Llanerch Golf Course and External Activities

From the Greens Department and Zeus, we wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Total Turf Golf Services sent us pictures of the before and after of #9 green. These pictures really demonstrate the changes that were made this fall. As for the health of the green, all looks well!

As the weather starts to take a turn towards winter, we covered 9 green. The cover will just keep the green a bit warmer and reduce wind desiccation. We will take it off during the winter to apply fertilizer if the weather allows. The cover will probably stay on until St. Patrick's Day.

Last week, we had the fence replaced on the right side of 9 green. As for the green, it is growing in well. We have mowed it over 20 times since it was sodded. We will cover it with a "greens cover" in the next few days to help promote some more growth. 

As I came on property today, I was able to take this picture of the city of Philadelphia's skyline. Our staff is concentrating on taking care of 9 green and continuing our daily battle to rid the course of leaves. We wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Over the past few weeks, we have been working on improving the fairways. As we did last year, all the fairways, tees and approaches were verticut. Today is the last day of verticutting fairways. All the surfaces were also aerified. The tees and approaches received a thick coat of topdressing sand. The end result is a firmer surface for play, improved drainage and a healthier stand of grass.

We are almost finished 9 green and 10 tee. We have a few minor "loose ends" to tie up over the next few days but all of them are very minor in scope. As for the project goals, we were on time and just under budget!

Yesterday, all the arborvitaes were installed along the driveway by LCC staff. We will install columnar sugar maples on both sides of the main entrance next week. In the picture above, you can see the sand that was spread out in the green side bunkers. The sheets of plastic in front of the green were used to protect the approach from last night's rain. 

As you can see in this picture, Total Turf Construction applied the product Better Billy Bunker to seal the drainage gravel from the sand yesterday. In 2004, we used a fabric liner. This new blinder eliminates the need for the liner. Today, they are adding sand to the bunkers and starting to wire irrigation. LCC staff is installing shrubs along the drive way to separate the green from the main entrance.

Yesterday, all the surrounding drainage was installed. The drainage is connected to the bunker drainage. It also removes surface run off all around the green complex.

Yesterday, we topdressed and rolled the green. Afterwards, we mowed it for the first time. The contractors concentrated on installing drainage around the green surround. Today, we will focus on preparing the approach for sod and installing irrigation. 

The bunker gravel is all but done. We are now putting drainage in the new 10th tee and doing some final shaping around the tee and green complex. We will also start fine tuning the grade of the 9th approach. Sod will becoming early next week.

As we are building the green complex, we also cleared out all the overgrown vegetative plantings along the right side of the green. Now, we have planted 6-7 foot single stem arborvitae. In the next few years, they will grow to 12-14 feet and provide a screen to the building along the green.We will be planting a combination of arborvitae and trees along the main entrance and the 9th green sometime next week.   

After filling in the green's cavity on Monday, we sodded the green yesterday. The sod came from the preexisting 9th green. This morning, we started to sod the bunker surrounds with tall type fescue sod. 

As you can see in this picture, we are installing the internal drainage in the green cavity. Our goal is to finish it today and then start adding the greens grade soil. We plan to to complete the finish grade of the green surface by Monday afternoon. We plan to install the green sod on Tuesday. The irrigation for the green is almost complete and will have water in it by tomorrow.

Today, we started to dig the cavity for the 9th green. It will take roughly 2 days. You will also see the three new roughed out bunkers. The rest of the week will be invested in mainly finishing the green's surface and adding the old sod that we are storing on the right of 9 fairway.

As you can see in the top left of this picture, we were taking pictures with a drone for the construction of #9 green. Aradar Tree Service remove some large pines to the right of the green. The Grounds Staff will remove the remaining spruces and hedges around the green. The driveway and fence line along the right of #9 will have a new hedge installed in the latter part of October. Construction starts October 4th, weather dependent.

I feel like it is Groundhog Day! The forecast is calling dry, hot and breezy days with some cooling at night. Great weather for people. Not so great for plants. We continue to water as much as possible until some rain forms. We would have started some additional slit seeding, aerification and topdressing but we are waiting for rain first. It looks like maybe Sunday night into Monday morning. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

In the past 19 days, we have received almost no measurable rain. The rain would help push the greens and tees to fully heal from aerification. That being said, we are already very close to closing the holes. We are now going to enter a heat wave later today that will last until Saturday, if you believe the forecast. The 2 month forecast is calling for dry conditions to continue until Halloween! Boy, I hope they are wrong!

We are almost done aerification. We aerified the tees, greens, approaches and par 3 fairways. We will continue to aerify other select areas all next week and and topdress sand to tees and approaches. The course will be open tomorrow at 11:00am. Thank you for your patience!

After a very hot and wet July, we are entering August. We have been cleaning up for weeks the storm damage for 3 rain and high wind events in succession. We have Aradar Tree service trying to finish the last of the tree damage this week. The staff is busy with daily golf course preparation and planting seed for the fall. We are just keeping our fingers crossed that the worst of the heat is over but preparing for it to come back!

As of this morning, we have cleaned up almost all the tree damage on #2. We are looking to do work on #8, #10 and #3 tee later today. We plan to have all the bunkers back in shape by noon today. It looks like we will need the tree company Aradar to help us for a few more days. Thanks for your patience.

