What a change in the weather still no rain and 2 very hard freezes over the weekend. Since the third week in August we have only received .5 inch of rain. And very little before, that makes for great golf but we sure could use a really good soaker. We did some digging the other day and even down 3 feet the ground is very dry.
The ground temperature has remained very cold for over a week, this pretty much stops the growth of the turf but not the roots. This is the time of the year that we really need to encourage good rooting. Yesterday, we finally completed the core aerating the approaches. Today, we will finish the few tees that we have left on the front nine and then the plans will be to change out the coring tines and install a solid tine for the greens next week. Monday and Tuesday all the greens will be solid tined as well as topdressed at the same time. My goal is to lightly topdress weekly until November to help protect the crown of the plant for winter. With the slowed growth we are not mowing on a daily basis anymore. We will roll the greens every few days and add in a mowing if needed. The type of bentgrass on our greens basically shuts down any growth when the ground temperatures are near 50. We really have to be careful and not to cause more damage then its worth at this time of the year. There is no recovery right now !! and we have to be careful and not cross the line.
We have a few more weeks of being fully staffed and as time allows we will be working on a few projects this week. One project that I have not talked about is we will be adding a new white tee on hole 9. This tee will be 50 yards up from the current location. What this will allow is your drive should end up near the rough before the swale and give you a fighting chance to get your second shot up too the upper section of the fairway. I watched many golfers over a couple of days and made observations of drives, issues regarding the second shot and basically playing the hole. Its a tough one everyone knows that. I am not trying to make it easier just more playable for the player that plays the white tees.