Spring Fever hits

 We verticut the greens prior to pulling a 5/8"core.

Blowing the cores that the core collector missed

Applying some granular nutrients 

We put out 35 tons of sand to fill holes

We are grading and rocking where the old temporary clubhouse stood.

This additional area should alleviate the congestion of overflow parking.

Keep your eyes open because the season for ryegrass is upon us. We applied our first app. of fertilizer this week to the rye. So with temperatures steadily climbing we should have some excellent playing surface within weeks.

Snow cover in February

We received 1-2" of wintery mix Monday this week. With our temperatures dropping below 10 degrees it will be a few days before we will be open for play. 

February 2015

This month we will be hitting our stride  with cleanup of tree debris. We have purchase some equipment to help assist us and make the work more efficient. 

Along with cleanup we will be applying our weed control products.  We will start spraying our pre-emerge and round-up combo in all the non overseeded bermudagrass roughs.  

2015 start of a new year....

With 2014 ending we will recap the last few months since our last blog post and look ahead to the upcoming 2015 golf season. In the last few weeks you may have noticed while playing the course that we are in the process of a large scale tree removal.

Hillside between #9 and behind  #17 Tee

Behind # 17 Tee

 We have contracted a lumber company to remove some of our larger areas of trees and select cut specific trees through out the property. If you have played recently you may have noticed that they are making quite the mess in areas where they are working. We are well aware of this and understood that it would happen.

#17 tee

We have discussed this before the first tree was cut and are working hard to limit the damage to confined areas. As for the brush and debris, our crew will start clean up as soon as the loggers have completely finished a area.

 As for our staff, we have be doing little things along the way while waiting on spring. We have started clearing some of the small underbrush on hillsides around the course.

 We have also leveled a few areas around the collars.

As for the ryegrass it has done surprising well for our first time seeding it here at River Oaks. With the low rate of 250# per acre I think it turned out surprisingly well. We have great definition in our fairways and tees.

#14 Green

#10 Fairway

#4 Fairway

 Some of the fairways in the bottom lands did not take as well since the bermudagrass was extremely dense and healthy. Since then we have lowered the height of cut on those holes and reseeded them. With germination being slow this time of year, we should see them flush out early spring.  

Ryegrass make a appearance at River Oaks....

We have made the decision to overseed the fairways and tees this fall. This will be the first year we have overseeded any areas on the course. We put 250 pounds per acre of perennial ryegrass on fairway cut, and 200 pounds per acre of turf-type annual ryegrass on our tees. We watered 3-4 times a day for the first 5 days. After the rye had germinated we cut the water to twice daily for the next 5 days. We now water once a day. Our first cut was 10 day after seeding. Next week we will fertilize to help establish the rye before the cold temperatures set in.

 250# per acre perennial ryegrass seed.

 

 Push spreading collars and tees.

            Drop seeding the edges of the tees.

Ryegrass germinated at 5 days

 First cut on the fairways after germination.

 #2 fairway

 Fairway half cut on #2

 #13 Fairway

#4 Fairway 10 days after seeding first cutting.

Another aerification in the books...

We finished our fall aerification last week. We decided to do a deep tine before our usual coring. Doing the deep tine aerification will help to provide spaces for root growth below our normal 4" root zone. We had perfect temperatures this week but had to deal with rain Monday and Tuesday. We put out 70 tons of sand this time, which is almost 20 tons more than we usually use.

course update July 2014...

This July has been a great month here at River Oaks.  Golfers have been very complementary on course conditions as they continue to improve daily.