This week is for me just about the toughest week of the golf season. Blowing out the irrigation lines on the golf course is a very stressful day to say the least. I rent two 750 cfm air compressors that are basically tied together to function as a 1500 cfm compressor. Bottom line, there is a lot of air that has to be managed throughout the day in keeping just enough sprinklers heads running. If you have too few heads we can run the risk of pipe actually blowing out of the ground and if you have to many heads running then we lose pressure in the lines. I am fortunate to have many valves all around the golf course that I use to move water and air around. The entire process took us 13 hours from start to finish. I moved on to the waterfall on 18 which takes about 6 hours to completely drain, remove pipe and valves. I also, completed the golf course restrooms and the pool lawn irrigation. Everything as of today to ready for the winter.
With the heavy frosts in the mornings lately the turfgrass plants are starting to slow growth and prepare for the winter by storing carbohydrates and building more roots. This can be seen in the sod that we laid on the bunker on 15. The turf is really no longer but the roots are growing like crazy. This is why I really like to work on some sod projects at this time of the year. We stopped mowing all the grass on the golf course the week of the 29th. When you mow the turf you at this time of the year it may start to regrow some new plants above ground. This is not what we want to happen right now. The more we allow the plant to do its own thing the better the chances for winter survival in my mind. If we go out there to just mow the greens they will start to regrow and then the energy will be lost into building roots at this time of the year. We have applied our first application of plant protections for snow mold to all greens, tees, and fairways there will be one more application made towards the end of next week.
We have just about completed the sod work to the right side of 8 green. There is a lot of work that should be done to the left side and we may move to this next. I am trying to fix any low and steep angles near the green in the rough to allow for a smooth transition to the green. I believe this will allow for better shot making if your ball happens to land in these low areas. You not even be able to see what is wrong with the areas that are being fix until your golf ball lands in them. 9, and 14 green banks are the next two that I would really like to work on but I am not sure if we will have enough time to complete these. There are a few more things that would like to complet this fall before the snow stops us all fairways will be spiked agian and we will fininsh core aerting aorund the greens. The aerator was broken and I had to wait on the parts to get it back up and running.
Thank you and it looks like we are going to have a few more day of nice weather I hope to see you out on the golf course.
Neil