7-Day Forecast

It's a wet morning in Highlands with over 1" of rain falling in the early hours of the morning.  Intense winds also brought down its fair share of debris.  Cold temps to follow but warming by the end of the week!

Water Testing

 

Click the image above to enlarge!

This lab based in Palo Alto, CA uses a laser particle counter to breakdown how many solids are in the water and specifically, the size of those particles.  This is important because we work very hard through topdressing and greens aerification to create larger pore spaces by incorporating sand.   On a larger scale, think of the rootzone (the sand) of a green like a jar of marbles.  The marbles have all lots of air space between them for water to move through the system.  Now take something finer, like M&M's and dump them into the jar of marbles.  The M&M's settle out between the marbles in what once was used for grass roots and water movement.  Now take something finer than that...and hopefully you see that we can wind up real trouble if we aren't aware of what is ending up on the turf.  Eventually, all the pore spaces will be clogged and water will just sit on the surface, unable to move downward.  At this point, fungus damage is going to be an issue because of excess moisture and the greens will ultimately fail.  Not to mention, they won't be fun at all to play on because they'll become soft and slow.  As a superintendent, this is one of the most important objectives we manage.

Everything is really looking great...

ANGC #12

This photo never gets old to me. In 1952, ANGC was know as one of the premier maintained facilities and this shows how far we've come in a relatively short amount of time.

Water Testing Results

 

Click on the image to enlarge!

This is interesting... HCC1 is water that has gone through the dredging process and HCC2 are results from water entering the golf course on #10 that has not passed through the dredging area.  In short, there are no differences in water quality between either area, which is a great thing!  This means, based on these samples (and there will be many more sent off site), our irrigation water quality is unchanged between the two sites.  This has been a concern of mine before this project started and I want to be sure we won't be applying, via irrigation water, something to the greens that could be detrimental.

Wednesday

On my morning walk, I did a double take at these prints in the dew!  Those are bear prints and they are massive.  While I didn't see the bear, it has to be one of the largest black bears in the area!

You can see below, they are longer than my size 12 stompers!

What a difference one week of great weather makes!  Note the two photos: March 4th (above) vs. March 11th (below)!

 Sod has been removed to rework the creek banks on #6.  We have a load of sod scheduled to be delivered on Monday of next week.  Everyday is fun, seeing things come together on the golf course!  2026 will be a great season!

Tuesday

 

Today, greens are receiving two soil amendments, an 0-0-12 Potassium fertilizer and Calcium Sulfate, better known as gypsum.  We have rain in the forecast for Thursday, which will help irrigate these amendments into the rootzone.  Given the fact that our irrigation water and rainfall are so clean, we're constantly having to add these to nutrients to the soil, on an every 14 day interval from March-November. Right now, our goal is to build up the supply of these elements in the soil, headed into the season.  

Rainbow

 

Beautiful rainbow this morning on this rainy day!  This shot was captured by John Branson.

More from Monday...

Dredging is an ongoing process!  Sitting on the barge all day pumping sediment is a laborious process but one that allows you to solve many of the world problems.  When the dredge is operating, someone is always manning the vessel!

As you can see, the sediment pumped from the lake is costing comprised of leaf debris.

I'm proud of John Branson, Cross and Raul who are setting stepping stones in the new landscape at the entrance of the Clubhouse.  My hope is, this area blows you away come June 1st!

On #6, we are removing sod around the stream to better define the fairway!

Monday

 

Beautiful morning today and fairways are receiving their second cut of the year.  We received 1.6" of rain this weekend, which really greened this up even farther.  Above, you can see how heavy the dew was this morning. 

With dredging underway, I am testing Club Lake water on an every other week basis.  There are two concerns I have about our lake water because after all, this is the source of our golf course irrigation water.

1.   My first concern is the water quality itself.  Sometimes during dredging projects, nutrients that settled in the sediment can be stirred up, impacting the water.  I want to be sure I have a complete understanding of what the water quality is, that is going to be applied to our putting greens. 

2.  My second area of concern is the water turbidity and what kinds of solids are suspended in the water. This is really important because these solids can clog valuable pore space between the sand particles in the rootzone of our greens.  

We are planning to use irrigation water only when absolutely necessary this spring.  For comparison, I am pulling water samples near the irrigation intake and then another sample on #10, where water enters the property, before the section of lake that is being dredged.  By quantifying these samples, we'll know exactly what the impact dredging is having on water quality.  

USGA Green Section Record

 CLICK HERE! for the latest edition of the USGA Green Section Record!

Highlands CC Taco Day!

 

I can say with certainty, that you haven't lived until you experience HCC Greenkeeping Taco Day, happening now!  I always said we have a talented team but maintaining a golf course is only the tip of the iceberg!  These guys are amazing! Lyn, Raul and Jesus are at ground zero, making it all come together! 

More from Thursday...

Dredging Update: This is a couple hours of dredging this morning!  It's not an Easter egg hunt!  These are the handful of golf balls the machine sifted through in one morning.  Now, just imagine how many golf balls there would be if we were dredging the lake in front of #18 green!!     

Some more photos of the Rhododendron pruning and new sod on #8 along the cart path.

Hap says, "Throw me another ball, Pop! I wanna take a mulligan!"

Thursday

We received our first load of sod this morning and we'll spend the day installing it on #8 and some other areas we have prepped for new sod.

Chad is spending some time on the tractor with a box blade hooked behind it, spreading the piles of soil around #11 tees.  This area will have been raised up two feet or more which will dramatically help improve the drainage in this area.  Again, we were able to accomplish this, using the spoils from the drainage ditches on holes #1, 6, 9 and 11.

Drainage on #11 is ongoing.  You can see all the drain lines across the fairway... spaced out at 8' between lines, starting at the base of the hill, going back to the start of the fairway.

Wednesday

Pretty exciting day!  First greens mowing of 2026.  This mowing just gets the "fuzz" off the top.  The greens always look greener because we removed the brown tip the leaf blades develop after a cold winter.

 I love what I'm seeing in the forecast in terms of temperatures!