Glen Eagle Maintenance (8/26/26)

 Another week of hot and dry. We are still seeing lower than normal rainfall for our area and are 6.35” short year-to-date. The forecast looks more favorable for some rain over the next 10 days but at this point, I’ll believe it when I see it 😂.

The heat and lack of rainfall along with continually having to use irrigation which is not as uniform and efficient as rain coverage have left us with a few hot spots, an unusual sight for August in Naples. Other than those few hot spots, the golf course is looking good.

5 Tee

18 Fairway

We did have one unexpected happening late last week. The tree on the corner of 1 fairway split off some old growth. We ended up cutting up most of what fell and put it into a pile off to the side temporarily. We are going to have a tree company come in next week and do the final cleanup plus trim/shape the tree since a big portion came off of one side. Over the long haul that will make the tree more stable and the bonus will be that it will open up the corner of the fairway a bit more.

Tees continue to progress towards opening on October 1st. There are few small spots that still have to fill in but overall they are doing very well. We have a weekly routine of topdressing, brushing and fertilizing that will have them ready to go for opening day. Here are a few videos of our process…

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!

Glen Eagle Maintenance (8/19/26)

End of the week and into the weekend rain seems to be the thing here in Naples recently. Last weekend we received 1.76” which topped off our lakes just about to the point of spilling over the weir, what I would call the perfect level. The golf course has responded well to the rain, a foliar application of fertilizer and growth regulator that we put out last week. It is still hot on steroids here so a big thank you goes out to our staff for continuing to work hard during these extreme conditions. 

Our tees continue to do well with just a few that need a little extra TLC to make the deadline for reopening on 10/1. Here is one of the tees on 16 and as you can see it is mostly full but still has some small areas that will need to thicken up over the next 6 weeks.

Just an introduction to the topic but all the reports are pointing towards significant weather changes later this year. Possibly the strongest El Niño weather pattern in history is setting up due to higher water temperatures in the Pacific and changes in the Jet Stream setup for the fall.

I believe we are already seeing impacts here in SW FL. Less summer rain, more heat and most recently 2 potential tropical systems that were torn apart by wind-shear as they entered the Caribbean in the last two weeks. One of the storms had an 80% chance of development which went to 0% in 24 hours as it hit the winds coming out of the Pacific. I have lived here all my life and don’t ever remember that happening.

Here are a few reports/articles talking about potential impacts to our area between now and the end of 2027. The Wink News article has a lot of good information reguarding past El Niño winters which were not nearly as strong as this one is forecasted to be but were still significantly impactful to our area.

https://x.com/winknews/status/2088415637131366432?s=43

https://x.com/mattdevittwx/status/2089543073344655575?s=43

https://x.com/nbergwx/status/2089679955202552112?s=43

https://x.com/mattdevittwx/status/2089787622814314716?s=43

We will certainly be looking at this closer as time progresses but wanted to get it on everyone’s radar as it could have impacts on our conditions this upcoming season.

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!

Glen Eagle Maintenance (8/12/26)

Well we finally had some rain over the past weekend. A couple of good ones too. Our monthly total is now up to 4.28" with hopefully more to come. Along with that we had our first day of the summer with any cart path only conditions. I normally wouldn't be happy about that but in a usual summer those start in June so making it this far into the summer is a plus. Even with the recent rain, we are 7" behind our historical average for the year. Let's hope we continue to make up for that deficit between now and the end of summer.

I saw this post this week and can tell you from experience this is certainly how it feels in Florida right now...

Lakes have gone up quite a bit but have not reached the overflow on the outfall structure so that is a good thing as we are keeping the rain that has fallen on the property.

The grass is loving the rainfall and things are looking great out on the golf course.

Tee Update

Not much to report. We continue our topdressing and fertilization and the tees look great. A few still have some areas that need to completely fill in but overall things are going well. We resprigged one of the tees on #4 last week and that is starting to "take" but other than that one tee we are on schedule to allow play from the tees on October 1st.

I know it looks like a row of divots in the first picture but I promise you no one is hitting off the tees. If anyone does see someone trying to hit off the tees, please let the Pro Shop know asap. We want to be able to turn on the sprinklers immediately so they will regret their decision. In all seriousness we want to be able to go out and talk to them so it doesn’t happen again.

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!

Glen Eagle Maintenance (8/5/26)

 Quick post today, mostly a few pretty pictures of the golf course since it is really starting bounce back fully from the mid summer maintenance closure a few weeks back.

We did get 0.3” of rain on Monday which helped with color and growth. Look at all the clippings when we mowed 16 rough…

Worked in some backtrack verticutting on the greens this week. Backtrack is when we make a pass then instead of moving over a pass when we get to the other end, we come straight back down the first pass. This is done to work against any grain that may be laying in the direction of just a single pass.

We are still way behind on rain for this time of the year. We should be getting 3 inches instead of 3 tenths but for now we are ok, let’s just hope the lakes fill up before “rainy” season is over.

Tee Update

Most tees are 70% or better in coverage. On number 4 we did have one tee that after sprigging had an irrigation head issue washing out the soil, which created a very low spot in the middle of the tee. We tried to topdress it heavy to remove the low spot but that didn’t work so this week we started over. It was rototilled, releveled and resprigged. We will push the tee to catch up with the others and I have no doubt that it will be fine before season starts.

You can see in these pictures of 16 & 17 (planted approx. 5 days after hole number 1) that they are filling in very well.

More topdressing and fertilizer and all of the tees will be ready to go for season.

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!