Llanerch Golf Course and External Activities

The contractor is almost done building the new cart path on #18. They completed the extension of the cart path on the right side of #9 yesterday. They will be adding a new cart path on the left side of #5 green by the end of the week. We, on the other hand, are mow greens, fairways, rough and doing divots on par 3 tees. The plan for next week is start sodding the construction wounds in the rough on 18 while continuing to prep the course for play. 

As I write this blog entry, the course looks like it is located in London, England. We expect the fog to burn off  by noon. We are busy rolling greens, weeding bunkers, spraying fertilizer, sweeping the rough, cleaning up stump grindings, weeding flower beds and cutting some new cups. The fairways aerification was completed on Monday. Next few days will center on fertilizing as much of the course that we can, weather dependent. The fertilizer will help to establish the root system and begin the recovery process from aerification. As for projects, cart path work started on the 18th yesterday and then the contractor will be fixing the cart path by 5 green and extending the path on 9. I can't thank the winter Grounds Maintenance Staff (all 6 of them!) enough for their hard work. With all the warm weather, our work load has doubled. They have really pushed hard to deliver the best course they can. We are counting down the days until the H2B Visa employees come back on April 2 to help ...

Any superintendent who tries to maintain a clean stand of bentgrass will tell you poa annua or "poa" is the enemy. It is an annual grass that produces seed for about 8 months a year and then dies. It is considered a weed by superintendents because of its poor overall quality. Quite frankly, I despise this grass. It is probably my number one concern and we work all year to keep it in check but I need your help! This picture (CLICK on it) will show you a poa plant inside an unfixed divot from 15 fairway. I can not say it enough, PLEASE replace your divot and fix ball marks on greens. This is how the poa invades the stand of bentgrass. I can't begin to explain how hard it is to remove it without hurting the existing bentgrass. I appreciate all the help you can lend us.  

Back on March 7th, we started to fill the irrigation pipes with water. We had a few irrigation leaks but overall the system is in very good shape. We hope to have the system at 100%  by Monday. We were also able to aerify, topdress, roll and fertilize all the greens by the end of the day yesterday. This photo shows the irrigation system being used to water in the fertilizer into the soil profile. We are doing all this work a week to ten days early because we have had such a warm March. We hope we can see you out on the course so you too can enjoy this great weather.

The 18th green is right on schedule. It has benefited from the mild winter. We continue to lower the mowing height slowly and add sand topdress to smooth the surface. The cart path is scheduled to be adjusted more to towards the creek in the next few weeks. We are still planning to have the hole open by April 15th.

Next week will have some unusually warm temperatures. This is a great opportunity for us to start aerifying. We plan to aerify greens on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The course will be open for play on Tuesday and Wednesday but closed on Monday. We plan to fill the aerification holes with sand and roll them so they are smooth for play. The aerification holes will be medium in size. Normally, the greens take 10-17 days to completely heal, depending on the weather. Thanks for your patience.

As we start the month of March, the plugging of poa annua continues. For last few days, the Assistant Superintendents have been taking bentgrass plugs from the turf nursery and replacing any poa on the green surface. We have a very low population of poa (which is a weed) but we have to try to keep it all out. The majority of poa that germinates is a result of unfixed ball marks. I can not stress it enough that we need everyone to fix ball marks. Thanks for helping!