The storm we had yesterday did some real damage on the course. We lost between 15-20 trees, damaged some of the fence and dropped lots of branches and leaves. We plan to reopen at 3:00pm today. Thanks for your patience.

With all this hot and muggy weather, we had to start running the fan on #18 green. It is on a timer to be off around 6:30pm to 9:00pm. Since its installation, the fan has contributed to the overall health of the green. The gentle breeze reduces the temperature enough to help the bentgrass through the summer.

After a drenching 0.5 inches of rain last nigh, we are busy protecting the turf from the upcoming humid weather. This is the time of year where we try to not start any big projects and keep all our focus on the grass. The hot and sticky weather looks to be in town until Saturday when we might get a short break.

This weekend was one windy one! We spent the days watering as much as possible without giving up our goal of firm and fast. After a very wet May, June has been just as dry. The forecast is calling for some rain towards the end of the week. We will be adding sand to tees, fairways and greens to help keep the surfaces smooth and true during the early part of the week.

Today, we spent the morning "grooming" greens. It is process where we use motorized circular knives to cut lightly through the turf canopy. It helps "stand up" the turf. We than mow the "standing" turf. This make the surface more smooth and consistent. Afterward, we apply a dusting of sand to fill the grooves in. As you can see in the above picture, the grooves are very thin and almost hard to see.

After verticutting the fairways, we started the process of adding topdress sand to the fairways. The sand helps firm up the fairways, improve drainage and smooth out the surface. This is a long process that will take up to 10 days if the weather is reasonable.

If you have played in the last few days, you will see "lines" in the fairways. They are very shallow cuts made into the turf canopy to "stand up" the turf. By doing this, we remove the "chunky" part of the turf plant. It helps reduce the incidence of turf disease and improves the lie of the ball.  

As you can see in this picture from Monday, we are installing lights along the Clubhouse leading to the Fitness Center. They were just completed yesterday and are working just great! As for the golf course, we have carts today. We are still wet from all the rain over the past few days but more firm today. Hope to see you "on the course"!

As you can see in this picture of 11 tee complex, we are irrigating. The rain that has been in the forecast earlier in the week has not come our way. With the exception of last Saturday morning, we have not had a big rain in weeks. We might have some rain tonight but it looks we have a better chance on Sunday. Unseasonable cold temperatures should end over the weekend. 

Yesterday's aerification went as well as could be planned. Today, we have spent time spreading more sand on the greens to smooth them out. This picture was taken right after we applied topdress. The sand was then blown into the aerification hole and into the grass canopy. This will make the greens heal faster and putt better. The hole size is only half the size that we use in the fall.

After a very sunny and dry weekend, we have decided to aerify greens. The aerification holes are very small and should heal rather quickly. The holes in the greens will help with water movement to the root zone, increase the amount of oxygen in the soil profile and assist in getting more sand in the ground.

Just when you thought the weather could not get any weirder, we have a half inch of snow on the ground! This picture was taken at 7:20am today of #1. We are hoping the bright sun will begin to melt the snow soon. We also need the temperature to keep rising. We are currently 34 degrees with almost no wind. We will continue to communicate with the Golf Shop so they can notify you as soon as the snow melts. 

Yesterday's half inch of rain pushed the fairway aerification to today. We have three aerifiers (like the one pictured above) punching holes as of 7:00am this morning. I am hoping they will be done by 4:00pm today. The course is open for play.

Today, we started the process of installing a non-slip material on the foot bridges. This black, plastic netting is designed specifically for golf course bridges. We plan to have most of the bridges done today.

We started the first mow of the year on greens today. The greens are still very brown looking but they should start to "green up" over the next week if the weather stays so warm. This mow will help make the greens much smoother than yesterday.

With the unseasonably warm weather, we mowed fairways yesterday and today. We also rolled the greens in preparation for their first mow of the season tomorrow. With all this continuing warm weather, we will start cutting the tees and approaches to greens next week. This is about 14-20 days ahead of last year.

As the snow falls here at Llanerch, warm weather awaits us next week. This dusting of snow should melt quickly. We do have a small chance of less than an inch of snow between Saturday night/Sunday morning. After that, the temperature will be in the 60's for most of the week. I do not foresee us mowing the greens next week but I do plan to roll them to provide a smoother surface. We will be busy preparing to put water in the irrigation system, cleaning up the course and finishing some tree work. We hope to see you next week!

We are in the process of replacing the fence along Township Line. The cyclone wire fence will be replaced by the aluminum black fence that we have been using throughout the rest of the course. We are hoping to be finished by middle of next week. 

Today, we started to prepare for new aggregate concrete to be poured to replace the slate walk way that leads into the Men's locker room. We are also adding steps (1st picture) from the Manoa Road parking area. The should be open by Saturday afternoon, weather dependent. 

The fourth largest snow storm in Philadelphia history left us with an unofficial 22 inches. This upcoming weather might turn the snow into water very quickly. We are going to concentrate on servicing the seasonal fleet of equipment until we can get back on the course.

After months of unseasonably warm weather, we finally had some snow! We only measured 1/2 an inch but with it being so cold, it is sticking around so far. We will concentrate on salting the lots and refurbishing the equipment. We are also keeping an eye on a potential snow storm late this week. It is too early to tell but worth watching for.