It looks like the next 3 days will be sunny and clear, making for great weather for golf and the eclipse on Monday. The golf course is getting better by the day as it dries out more and more. The process of drying out isn't always the quickest process. The lower lying areas or shaded areas take a longer time to dry compare to mounds and areas in full sun. Last week we received 6" of rain and had about a 10 day stretch of solid cloud cover. This can cause the turf to take on a yellow, chlorotic appearance due to a saturated root system and no sun. Once the sun reappears, it will take a couple days for the golf course to get back in the swing of things. Today is the 5th day since the rain stopped. Unfortunately, when the rain stops, the golf course won't immediately return to the conditions you enjoyed prior to the rain.
This morning is the first time in over a month that we are having to irrigate a few areas. We are not running all sprinkler heads at night! We are simply hand watering and turning on a few heads manually to give the few dry areas we have, enough water to make it through the day. Irrigation management is a delicate balance. We want to limit the brown on the course but also keep it as firm as possible. In 2017, we've only irrigated two times! This means a full irrigation cycle ran at night only twice this year! All irrigating we do either comes from the end of a hose, where we can precisely put it where it's needed or by manually running heads on a defensive basis as needed. These are areas where there are localized dry spots and wilt is occurring and not running sprinkler heads, would result in turf loss.
There is a gross misperception of how we use irrigation water at Highlands CC. This is one of the more important aspects of my job and one area that has a tremendous labor component. Our system itself limits the ability to conservatively apply water. This means it takes man power to properly irrigate at Highlands CC. All of the unique features of Highlands CC, like the rolling terrain, make irrigating even trickier because we need to be aware of water runoff to low lying areas. Think about the challenge of the 12th hole!
If you would like to learn more about how we make decisions regarding irrigation or have and observation, I would love to talk to you about this. Please don't hesitate to call (828) 787-2778.