Pittsburgh, PA Turfgrass Conference

 

Highlands Country Club Border Collie, Happoldt, is a big deal.  If you don't believe me, just ask him and he'll tell you!  Today, a friend of mine send this photograph to me.  He attended the Penn State Western PA Turfgrass Conference (happening this week) and PSU Professor of Plant Genetics, David Huff, showed this photo of our seeded Poa annua nursery at the back of the practice facility.  Of course, Hap makes sure he's in all the photos he can get in!  

Wednesday

Dredging setup is nearing completion and by Friday, I fully expect to be pumping sediment out of Club Lake!  Please use extreme caution on Hummingbird Lane.  This will be a congested area with trucks constantly coming and going once Bryson Grading starts trucking the sediment off-site.

Below, I mentioned yesterday that we are thinning briar patches and Rhododendron 0n numerous areas on the golf course.  Here, you can see some of that work.  Some of the areas focused on includes #8, #14 and #17.  More photos will be coming once the work is finished and ready for sod. This will be a huge improvement on these holes and something I'm hoping to be able to do more of in the coming years.

The cart path will have a 20 foot boarder of grass on the far side, which is not only more attractive than pinestraw, but better for the asphalt as well.

Highlands School Job Fair

Brian, Debbie and Grace attended the Highlands School Career Fair today.

Today the Highlands School held a job fair to introduce students to potential career opportunities after graduation.   The school reached out to local professionals and asked if they would put together a display table and be present to talk to students about their career.  Debbie Brock, our first class Club Controller, and I represented Highlands CC to talk about accounting and life as a Golf Course Superintendent.  It was definitely a fun 6 hours spent at the school and hopefully our presence planted a seed in the minds of a few young people.  If we are lucky, some of these folks may be the next generation of Highlands CC staff!

Controller, Debbie Brock engages in conversation with two students about a career in accounting.

Forestry Mulching

Exciting day today, with this machine on site!  We are cutting back weeds and briars all around the campus from roadsides to areas on the golf course.  Stay tuned for photos showing what we accomplished today.  This machine can do anything from cutting briar thickets back to the ground to cutting a 50' tall tree down and then mulching the branches, trunk and the stump.  I use a local gentleman from Franklin to do this work because purchasing a machine like this is very expensive and not practical if it will only be used a couple times per year.

Monday Weather Conditions

 After a week of nice weather, Sunday brought us 1" of snow and temperatures as low at -7*F with the wind chill!

Friday

 

Another three Norway Spruce in the ground...these on #10, to buffer the right side of the hole, along the cart path of the right fairway.

USGA Green Section Record

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

Bradley Klein

If you click on the image, you'll be able to zoom in to read the article. 

Thursday

There is a lot going on, on the golf course and campus. A time of year when we are typically winding down projects is different this year.  Above and below, you can see the equipment that's been brought it to start dredging the portion of Club Lake behind the Tennis Courts and Fitness Center (LEC).  This is the machine I've talked about that separates water and sediment, returning the water to the lake and then piles the sediment for removal.  Stay tuned for more on this and video showing how it works when we get rolling.  Also arriving this week, is equipment and materials that will be used to replace the Club Lake drain valve.  This too, is a pretty big project that is being done out of necessity.  Next fall, we'll be renovating the dam abutment walls.  You'll be hearing more about this in the coming months.

A forestry underbrushing machine was delivered today for work, next week.  We'll be clearing a lot of briar/weed growth around the golf course, opening up areas never before appreciated.  Again, stay tuned!

This afternoon, over 10,000 bait fish were stocked in Club lake to support our Largemouth Bass population.  This work is being done as part of our Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Status re-certification.    Thanks to Mr. Freeman and his contacts, we are studying the Bass population and learning what we can do to improve the habitat.  In October, we did a lake assessment, where we shocked portions of the lake to learn about the fish that were living in Club Lake and the health of said fish.  It became clear that our Bass population needed more food in order to thrive, based on their size and growth habit.

