Wednesday

 

Above, the installation of curbing along the cart path on #2 is complete.  We will be resodding the rough around the tee and raising the ground level so it is even with the top of the curbs.  You can see how the curbing was used here to direct water into the basin inlet.

After 0.6" of rain last night and this morning, the sand is being worked into the canopy nicely following DryJect aeration.  Over the next couple weeks, we'll be alternating a rolling/mowing program to keep the greens as smooth as possible. 

Etiolated Grass Growth

I took this photo on Tuesday afternoon on the 3rd fairway.  You can see the dense Creeping Bentgrass growth mixed with taller, leggy, and lighter yellow- green grass.  It too is Creeping Bentgrass.  There are a few different factors that can cause this.

First, this is known as etiolated grass growth.  It is a phenomenon characterized by elongated, pale green or yellowish stems and leaves. 

One of the primary causes of etiolated growth is insufficient light intensity. Grass, like all plants, relies on sunlight to produce energy through photosynthesis. When grass is deprived of adequate light, it cannot efficiently synthesize chlorophyll, the pigment responsible for capturing light energy. As a result, the grass elongates to reach a light source, leading to tall, spindly growth. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in shaded areas, such as under trees, tall structures, or in densely planted regions where competition for light is intense.  It could also occur during prolonged days of dense cloud cover.

Another factor that can influence this is type of growth are temperature fluctuations.  While it's not fully understood, extremes between night and day temperatures can encourage this etiolated growth.

Plant growth regulators are another factor that can exacerbate this phenomenon.  While you probably didn't know such a product existed, we treat our greens, tees and fairways with plant growth regulators (PGRs) on a 14-day interval.  PGRs not only slow grass growth down to make managing clippings easier, but they are used to create denser playing surfaces.  In addition to that, they can be used to promote one turf species over another depending on their growth habit.  For example, PGRs encourage lateral grass growth, which can be used to encourage Creeping Bentgrass growth over Poa annua growth.  When turf is treated regularly for extended periods with PGRs, then those applications abruptly stop, this type of growth can occur.  Some refer to this as the rebound effect.  We stop all PGR applications by October 1st because with the drop in temperature, mother nature controls growth for us.  This rebound effect, is likely what is occurring on this fairway at Highlands CC.   

The final cause for growth like this is a bacterial infection in the turf.  I've not seen that in my career, but I understand it can be very serious in some situations, primarily on putting greens.   

Practice Facility Mats

If you look closely, you can see white lines that represent the new location of artificial mats that will be installed this winter at the practice facility.  We'll be doubling the number of mats we have from 10 to 20.  The yellow numbers you see on the tee. are simple elevation numbers we shot with a transit for our own information to get a feel for the amount of fill we'll need to level the tee.

Above, the new curbing on #2 is looking great!

Hurricane in the Gulf

Greatest College Football Coach of All-Time

 

I was just as surprised as anyone when I saw Coach Saban dressed like a Nittany Lion on Saturday!

DryJect Aeration to Putting Greens and Approaches

It is that time of year again where we are DryJecting the putting greens, two directions .  It is very important that this is accomplished in the fall, before the ground freezes.  While it is not the only aeration we do, it is a significant part of our overall program.  This fall, we are skipping the 12th and 14th greens because when we remove the sod from those greens for this winter's renovation, we want to preserve it to reuse.  Sod that has thousands of holes in it, like Swiss cheese, is hard to keep together after a sod cutter severs the root system.  Because of that, we are going to schedule a time in early April to have these guys return and DryJect those two greens, in addition to the approaches.  

DryJect is perfect way to work more sand into the organic matter below a green but what it doesn't do, is remove some of that organic material like a traditional hollow core aeration would.  That is why it's so important to use both forms of aeration, annually on our putting greens.  Each type of aeration serves a different purpose and together, they compliment each other nicely, to keep your putting greens functioning like a USGA spec green should, well into the future.  The worse thing for a USGA green, is to get behind in aeration.  The playability of a putting green (firmness, speed and smoothness) greatly diminishes without the proper amount of sand incorporation. 

