Greens and Carts

#7 Green was opened for play this afternoon

The weather this week has been great for the golf course, and it has shown a great deal more growth.  This time of year the multiple rain events followed by warm temps with sun improve the turf daily.  As stated last week all that is holding back a few greens, and carts is the course being able to recover from the traffic.  

Yesterday greens were rolled once again to prep for a 2nd cut today.  

7 green improved enough in the last week to open. 

 5 and 10 green are just about ready, just need to dry out a bit more.   Remember the damage to 5 and 10 from a year ago?  Many of the plants on those 2 greens have not been established for a year.   With that said, I still see them opening this weekend, and staying open as long as they take play and traffic as well as the other greens.

2 green has improved from last week, but still is not ready. 

16 green is always the slowest to wake up.  That is because of the lack of sunlight from being in the shadows of the 2 elms trees.  Also much of this green also was sodded less than a year ago.

Carts will allowed on a day to day basis.

We plan to have carts tomorrow Friday March 18. As long as we don't get too much rain from thunderstorms popping up this afternoon.

Saturday has a high in the mid 40's so there will most likely be a delay until carts can go.   

Weather will be a huge issue with carts going forward.  The forecast has the area receiving snow this Sunday/Monday.  

Please keep a majority of cart traffic IN FAIRWAYS.  They are able to recover much better than the rough 

Hopefully weather will cooperate and we can have everything open a week from now.  

Again please be patient with conditions of bunkers and some rough areas.  The crew is working hard and progressing every day, but we are still waiting for many of our seasonal staff members to return.  We will catch up very soon to the standards expected 

Links Update

An update seems long overdue, but there was no true transition between winter and spring this year.  Friday's snowstorm covered the course for the weekend, and the rest of the snow melted by Monday afternoon.  The water from melting snow, along with warmer temps and longer days (More Sun!) woke up the Poa in greens.  So Monday, Tuesday, and today have been spent prepping greens for the season.  

Triplex Cutting greens Monday afternoon

Many greens are ready and are being opened for play this afternoon.  We are evaluating on a green to green basis, so a few greens will remain temps until they show enough growth to recover from foot traffic.

Fresh Cup on 18 

The season came quick this year, and the crew is working hard to get the course prepared.  Please bare with us as we have prioritized prepping and opening playing surfaces over getting the course cleaned to our standards.  Bunkers, rough, and tree lines are still in need of spring cleaning.   The crew is making great progress, and we will catch up quickly.

I'm looking forward to the 2016 season!  The course, greens, and carts will go as soon as each area shows it can grow and recover from daily stresses.   If the weather stays this way it will be very soon. 

See you around The Links soon.

Food for Thought:

March 6th, 2016

Twitter/Blog Post:  March 10, 2015 

Finally Some Rain

Finally received some much needed rain earlier this week.  Rainfall total from Sunday night into Monday morning was just over 1.3".  This was more rain than April and May combined!  May was the driest ever recorded, and April only gave us 1 storm of about 1" of rain.  

Overall from Sunday night through Wednesday morning we received 1.85" of rain.

Rain gauges have not been used much in 2015

Please Keep Carts Out of All Fescue Areas on the course

Overhead shot of 2 fairway

Recovery

6 days of recovery to 17 green.  17 is now open for play 

There has been a great deal of recovery the last few weeks at Rockville Links.  Many areas are growing out of the winter ugliness. Sometimes damage is just to the tip of the leaf blade and once growth starts it is removed after a few times cutting the grass. 

Recovery over 2 weeks to 10 green.  Some areas received cup plugs and sod this week after the picture.

Areas like 9,10 and 5 green are mixed with grass that grew out of winter damage and spots of winter kill.  Winter kill areas received more attention this week.  Some larger areas were sodded, and smaller dead spots were cup plugged.  Then after the greens were aerated and seeded with bent grass.

Hopefully these cold nights will go away and all the seed put into these greens the last few weeks will germinate soon.  Covers will remain on 5, 9, 10 &16 green to help germination, and fresh sod to root.

