Glen Eagle Maintenance (1/10/25)

 Ok, ok, whoever brought this cold weather with you, you can send it back home 🥶.

As you know, it is not uncommon for temperatures to dip into the 40’s here in Naples. What is uncommon, is multiple days in the low 40’s with high temps that haven’t gotten out of the lower 60’s. The good news is it looks like after today the temperatures will be improving and be in the 50’s and 70’s for 4 or 5 days before we get cold again middle of next week.

In the summer I talk about our warm season grass stressing out when the temperatures are too hot. Bermudagrass likes a combined daily temperature of 150 degrees (65/85 for example).

So this time of year, the grass doesn’t stress out, it shuts down. Our combined daily temperatures this week have been somewhere between 100 and 110, 40 degrees lower than the turf would prefer.

This “shutdown” comes during the time of year when we are adding heavy amounts of physical stress to the turf by means of cart and foot traffic. Tee and greens slopes along with entry and exit points to fairways will be impacted the most by the slow down in growth.

The good news is with turf growth reduced, the course should play firm and fast.

You can see in this picture of #7 that the longer grass stays greener than the the shorter turf on the greens. This is likely due to less carbohydrate storage due to shorter root length.

Despite the cold weather, still pretty green on the course overall…

On cold weeks like this when the grass isn’t growing very much we get a chance to work on detail work.

Edging concrete cart paths

Pressure washing and detailing equipment

Trimming trees at the shop to allow trucks to enter and exit without breaking off limbs

Cleaning up where tree was removed at Davis Entrance

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