If you hit your ball into one of our 22 bunkers on the golf course, you'll notice something different about the bunker rakes. This morning we replaced the handles on the rakes and rather than going with the standard 60' handle, we used the 72" handle. This longer handle allows better reach and even makes raking the bunker somewhat easier.
If you read the stimpmeter post from yesterday, you may have seen the part that mentions the Brede Equation. This accounts for the fact that a golf ball rolling downhill gains speed at a faster pace than a golf ball loses speed rolling uphill. On our greens, this is critical because we don't have many flat areas to get a true reading. For example, to obtain a stimpmeter reading you roll 3 golf balls one direction and then turn around and roll them another direction. If one direction is 10 feet and the the other direction is 15 feet, adding those together gives me 25 feet/2 equals a 12.5 foot stimpmeter reading. However, that isn't correct because it's not a true average. Enter in said equation:
2 x uphill x downhill / uphill + downhill
Therefore:
2 x 10 x 15 / 10 + 15
Using this equation gives the true green speed, which is 12 feet. Today, the greens are rolling 11' 1". This is slightly slower than the past week due to the 1" of rain we received Friday. The golf course is open to cart traffic despite the rain.
Finally, a few signs of early summer:
Above, hybrid rhododendron are showing off! Remember, hybrid rhodos have a variation of colors whereas native rhododendron are white and bloom later in summer.
Below, Oak inflorescence are everywhere!! Getting putting greens cleaned off this morning is quite the chore! I'm hoping yesterday's rain brought down the remainder of the pollen we're experiencing.
