After a great weekend of football, hopefully you were able to get in a quick round of golf the weather is still holding it's own at least for a few more days.
The golf course is finally drying out. The month of October was cloudy and fairly wet. We may of needed some of the moisture to recharge the soil system but the cloudy overcast days really kept the soil too wet. What do you want for the winter in terms of soil moisture, Well in my opinion, wet soil and overcast humid days only brings disease. Dry sunny, low humidity really lower the chance for disease. this is important during the winter snow covered months. The plant protections that I have applied for snow mold, picture below,
on the fairways, green and tees are supposed to last the entire winter. I really do not have the option of reapplying these chemicals in the winter once is usually enough. Each year is different and somewhat of a gamble on timing, rates, and choosing the best control option. There is considerable research in snow mold diseases to help me in making the right decision but every golf course is unique. Wet weather breaks down the chemical and is basically a breading ground for disease including snow mold. I feel that I have made the right choice and timing seems to be good. So this is one the reasons why I am enjoying the weather now.
We have really made some good progress on the golf course over the last week. I did mow the greens last Wednesday and also rolled the greens on Friday last week. This will be the last time that the greens will be mowed or rolled for the season. I have almost completed the rock wall on 15 mostly sod work that needs to be fininshed. I decided to add a little more sod to the end of the wall to level off the slope. I found some pictures that I had taken of the wall in 2007. You can see that there was a pretty good slope backthen but the rocks really were in ok shape, the end project made a big improvement aesthetically to the golf hole.
2007
I have completed moving most of the soil and have leveled off the teeing area but still need to work the soil a little more. We hopefully will sod the tee before the end of the year and be able to have it open for play before summer golf.
Thank you
Neil