The rainy weather has still continued into July a little bit and that brings along a friendly reminder. When it has recently rained please try your best to stay off fairways and avoid any obviously wet areas. After the last few storms we have had quite a bit of damage from people driving golf carts in areas they shouldn't be. We try our best to keep the course open to carts after storms, but if damage continues then we will have to start closing the course to carts until things are dry.
Damage on fairway from carts after a storm
Summer time also means summer students working at the golf course. This is a great thing as it allows us to get done a lot of the random, yet very important jobs that frequently get put off. These include things like trimming, bunker edging, seeding, etc. Our students have completed the bunker edging around all the greens already. They have worked very hard for us so far and done a great job!
Bunker after being edged
We recently had a disease called dollar spot show up on our tees. I was able to diagnose it quickly and spray for it before it caused any damage. It was completely cured a couple days later and there are now no signs that we ever even had it. As usual our take-all patch is still showing up on our greens. We continue to treat it but it is managed. It bounces from green to green throughout the course and will appear as purple and brown patches that would appear dry. The disease is definitely under control now though and will show up but not cause any damage. We have been fighting it for two years now so we have our program for managing it figured out now and it is doing its job. Unfortunately as I've mentioned before though, we are in year two of what is typically a five year program to get rid of the disease.
Dollar spot on our tee boxes.
This week we have finally begun the major work in getting the valley flooded holes back in play. We have been busy for the last month getting the irrigation back in an operational state. Now we have begun roto-tilling the holes to work up the soil. We will then be hydroseeding the entire area hopefully beginning next week. We had hoped to have hole 8 back in play by now. Irrigation problems have been stopping the hole from being opened but we are hoping to have them figured out soon and hopefully have the hole open in the near future.
Well that is all the news that we have for you for now. If you ever have any questions about what we are doing please do not be afraid to track me down and ask. I hope the summer is great for you and your golf game is top notch!
Beautiful sky over hole 15
