Sunday June 29th- 2.3" rain, Course Open, no carts.

I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at the golf course this morning. Since yesterday afternoon 2.3" of rain fell since and it was extremely heavy during the early evening hours. The golf course is open because the greens drained great overnight. The decision to install drainage in the greens 6 years ago continues to pay off day after day.

Spilled drinks CAN kill turf!

Please be careful when you have drinks on the golf course (especially alcoholic). Any spills will damage the turf which would takes weeks to recover. Place bottles, cans and glasses off the greens, fairways and tees while hitting your next shot. Thank you!

Fairway topdressing today.

We will be topdressing with straight sand the fairways today and tomorrow. By doing this, the sand over time can improve the soil (many applications), help aide in reducing thatch and smooth the surface. We will apply approximately 10 tons per acre, which sounds like a lot but really is not. That would provide maybe a 1/8" layer of sand. This rate is the maximum we would apply during this time of the season, the cooler temperature in the spring and fall would allow us to apply more for a thicker layer. We are planning for another application in October.

Staff photo 2015

We gave it our best shot!

The hybrid Bermudagrass experience has run it's course after two years. This grass could not tolerate the worst two winter's in recent memory. WVCC's membership has been very patient in the spring of both 2014 and 2015 but the timing of regrowth was not in concert with usage demand.
This spring we even tried to overseed the practice approaches with perennial ryegrass to act as a nursery cover while the Bermudagrass  established again. But as of this date, we decided to move in a different direction. The 30,000 square foot practice tee was sodded with Kentucky Bluegrass and today we are laying 15,000 square feet of Bentgrass to the larger area of the practice approach.
The practice tee is open for play today but the newly sodded area of the approach will have to wait a couple of weeks to open.

Traffic control!

In an effort to reduce the amount of yellow stakes and rope on the golf course, we  instead went with the green and white post placed along the path. As this picture illustrates there may be some spots that "scream out" yellow stakes and rope. We will monitor this situation and adjust as needed. 

Total team effort when aerating fairways.

The process of aerating and then cleaning up the fairways is a very time consuming task. The actual time it takes just to punch the holes into turf is a small part of the job. After the fairway is aerated the cores must dry out.....but not too much. There is a fine line between a core that breaks up easily and one that is as hard as a brick. A tractor with a large steel mat does a great job breaking up the cores. Then a tractor mounted blower will concentrate the organic matter into piles which are then picked up by hand. the area will be blown off again to create additional piles of debris. When these are also picked up, the entire fairway is blown off and rolled with water filled rollers to tighten the turf.

Last fairway aerated for spring of 2015!

This shows the 18th fairway during the aeration process. After the plugs are dragged and blown into piles, they are picked up and removed. When the fairway is clean of organic debris it will then be rolled, watered and ready for play.

Cold morning predicted for Saturday !

Temperatures at or below 30 degrees are predicted for Saturday morning. If the ground is frozen rather than just frost we may decide not to cut greens that day. Being that cold, green speeds may not be effected.

New restroom open!