DryJect uses a high-speed, water-based injection system to blast aeration holes through the root zone to fracture the soil. The patented vacuum technology simultaneously fills holes to the surface with high volumes of dry sand.

This means you can relieve compaction, increase water infiltration, reach the root zone with oxygen and amend your soil with high volumes of material all at the same time. Plus, DryJect leaves the surface relatively smooth and playable. DryJect is routinely used at thousands of golf courses and sports facilities around the world.

 In addition to Dryject today, we are core aerating the practice tee.  Our goal is to get that finished and topdressed this week.

Practice tee aeration is done with our walk behind Toro aerator so we can get the closest hole spacing possible. 

This is a good amount of walking.  You can see Lyn out between the target greens on the approach!

Stone Curbing

With turf growth slowing down due to cooler temperatures, it's a great time of year to start working on other projects that are difficult to accomplish during the season.  An example of one of these projects is adding stone curbing where it is needed along cart paths.  Curbing has a number of benefits like keeping cart tires off the grass and directing water sheet flow to basin inlets.  On #2, this area is next to the forward tee where cart tires from golfers and maintenance equipment get on the grass while cutting the corner.  Stone curbing is effective and good looking along paths.  This winter, we'll be adding stone curbing on holes #2, #3, #11 and #17.  

7-Day Forecast

 

Construction Update

On the way to the Club this morning at 5:30AM, I saw bright lights shining through the trees a few hundred yards away from the employee housing site.  Of course, my first inclination was that a UFO landed. The closer I got to the site, Trehel Construction had a full team of workers getting ready to pump concrete!  It's fun watching these guys get stuff done as well as seeing the way they improvise when the conditions aren't perfect.

Wednesday Photo

 

This is such a great photo I took yesterday that I take so much pride in.  It represents so many things that my team has worked so hard on over the past number of years.  Fairway quality gets better every year and clearly visible in this photo.  Our tree management program is another aspect of golf course maintenance that's highlighted here.  Bunker restoration, fairway drainage and fairway definition are all improvements that I recognize in this photo.  I can't wait for next summer... I wish we didn't have to stop...I don't like seeing the season come to an end.  We have so many goals and plans for 2025 that I am ready to put into action now!  I promise that when you see the golf course in 2025, it will be better than any year prior...never finished and never satisfied!  That's our motto.

Stolen Tractor

 

Jason Voorhees took off on one of the Club's tractors this morning.  Fortunately, his intentions were good and he helped clear the fairways of leaves and debris before returning the equipment to the golf course maintenance building.  He was later seen sinking back to the bottom of Club Lake.

More Aerification

Aerification continues today and for the remainder of the week, we’ll be working on approaches  

Croquet Lawn Aeration

 

As promised, all three croquet lawns are being aerated and topdressed this morning.  We are using 5/8" hollow tines on a close, quad tine spacing.  Once the sand that is being applied to the surface dries, we will be dragging the lawns with brooms to further knock the sand into the holes.  When finished, we'll be moving to the practice facility, where both chipping greens will be aerated and topdressed.

Later this week, we'll be starting on approaches.  When those are complete, we'll go back down to the practice facility and aerate the practice tee.  Starting November 1st, the hitting stations will be placed on artificial mats for the remainder of the season.  Unfortunately, grass is no longer growing, which means we cannot heal divots until next spring.

2024 10th Annual FootGolf Invitational

The 2024 Annual Highlands CC Greenkeeping FootGolf Invitational to place today below the towering pines of Red Bird Public Golf Course!   Conditions were near perfect for today's event, now in its 10th year.  This is always one of the highlights of the season because this group is competitive!  

FootGolf is played just like regular golf only you use a soccer ball and you're foot. The cup is 20 plus inches in diameter, as you can see above next to Hap.  The holes also play much shorter...usually maxing out at 160 yards.  The top 3 finishers from the event today were 3rd place (far right): Darren Worley, 2nd Place (middle): Baldemar Venegas and finally, 1st Place with a score of 4 under par: Christian Chavez.

Each year, before the event, we cook a huge Mexican lunch at the maintenance building, followed by FootGolf.

This team is the BEST!

HCC Ghost

Should you happen to see a ghost around the Club in the next few days, it’s not real…it’s just Hap.