mow the roughs.

You can see in this picture the roughs were scalped leaving a yellow appearance and how even at higher HOC, we are still cutting a lot of grass off the fairways. 

Roughs are growing like gangbusters…

Rain has made a mess of our bunkers too. The good news is the drainage seems to be working well.

The course hot spots are all gone, only green grass and beautiful skies from here…

We are literally treading water right now, but hopefully this rain will clear out of here this weekend so we can get the course cleaned up and back normal condition soon.

I look forward to seeing everyone on the course (when it dries out), and as always, if you have any questions, flag me down or shoot me an email. I always enjoy talking turf!

Glen Eagle Maintenance (6/7/24)

 Golf Course

A new month and finally some rain! This past Sunday we received a 1/2” followed on Monday by 1 3/4” more. In those two days we had more rain than in all of March, April and May combined. More good news is the forecast is calling for another 1-2” next week.

The recent rain brought our lakes up 3” which is the highest they have been since the first part of May.

Here are a few pictures from the course. Still looking a little beat up from the work we are doing but much greener since most the hot spots have gone away with the rain.

The maintenance team has been hard at work this second week of the maintenance closure. Tasks have included, but not limited to, topdressing greens (2nd app), tees, approaches, fairways; aerifying tees, approaches, fairways, roughs; a lot more circle cutting; and finishing everything off with a little fertilizer.

Watch this video to see these tasks in action!

Some of the almost 600 tons of sand applied to the course during the closure

Inspecting the aerification holes on the Tees, Fairways, and Roughs

Core Aerificaiton

Shatter Tine Aerificaiton

Keeping the team hydrated and happy!

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