Llanerch Golf Course and External Activities

Today is a tree maintenance day. We had an arborist company come to the course to trim some trees on 5, 15 and 11. We had the company cut out all the dead and/or damaged branches off. We do this for safety and to extend the life of the trees. It also makes the trees more appealing to view. 

As you can see from this picture (from the safety of the Grounds Maintenance Facility), we have just received an intense lightning rain storm. We measured close to a half of an inch of rain in 15 minutes! The greens will be slower because of the heavy rain. The sky are clearing now. The course was dry enough before the rain to allow carts today.

I had the pleasure of spending a half day at the US Open at Congressional Country Club. It is always educational to observe the techniques that the host club is using to prepare for the Open. I also had time to meet with other superintendents and USGA agronomists to trade ideas on how to make our course a better place to play. From what I saw, it will be a great test of golf.

The new putting green is open for play today! It seems to be just a little bit slower than the other greens. It takes a solid two year for a new green to "mature". Once it has, the speed will match the other "older" greens. I hope you enjoy it.

Now that the usually hot weather of last week has passed by, we are going to be busy improving "playability" of the course. The first step is grooming the fairways and greens today. "Grooming" is a process of mechanically standing the turfgrass straight up. This increases green speed and minimizes thatch build up. We will also lightly topdress the greens and fairways with sand. The sand firms up the surface, improves drainage and reduces potential scalping when we mow. The greens will be finished today. The fairways will take us any where between 2 to 4 day depending on the weather. 

The course survived the heat! We don't usually see the weather become so hot this early in the season. This time last year, the temperatures were around 80 degrees. The last two days this week were right around 97 degrees! We also received some needed rain last night. We are now back out rolling greens to increase green speed. The course should be fun to play today and over the weekend.  

If you look at this picture closely, you will see two green foot prints surrounded by damaged turf. This is the result of someone either spraying sunscreen or bug spray on their legs. I am all for protecting yourself from the harmful sun exposure and/or insects but both of those products damage or kill grass. Please apply these sprays away from the greens, tees and fairways. Thanks. 

An excessive heat warning has been posted for the Philadelphia tri-state area for today and tomorrow. Instead of roll the putting greens both of these day, we are only going to mow them. Our "rule of thumb" is if the temperatures are above 92 degrees, we do not roll. The roller just adds too much stress to the turf. Once the temperatures lower, we will start rolling them again. That being said, I just putted on a few of them this morning and they are still rolling very well.

It is that time of year where algae and weeds start to grow in the ponds. To combat that issue, we have an outside contractor treat our ponds. The company applies environmentally friendly products that reduce both the algae and weeds. All applications are monitored and regulated by state and federal laws. The contractor is also certified by both above stated regulatory bodies. This is our 6th year using this company.

Ever wonder who is reading this blog about Llanerch? Well, I am proud to say over 1600 hits have been posted since inception. The overwhelming are from the good old USA. To my surprise, we now can add 12 other countries to the list! We have India, Mexico, Canada, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Russia, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Belarus. Llanerch is becoming well known around the world!

The golf course is starting to really dry out. Golfers should be start seeing us water greens by hand. We do this to add water where it is needed and not where it is not. We also started to "level" the depth of the bunker sand in green side bunkers. We are hoping to finish this task today. The bunker sand will be somewhat "softer" in some spots until the sand "packs" down tighter. The sand will also be softer because it is drying out. We will also use a gas powered tamper to speed up the process of  "packing" in select bunkers.