Before, during, and after sod to 9 green. 

Repair & Restoration

It has been another very busy week at Rockville Links.  The crew is still working very hard to get the course clean.  The Links is usually prepped for the season in March, but with this long winter there is still work.  Most years we are full staff the week of St. Patrick's  Day, but this was only the second week with everyone back to work.  

Filling new bunkers with sand.

Most years the only focus is cleaning the course, but this year we also have to finish up the Restoration.  Everything is moving along very well.  If the weather cooperates, everything turf related will be finished up on these holes next week. There will still be some irrigation additions to finish up.  Then, it is just getting the turf to mature enough for daily play.  The plan is to have the newly restored holes ready for Opening Shotgun.

Winter Damage on 17 green.  Area has improved a lot over the last 2 weeks.  This area received the extra aeration and seeding. Please stay off these areas to speed recovery.

Winter injury has been getting better in many areas.  Areas still showing damage were aerated again pulling plugs followed by a solid seeding tine that does not pull a plug.  A mixture of bentgrass seed was then applied with soil amendments and fertilizer.  Many areas have shown more recovery in the last few weeks, but some areas will require us to plug out bad/dead turf and replace with plugs from the nursery established last year.

9, 5, and 10 still have the worst injury and remain covered to help recovery and seed to germinate.    There are isolated spots on many greens that look like the picture above.  Please treat these spots as ground under repair and keep foot traffic off as much as possible.  Less traffic and stress will help these areas heal quicker.

Pressurizing and testing the irrigation system.  So far only a few expected issues. 

The weather was great this week, and the weekend looks amazing.  Higher temps, plenty of sunshine, and high winds over  the last week have finally dried the course out.  

Over the next few weeks, you will see some irrigation running during the day.  This is to make sure there are no major issues and the system is working properly before full overnight irrigation cycles.    

Aeration and Restoration

10, 9, and 5 are the greens with the most winter damage. 

The whole crew came back to work this week.  Aeration was scheduled for the week, but once again the weather has been tricky.  Newly renovated greens (2, 3, and 16) were all aerated along with greens that were damaged from winter.  Damaged areas were then seeded, and all greens were sprayed with fertilizer to help them grow out of damage.  

I believe the greens will grow out of most damage, but we are still waiting on growth to start.  The forecast looks great this weekend and all next week!  The turf should catch up quickly with the right conditions. 

Crew adding , compacting, and checking depths of sand in newly Restored bunkers.

Most of the focus this week was to finish up Restoration.  The crew has been working hard finish off drainage in bunkers so sand could be added.  New sod laid in the fall on greens and fairways all took aeration very well. This is important for establishment and also for smoothing the new playing surfaces. 

Fairways were aerated today.  An outside company comes in to pull the cores, Rockville Links staff cleans up.  Cleanup is always 2 day process, with the poor weather it is taking some extra effort to keep pace.  Today we will clean and sweep up as many cores a possible.  Friday fairways will be cleaned a second time. Also,  irrigation heads/yardage markers will be cleaned and trimmed,  then all divots will be filled. 

Why Cover Greens?

16 and 2 greens have now been covered for close to 2 weeks.  These two greens were covered because of all the new sod laid during restoration and expansions last fall.   The covers were put on to help the sod root better with the slow start to spring this year.  

Covers insulate and keep heat underneath just like using a blanket.  This helps to keep the soil and plant warmer during cold nights.  

The covers are helping.  After checking under them Monday afternoon the turf is starting to wake up and grow out of some winter damage.  Surface and Soil temperatures are also higher than greens without covers

Winter damage to the surface of  9 green

The decision was made Tuesday afternoon to cover greens 5, 9, and 10.  These three greens have the largest amount of winter damage.  The covers will help the soil temps warm up quicker over the next week, and hopefully we see new growth coming through in damaged areas. 

With the slow start to spring this year, there needs to be some growth before we put traffic and added stress on playing surfaces.  Each green will be handled different this spring.  Hopefully the weather cooperates and there are some warmer night time temps soon!