Redesigning # 9 Greenside.......

This hole has had its ups and downs. It was shortened to a par 3 during the last renovation but eventually put back to a par 4.

The greens complex was situated on a hillside with no room for a player to miss the green.

This caused the green to suffer from silt being washed across the putting surface. The green also had sunlight and airflow issues that have been addressed before this renovation.

We started by grading out the hillside. We only had to lower one set of irrigation heads approximately 8". We did locate the greens drain Clean out under 6" of dirt.

The hillside after grading. All the dirt removed was used to build up the left side of the green to enlarge the greens complex.

 The retaining wall under construction.

 The wall is up and the final grading is going on. We edged out the greens to original size and design. we also removed the gravel walk up from the cart path.

Laying the sod. We did a Zeon Zoysia collar and the rest of the area is Tifgrand Bermudagrass. We even Had the owner (Tony) and G.M. (James) helping to lay all the sod.

 The sod is down, the wall is up, and the water is being laid to it.

We now have a hole that is a little more player friendly and gives you room to miss the green. All that's left is to fescue the hill behind the wall and around the perimeter of the sod.

Using the cores from aerification......

I have always used the waste from aerification to fill in low areas or to try and get some of the cores to take in bare areas around the course. I have always questioned, could these bentgrass plugs be used to sprig a bentgrass green. So I am conducting a little experiment on my driving range.

 

I started by striping the old nursery green of bermudagrass.

We cleaned the area of any bermuda stolons or material left in the soil.

We then loaded all the cores we had stock piled into a progator and dumped the cores into the green.

Spreading the cores to a depth of 1"-2".

The cores after packing.

Water and 50# Milorginite.

The green was very quick to green up 7 days

20 Day after putting out cores. 

Cores are growing rapidly. Currently mowing at .400. I will start lowing heights along with topdressing. We will see what happens with this green during the summer. I will post updates as it progresses.

Aerifing tees ...

 

5/8" Tee top aerification. We used the same tines as we used on the greens. With these two sets of Carbide Tip Tines we were able to aerifiy greens, tees and some approaches.

 

  We were able to remove a good amount of organic material.

 We used a steel drag to redistribute the sand back into the canopy.

After clean-up and a mowing, I came back and sprayed Ammonium Sulfate at .5# N/m

Tip for keeping cups clean while spraying.........

I picked up this tip online a while back and just thought i would pass it on. Simple to make with a extra quick coupler cover.You just have to make a handle, I used a piece of a common wire.

 You also want to grind down the outside edge of the top so that it fits flush in the hole.

 After spraying green..

Simple, Lift out and rinse off lid with your clean water reservoir on your sprayer or wipe off with towel.

Patch Diseases ...........

Large Patch (Zoysia Patch) on our collars. I noticed some small areas the end of last year and made a fungicide application.

 These spots should recover as temperatures rise and the zoysia starts actively growing. I will apply a Strobi fungicide in fall to help prevent this next year.

Yellow Patch (Cool Season Brown Patch) on the greens.

This disease is superficial. These spots were on #17 green.
P.S. My first fungicide application went out March 22 (Propiconazole and Mefenoxam)

Pre-emerging Greens.........

Going out with half rate of this product. This product is great for goose/crab but has a reputation for sometimes causing bentgrass to thin out in the summer. This is because of over lapping when spreading at full rate, which would cause some areas to receive twice the label rate.

To help control my spreading overlap i used rope stakes to mark my distances. I used the mower stripes which are spaced pretty close to 9' apart. the mowers are 60" wide so two stripes is 9' counting the over laps.

The spreader has a throw of 9' which works out pretty well with this process. I just use rope stakes to mark one side of green so I know what set of stripes I'm on.

1st mowing of fairways 2012....

 Today was a great day to mow fairways. A nice heavy dew helped in guiding me on some of the areas where the bermudagrass hasn't come out of dormancy.

 Again this year we will be trying to achieve a better fairway playing surface thru aerating and fertilizing. I hope we see some of the benefits of last falls lime application.

Our fairway mowing heights for this season will be .550".