Llanerch Golf Course and External Activities

Today marks the end of July and it has been one heck of a month! It will go down as the second wettest and the tenth hottest July in Philadelphia history. It is crazy to think that this July will still be the tenth hottest with the last 6 days being well below average in temperature. As for the golf course, we just completed light topdressing of the green and approaches. We have started our annual process of slit seeding the rough with tall type fescue grass. We hope to see you on the course soon!

I don't have to tell any one that it's really hot this week. We just tied the record of most days (26) in a row that the night temperature did not got below 70 degrees! I just came off the course to type this post at the temperature is 92 degrees but the heat index is 105 degrees when you consider humidity. The course has been holding in there pretty well considering the weather. I hope everyone enjoys what should be a bit cooler weekend! FYI.....the post picture is of the sun over 16 green taken at 5:58am today.

This picture says it all! We are in the second day of what looks to be a six day long heat wave. Yesterday we had a temperature of 95 degrees and a heat index of 101 degrees! As you can expect, the grass is not a big fan of this weather. To reduce stress on the turf, we will do most of our needed mowing in the morning when it is cooler outside. As I have stated before, we will not be rolling the greens until the heat wave is over but we are still mowing greens every day. Stay cool!

Just when I thought the course was starting to dry out, we were hit by over 1.1 inches of rain this morning. The rain only lasted roughly 45 minutes but did leave some wet conditions. The staff has just started to fix the sand in some bunkers that were washed out by the rain. We should have the bunkers in great shape by tomorrow morning. As you can expect, we have to restrict carts from the course today.  

Where did all that cool spring weather go? We just came out of a four day heat wave as defined by the regional weather service. From July 4th -July 7th we averaged highs in the low 90's and low temperatures in the lower 70's. When you add drenching rain, it is not exactly "ideal" grass growing weather but we are holding our own! We have spent most of our time "defending" the grass from heat stress damage. One of those steps was to not roll greens this weekend. We have always followed the rule that once it gets past 90 degrees, we stop rolling. We starting rolling the greens yesterday and today to help smooth them out. We are hoping to duck some of the possible thunderstorms over the next 48 hours so we can dry out and firm up a little more.

As I write this post, it is raining at Llanerch. We have received over 10 inches of rain in the month of June. This year's June is the wettest June since the NOAA kept records! How does this fact effect the golf course, you might ask. First, long periods of rain is not good for turf. The water pushes the oxygen out of the soil profile. The lack of oxygen makes the grass turn yellow and soft. This is why you see us aerify some of the wetter greens with very tiny aerification tines to promote air movement and help dry them out. Also, We will be adding more sand to certain areas to help drainage. Lets hope sunny skies are coming soon.