The Club at Sonterra Turf Maintenance: Course Update 9/20/11

RAIN!!!!! We received almost 3.5" from Friday to Sunday. This is by far the most rain we have had all year. The tees, fairways, and greens on both courses have already started to green up. The roughs and other areas that are severely stressed will definitely benefit from the rain but will need time and more rain to show substantial recovery. This rain is by no means a "drought buster", but it will certainly delay Stage 3 restrictions for quite some time. The next 4 to 6 weeks are absolutely crucial for both courses. This time frame provides us with our last chance to increase turf health and density before entering the winter. We will need more rain, good growing conditions, and help with cart control during this time. As a result, we will remain Cart Path Only on the North and 90 degrees on South for the time being.

The rain did add a lot of water to the lakes. The lakes on 6 and 7 are almost full. The lake on 3 has some water in it again. The lakes on 17 and 18 made excellent progress as well. Most importantly our irrigation lakes have more water in them now than they have all summer. This will allow us to irrigate more often over the next two to three weeks and hopefully extend the soil moisture for some time.

North Course: The greens are slowly but surely improving everyday. We are still aggressively rolling, mowing, topdressing, vertical mowing, and lightly aerating. All of these practices will help the greens putt smoother and faster. Yesterday we mowed, double verticut, and sprayed the greens. This week will be patching some of the weak areas with sod from our Nursery. We will be working on #3 green today. In addition, we will be lightly aerating and rolling the greens on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

South Course: We completed our final core aeration of the year on Monday of last week. The greens have completely healed and should be putting great for this weekend's club championship. Many of you may have noticed the damage on #1 Green. This was done in the early morning hours of Monday the 12th by a small car or SUV. We filed a police report and were able to get some video evidence from one the nearby restaurants. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that we will be able to catch these vandals this time. The bulk of the damage has been repaired. . It is likely that we will see the tracks from the car for quite some time however, we will continue to hand topdress these areas to minimize the effect on ball roll. We have plans to lightly topdress the South greens this week. The below pictures show the damage on #1 and a shot of our aeration and vertical mowing practices.