Course Update - 4/5/11

NORTH COURSE FERTILIZER APPLICATION
We will be applying fertilizer and herbicide to the North Course tees, fairways, and roughs today begining at 12:00. This is a very important application as it helps the bermuda grass start growing while preventing many summer annual weeds. The strong winds forced us to re-schedule to today. We will irrigate immediately after applying this product. It is a possibility that we will have to be cart path only for Wednesday morning in order to prevent burn from carts on the fairways. Thank you for patience

SOUTH COURSE GREENS AERATION
We were able to aerate several greens yesterday. The following greens have now been aerated - 1,2,3,7,9,11,12,13, 15, 18. These are small holes that will definately help the greens be a success this summer. Most of the greens were only partially aerated - just the bad areas or areas that had been sodded in the past. All of 7,9, 13 were punched. These greens should recover very quickly.

OTHER COURSE NEWS
North Course - Greens single cut and rolled. All other normal maintenance
South Course - Greens single cut with walk mowers. Probably will roll later in the day. All other normal maintnance

***North Course Fert/Pre-Emerge Update***

High winds today will most likely prevent us from making any applications this afternoon. Currently we are re-scheduling for tomarrow afternoon. This will likely result in the North Course being closed in the afternoon on Tuesday and cart path only for Wednesday morning. We have approximately 6.5 Tons for fertilizer/herbicide to apply and the only way to get it out is when the course is closed. We will be working with the proshop and watching the weather throughout the day. Please check back for more information. Thank you for your patience with this important matter.

Course Update 4/4/11

North: Greens Double Cut, Tees-Collars-Approaches Mowed, all other normal practices.

South: Greens Single Cut, Fairways Mowed, Bunkers checked only, all other normal practices

An early start for maintenance today. With the shotgun tournaments on both courses we rolled out of the shop at 5:00 am. I will post more later regarding our fertilizer application and aeration on the South.

Monday tournaments make working on the course difficult, but that doesn't mean that there is isn't plenty to do. For example, it is a great time to give all the equipment a thorough cleaning and inventory dry chemicals and other materials.

Lupe Gonzales uses a pressure washer to one of our fairway units

Assitant Superintendents Mike Mccarty and Isidro Moreno inventory and organize fertilizer

Course Update 4/3

North Course - Greens will be double cut this morning. We will mow fairways and all normal practices.
South Course - Greens will be single cut and rolled. All other normal practices will take place.

We have two morning tournaments on Monday. Afterwards we plan to fertilize the North Course. We will be using 14-0-14 with 1% Ronstar.  This will give us a nice fertilizer and pre-emergent herbicide aplication. In order to prevent burn from this application WE WILL LIKELY BE CART PATH ONLY UNTIL 12:00 on TUESDAY - 4/5. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. The South Course will be off cart paths. On the South, we plan to lightly aerate several greens. Greens 6,7,9, 13 are first on the list. This is a very light aeration and will be done the same way that we did 1,2,3,15 a little over a week ago.

Have a great day and we look forward to a busy week.

Course Update 4/2/11

North Course: Today's course setup will consist of single mowing the greens (walk mow) and rolling. All other normal practices will take place. We refer to these practices by the following names:"Course Setup", "Bunkers", "Cups", "Check Greens", "Ice and Water". All of these practices contain a certain job list. For example, "Course Setup" refers to the following:  moving all tee markers, emptying trash recepticles, blowing debris from cart paths, blowing debris from tees, fairways, and greens, fixing ropes and other traffic control. All of our daily jobs are delegated during a short morning meeting and displayed for all to see using a large dry erase board.

South Course: Today's course setup will consist of single mowing the greens (walk mow) and rolling. All other normal practices will take place.

Drought Conditions and Cart Traffic: It is exceptionally dry in San Antonio right now. We are monitoring our water usage very closely as we anticipate watering restrictions very soon. Obeying the cart traffic control signs is always important, but particulary during drought conditions. Please take extra caution with golf carts. Avoid driving in worn areas, following the same path, and attempt to stay on the cart path as much as possible - particulary around the tees and greens. Also please try and ride together. There is no need for a foursome to have four carts in the group. If everyone works together we can make a big difference in course conditions. I will post more on cart control this week.

Below is a picture of our daily assignment board. We start every morning with a quick 10 to 15 min meeting and use this board to assign jobs throughout the day.

Course Update

North Course: We are double cutting the greens this morning using the grooved rollers. This will be the second day with the new rollers and I expect more improvement. The greens are putting much better than they were early in the week, so if you have the chance come out and play this weekend. In addition- tees, collars, and approaches will be mowed this morning. High temperatures are expected to be above 90 today. As the temperatures increase it is going to get tougher to hold on to our overseed on the greens. While putting speed is important, overall plant health is the main goal. Lower mowing hieghts, frequent rolling, double cutting, water management, and low fertility all increase greens SPEED and STRESS. We are working hard to provide a happy medium - greens that are fun to play and still healthy enough to have a chance at surving until Mid-June. We appreciate your patience.

South Course: We are single cutting the greens and rolling this morning. The South greens are really starting to come out. Emerald Dwarf provides a great putting surface and we look forward to a busy summer on the South. One of the drawbacks to Emerald is that is slow to come out of dormancy (the winter). This means that warm temperatures and with several agronomic practices are necessary to get this grass really growing in the spring. In addition to mowing and rolling greens, we are mowing fairways on the South this morning.

Thanks and I look forward to seeing you all on the course. 

Course Update

North Course: We return to normal play today. The greens were double cut and rolled for the second day in a row in order get them rolling quicker. In addition, we changed out the rollers on the front of the mowers from a smooth roller to a grooved roller. This allows for a more aggressive cut. We almost doubled our clippings from yesterday. See picture below:

South Course: The greens were sprayed today with mixture containing several different products. These include a light preventative fungicide, wetting agent, light fertilizer, and micronutrients. We will maintain a consistent spray program on both courses. All chemical applications are made very carefully, following all label instructions, applied by trained personell, and with highly calibrated equipment. We finished edging the bunkers yesterday. This is a time consuming task that requires more labor than you might think. We break this process into four steps.

1. Sand around bunker edges is pulled back - 2 men

2. String trimmers are used to trim any grass and re-create sharp bunker edges - 2 men

3. A blower is used to remove any plant material from the bunker - 1 man

4. A mechanical rake is used to smooth out the bunker and return to normal playing conditions. - 1 man

Thank you for your patience when we are edging bunkers. This process takes place every 2 to 3 weeks depending on conditions.





Daily Update

North Course - SWGA event starts today. The greens are healthy with the overseed still doing well. We are trying to keep the grass healthy so that it can survive the high temperatures. Unfortuantely, this results in lush thick greens that are rolling slower than normal. We have continued to double cut and roll the greens however overall speeds are down. We will be trying a combination of vertical mowing (verticutting) and growth regulators to help speed them up very soon.

South Course - The greens were lightly topdressed and fertilized today. This should help get the grass growing so that we can move into summer maintenance practices. Greens 1,2,3, and 15 were lightly aerated on Thursday of last week. This process is absolutely critical in order to maintain healthy turf. The picture shows the high amount of organic matter near the surface of #1 green. The small holes will help remove this matter and provide oxygen to the roots. We will continue this practice on all the greens over the next couple of weeks. In addition, we have been edging all of the bunkers on the course. This work should be completed later today.