hopefully the last winter storm for 2014...

       We received  a decent amount of snow and freezing rain hopefully for the last time this year.....

2013 recap....

2013 was a great year for growing grass here at River Oaks Golf Club but was a lackluster year for the golf economy. With 60 plus days lost to insistent rainfall including 4th of July weekend. We experienced a devastating loss of revenue which impacted our turf management practices in the late summer, fall and winter.


 We were able to keep all the nutrient inputs to a minimum without sacrificing course conditions. We choose to use a very cost effective organic fertilizer for our bulk course application. We also were able to limit the wetting agent usage do to the sufficient rain fall we were receiving during the mid summer months.



With the installation of the fans on #7 & #9, the greens were able to have the some of the best turf I have witnessed on those holes in years. We will look at installing fans on #6 green in 2014.

3 weeks after aerification..

 

Since we are only doing one aerification this spring we decided to go a little more aggressive.

We pulled 1/2" cores on 1.5" centers.     

 We removed double the amount of material from the greens.

  We also spread 100# of profile soil conditioner per green to help with water and nutrient retention.

 Greens after topdress applied

 The guys moving the sand into the holes with brooms and blowers

 2nd week after ....

3rd week...

April 10th our first 80 degree days.

The Bermuda has finally started to break dormancy. Fairways will get the first cut this week.

Last minute projects before the season starts.

We installed a new irrigation line for our nursery green. Once again I'm going to grow in the nursery green from our aerification cores. This time we will have a fighting chance since we have water.

We have also washed all the collars and bunker edges. You can see how the sand has built up over the winter from bunker play and from topdressing . 

 The guys working hard to clean up around # 3 Greenside.

Patching a hole in a 36" drain line going across the Driving Range.

Burning out the remainder of the leaves and ditches.

Deep Tine in March.......

Our first step was verti-cutting in two directions. Blowing the greens then mowing.

11" tines

We were able to get down to a depth of 9"
We choose to go with a large pattern of 4"x 8"

After topdressing and rolling, the greens will be back rolling good next week.

After clean-up with the holes filled.

Putting the sod cutter to work this week.....

 The guys working hard in the cold. We are lowering this curve beside the cart path.

 You can see in the pic how much of the cart path was covered. We removed about 10" of soil to get back to grade.

 Finished project 

 Next was on #12 you can see how water and silt collect in the low areas next to the path

 There is about 8-10" of build up beside the path. Also there is a hump in the rough that comes from the collection of silt.

 We removed the sod and cut down the grade .

 Another spot fixed.

 We also took this opportunity to fix the walk up to the black tees on #12

 This spot has been on my lists since I was hired. Next step is to get irrigation to this tee.

Laying sod on #2 . This area is subject to wash with rains or irrigation. The sod should help to stabilize the soil also give us another area to mulch.

Ready to mulch .....