Llanerch Golf Course and External Activities

The construction has begun on 9 green. The construction firm Total Turf has been busy removing all the sod on the green and the surround. We relocated the greens sod onto the range tee for reuse as teeing surface. They have also removed and stock piled the sand from the old bunkers for reuse in the new bunkers. The next few days will focus on shaping out the new green complex. We will use close to 100 tri-axles trucks of soil to build the base. Pictures and more updates will be presented on the blog next week.

The storm that hit all day yesterday and last night dropped close to 2 inches of rain on the course. Some the bunkers had sand washout, a few tree branches fell and we have leaves everywhere. We are currently keeping carts off the course. We will reevaluate around noon.  More details later.

The course is recovering from both 2 inches of rain and aerification. We were able to mow greens, rough and tees today. The fairways are still too wet for mowers. We fertilized some of the greens that seemed to be filling in a little slower than the others. I am still hoping that the greens are 85%-95% healed by the weekend. In the past, the greens have healed in 13-16 days from aerification.

It has been a long time since my last posting. I have been very busy with the outdoor operation and the impending club house renovation. Sorry for the delay. As for the course, we have been fighting the dry weather. It seems to rain all around us but nothing of real for us. We have been concentrating on watering dry spots in the fairways, tees, greens and rough. We have also started to build a new turf nursery of bentgrass beside #5. The rough seems to be holding in considering the lack of rain and the 3rd warmest July on record. We will continue to do a "rain dance" and hope the Mother Nature will give us some well needed rain.

It is day 8 of this oppressive heat wave. If that was not enough, Saturday's forecast is 103 degrees! With no rain in the near future, we are relying on the irrigation system to help us keep the grass cooled off. As you play, you will see irrigation heads popping up throughout the course. That is just is again a way for us to syring larger areas of turf. We will being keeping the rollers in the shop this weekend to protect the greens. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and don't forget to drink plenty of water.

As we enter the fourth day of extreme weather, the staff and I are changing to a more "defensive" mode. We will continue to complete our daily routines but really focus on disease and water management. The turf will be getting a both irrigation at night and hand watering in concentrated dry spots during the day. We will also be scouting for the development of all turf related diseases. The hope is for the hot spell to end sooner than later!

Just when you think it can't get any hotter then yesterday, we get a forecast like today. The weather websites are calling for temperatures close to 99 degrees, high humidity with a few clouds. We plan to do many cycles of syringing of greens today to cool the grass down. The weather is scheduled to "cool" down by Saturday.