Llanerch Golf Course and External Activities

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. 

It continues to amaze me where readers live who view this blog. In October of 2011, we had over 27 countries on the list. Since then we have the following to add: Iceland, Spain, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Qatar, Malaysia, Israel, Cote d' Ivoire, Bangladesh, Guam, Monaco, Mongolia, Turkey, Trinidad and Tobago, China, Norway, Ghana, South Africa, Georgia, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Nepal and Algeria. I want to again to thank everyone from all countries for reading the blog. I hope you enjoy it.

We received almost 1.5 inches of rain in the past 24 hours. We have some very wet areas especially on 5,1,7 and 10 fairway. That being said, we will have carts after 10:00am today. This "extra" time lets the fairways and rough drain some more. Please exit to the cart paths when you see the green and white stakes. This includes not driving in the rough in the rough after the stakes, please. If you have any questions, please contact the Golf Shop. We hope to you enjoy your round of golf today.

  Looks like rain might be coming tomorrow. We are currently below the average for the amount of rain fall at this time of year. That is not to say that it has been very hot, also. The golf course has handled the weather well but could use a good old fashion rain. We are preparing for potential rain by applying sand to low areas in some fairways. 13 tee is growing in quite nicely. We are hoping to open it within the next 7 days.