Overall the golf course is doing extremely well for late July.
Greens are holding up to the heat and responding to moisture, collars have taken a little bit of beating with weeds starting to encroach, we have guys out hand pulling the weeds so they don’t get on the greens. Fairways have been the biggest surprise this summer in their performance, the combination of products we rotated into our program this spring, the upgraded irrigation control system and upgraded pump control panel are paying off and were seeing the benefits.
Tees have taken it the hardest this summer, while we’ve been able to stay on top of the divots, for the most part, there’s a lot of moisture related tee issues.
We’ll be diving into those issues in August to see if
we can’t balance the moisture out.

Grounds Crew Maintenance will be doing the “Fall” aerification of the greens August 2^nd and 3^rd. We will be aerating 9 holes each day, on August 2^nd we will complete holes 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 6, 7, 8, 9. Holes 10, 4, 5, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 will be open for play and will be played in that order. August 3^rd we will complete holes 10, 4, 5, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 with holes 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 6, 7, 8, and 9 open for play and played in that order. Wednesday, August 4^th all 18 greens will be open for play. We are using a small 3/8” tine with the goal of removing thatch from the top profile of the green. We will be seeding the greens with 007 bent-grass at the same time along with topdressing. While this will be one of the earliest aerifications I’ve ever done, our tournament schedule, both member and outside tournaments, the end of August, September and October dictated the timing. This a great opportunity to add more bent-grass to the greens and build on the foundation we started this spring.

Next week GCM will be re-sodding the 1^st tee set as well as the driving range tees to Tahoma Bermuda grass. This is the same variety we have on the 10^th tee and will take the summer heat much better than the bent-grass. This will also allow us to utilize the grass tees on the driving range during the summer months.
For the re-sodding of the first tee we will move all the tee markers to the ladies tees, sod the other tee sets, and then sod the ladies tee once we can open the other tee sets. This should take 5-10 days depending on the rooting of the new sod.
We plan to strip the tees on Monday, July 26^th with the new sod coming Wednesday, July 28^th. The driving range will be closed the morning of the 28^th while we lay the new sod.

Everyone on the GCM staff appreciates the support and kind words the members have shared the past few weeks.
We are all working hard to provide the best playing conditions possible and
the compliments we’ve received encourage us in our efforts.

Peter Danaher
Grounds Superintendent