Finally, an interesting find on the golf course today...a 7up glass bottle (bottled in Asheville, NC) dating back to the mid-1940's!  This was found embedded into a stream bank on hole #10.

Tuesday

 

Today, Tim finally wrapped up our rough aerification!  The process dragged on with all the frozen conditions we've dealt with through the month of January.  Below, we added 6 more steps to those going from #16 green up to the #2 tee on the 17th hole.  This will make it easier to reach the tee by taking the steepness out of the last 10 feet.  Lyn and Raul did a great job on this.

The February Superintendent

This post appeared on the LinkedIn social media site and I thought it was really good! It was written by the gentleman below and I thought it was worth sharing.

The February Superintendent

There is a version of this profession that the public rarely sees.

It does not wear stripes or tournament polish.

It does not carry the urgency of summer mornings or the pressure of member expectations.

It lives in February, with March just visible on the horizon but not yet arrived.

The February superintendent is not growing grass.

He is holding ground.

The snow is thinning in places and stubborn in others. The air still bites, yet the light has shifted just enough to suggest change. The course is quiet, not asleep, but waiting. These are not weeks of visible progress. They are weeks of inspection, of walking surfaces that offer little color yet reveal everything about structure, drainage, and decision making. 

In June, skill is on display.

In February, character is. 

There are no applause moments here. No perfect greens, no tournament speeds, no dramatic recoveries. Instead, there are small observations. A low spot that held moisture longer than expected. A collar that wintered better because of a decision made months earlier. A fairway that carries weight more confidently than last year. These are quiet confirmations, the kind only noticed by the person who made the choices when no one else was looking.

This is also the season of restraint.

The discipline of not acting too soon.

Of allowing the ground to come back on its own terms rather than forcing momentum simply because March is approaching and expectations begin to stir. The February superintendent understands that impatience can undo months of preparation faster than any storm.

There is leadership here as well, just less visible. Staff return gradually. Equipment is checked without urgency. Conversations are shorter but more deliberate. The tone set now often echoes through the entire season. Calm in February tends to produce calm in July.

What defines this period is not productivity.

It is awareness.

The February superintendent is measuring stability, not speed. Reading soil, not schedules. Making decisions that will only be judged weeks or months later. Much of the profession’s best work happens here, in the stretch where little seems to be happening at all, while March stands just around the corner, waiting to test every quiet decision made now.

Golfers will remember the summer surfaces.

Superintendents will remember February.

Because February is not about presentation.

It is about posture.

Friday

Finally, the employee housing project has a finished look after we removed the weed growth and cleaned up the roadsides leading to the new facility.  The area covered in straw will ultimately be grass and will better fit in with the rest of the Club corridor along the highway.    

Dredging equipment and materials arrived today next week, the contractor will be getting the equipment in the water.

Between #7 and #8, we spend a considerable amount of time removing the "sucker growth" from these Oak trees. Oak's are notorious for this kind of growth and it take away form the overall shape and appearance of the tree.  Unfortunately, once we start removing them, they seem to get worse.  This is due to the build up of plant hormones at the site where a limb or past sucker growth was removed.  Hormones are used by the tree to heal such an injury.  Sucker growth is a tree's way of producing more leaf canopy quickly, which lead to the tree being able to photosynthesize more, producing more food for itself.  

Employee Dorms and Roadsides

 

We're spending a good amount of time at the new employee dorms, working to clean up the Dillard Road side of the building.  Our goal is to create continuity between this facility and the rest of the campus.  Filling in the edges of roadsides and grassing are a few of our objectives.  We are also cleaning up wood lines to give the area a nice appearance but also keeping the building screened as much as possible.  

7-Day Forecast

 

Wednesday

 

On #8 green surround, we are removing a good amount of sod and reshaping the area where settling has occurred over the years.  This area abruptly dropped off from the edge of the cart path, making it an awkward area to traverse and access the putting green.  In addition, it's been a common place for golf cart traffic and mower traffic to get back on the cart path.  Therefore, it has always been compacted and worn.  This season, we are expanding our 'pushmow' areas to avoid heavy equipment having to access and mow these narrow areas.