Happy 4th Birthday, Hap!

Hap says it's tough work being a golf course dog but his passion never wavers.  The early mornings and dealing with ever-increasing standards for turf quality takes a lot out of a Border Collie.  But, he says, "there's always a ball that needs chased around here and I the man for the job.  I'll retire here." 

Bear Action this morning…

 This morning, these two big bears, a male and female walked around hole #1.

7-Day Forecast

Big Catch at Camp Week!

One of our campers reeled in this 3lb Bass yesterday morning at 9:30am!

Highlands CC Osprey

 

Please watch this video to the end...this Osprey was determined to get lunch out of the lake!  It's hard to belief how hard these birds hit the surface of the water, even submerging themselves for pulling out a fish! This video was filmed by Michael Green, a member of the Greenkeeping team!

Camp Week

 

As we do every year, Golf Course Maintenance spends an hour each morning with the campers, fishing off the bridge on #18.  A handful of fish were caught!  Several trout, including a golden rainbow, about 3 bass, several bluegills and 1 good size crappie were pulled out of the lake today!  Below, Hap met some new friends who were impressed with his ability to swim after his ball.

After chasing his ball for the kids, Hap decided it was time to rest and watch the fishing action.

Turtle on #18

It’s egg laying season for turtles in the lake. Every year, they'll scratch and claw their way out of the pond and lay eggs on the bank.  It’s best not to approach these snapping turtles because they are capable of removing a digit!  After the turtle left the site, we counted 56 eggs were laid in this area.  

Leadership on the Links: Oakmont CC: Forged on Hulton Road

To access the Podcast, CLICK HERE!

#14 Restrooms

This afternoon, we improved the pathways leading to the restrooms at #14 tee. The structure itself is still a work in progress and Building Maintenance will get it completed in the near future.  

Club Cart Rules

CLUB CART RULES:        At the beginning of every season, I see constant violations of our golf cart rules. This is not to say those violations are intentional, it is more likely that those that violate are not familiar with our rules.  The intent of this is to make sure everyone knows what our expectations are for use of golf carts on the golf course.  Please let me know if you have any questions.        Thank you,      Ken Mattis, PGA   Golf Rule 23. Use of Golf Carts Golf carts must remain on cart paths (a) on holes #1, #2, #3, #16 and #18 (b) at, near and between tee boxes (c) at or near greens (d) between cart exit stakes in front of greens and the greens themselves During periods when the Golf Course Superintendent imposes the “cart path only” rule because of wet playing conditions, golf carts must remain on cart paths throughout the course, with no exceptions (no yellow flags allowed).   ALSO VERY IMPORTANT !!!! When driving on the cart path, please keep all 4 wheels on the cart path! When we allow you on the golf course, please remain in the fairways.  We DO NOT want you to drive in the rough.   Here is the "WHY"      We do not allow carts on Hole #1 at any time.  The nature of bent grass is to lay over when compacted.  This is how we can create the appearance of stripes in the fairways when mowed in different directions.  This is also a narrow fairway where traffic will tend to concentrate in certain areas.  The lack of golf cart traffic on the #1 fairway maintains the pristine appearance of our opening hole.        We do not allow golf carts on Hole #3 for safety reasons and because of the small area at the bottom where there would be very concentrated traffic patterns.  With the steep grade in the fairway, there is an increased chance for a golf cart to slide or tip.  There is also a single area to exit at the top of the hill which will wear out very quickly with excessive traffic.        We do not allow golf carts off the path on our Par 3 holes.  This is a common practice at most courses and any missed shots are likely within a short walking distance from the cart path.        When we are allowed on the fairways, the main reason for having golf carts stay out of the rough and in the fairway, is to spread traffic and eliminate wear in specific areas.  We mostly have wide fairways and narrow roughs.  Even minimal traffic in popular areas of the rough will quickly cause the turf to deteriorate.     Please understand that the rules we have in place are to preserve the turf quality while allowing the convenience of driving to, or close to your golf ball.  Thank you for respecting the rules, and helping me to enforce the rules.

 

7-Day Forecast

 

Oakmont CC

CLICK HERE! To read a Golf Digest article about the tree removal programs at several clubs, including Oakmont CC.  Oakmont has a special place in my memories because it’s where I  worked in 1997 and 1998, as a Penn State student.  I was involved in several of the midnight tree raids and it was an experience I won’t ever forget.  We were eliminating trees at a good clip, yet no one knew what was happening at first because we hid the evidence so well.  A tree could be cut at 4:00AM and by the time the sun came up, the tree was gone, stump was ground and resodded. There wasn’t a wood shaving to be found because tarps were laid out around the tree before the saws started. Again, no evidence to be found!  After a while it became obvious trees were missing and that’s where I’ll always admire my boss and mentor, Mark Kuhns, for navigating the politics that came along with that!  With the US Open being played at Oakmont this coming week, this story always gets a lot of attention.

Agronomy Internship

This summer, Cooper Hall (a 5-year employee of HCC) is completing his internship at Highlands CC as a Turfgrass Management student at NC State University.  As part of the internship, the student is required to do some form of a project.  This was a great opportunity for me, to do something I always wanted to do... data collection!  Every morning, Cooper collects the grass clippings from the mowers after the practice green is mowed.  The weight of the clippings are measures and recorded to understand how our practices drive growth.  In addition to that, he'll use our GS3 ball (shown below) to record the daily green speed, surface smoothness and surface trueness.  The next measurement he'll record is the daily putting green firmness, that is measured using the drop test device below.  The GS3 ball is placed inside the drop test device and it measures the depth of impact the ball makes when it hits the putting green.

With the above data recorded, Cooper then factors in more information like weather data, rain totals, and agronomic practices performed that morning, like whether or not we rolled, double cut or irrigated the night prior.  By collecting all of this information, we will be able to quantify precisely the benefit to playing conditions based on our maintenance practices and outside influences.  We'll be able to graph things like season long putting green speed and gain more insight into the return on our investment when it comes to the maintenance practices we do.  Perhaps we could save resources by not doing a particular practice if we aren't seeing as much benefit to it as we initially thought.

Clipping Yield is measured daily.

Surface Firmness Device

The USGA's GS3 Ball

Above and below show you the measurements that the GS3 ball provides.  The ball is rolled off a stimpmeter just as you would if you were measuring green speed with regular golf balls.  Smoothness is a measurement that records the up and down movement of the ball as it rolls across a green while trueness measures the amount of side to side motion of the ball.  For more information on the USGA's GS3 ball CLICK HERE!

In Praise of Poa annua Greens

 

USGA Green Section Record

CLICK HERE to open the latest edition of the USGA's Green Section Record.