Putting the Course to Bed

What do we mean when we say "We are putting the course to bed"? Well, we are basically preparing the course for it's winter rest.

A frosty fall morning

From our perspective, the course is literally sleeping in the winter. The turf begins to go dormant, or cease metabolic activity in the late fall, but we actually begin putting the course to bed long before this occurs, usually in late September to early October.

Fall fertility of the turfgrass is very important. Helping the plant produce and store carbohydrates for the winter will increase its chances of survival. Both timing and  type of fertilizer are very important in ensuring the plant's health as it heads into winter. If we apply too early the plant will use up too many carbs, and if we are too late the plant will not be metabolizing enough produce carbs through photosynthesis. Fertilizers with high potassium are desirable as this is the nutrient that promotes carbohydrate production and storage, as well as silica, which has recently been shown to provide strength in the cells walls of the plant, aiding it in its winter survival.

The next step in putting the course to bed for the winter is when we blow out our irrigation system; this usually takes place in late October before temperatures dip down below zero. This is a laborious task, that requires a commercial sized air compressor and alot of driving around to turn on irrigation heads and quick coupler valves. The whole process usually takes two people about two days to complete.

The mist of Irrigation Blow out

Winterizing our pump house and the course bathrooms are also on the list for putting the course to bed and are usually done around the same time or shortly after the blow-out of our irrigation system.

Applying fungicide to prevent the formation of snow mold pathogens on the turf is the most expensive treatment we apply on the course all year, but for good reason. Without these chemicals, our turf would be mostly desiccated by disease and we would not be able to open the course until June or later, as we try and re-establish the turf. We spray our greens, tees and fairways in early to mid November before the snow begins to fall.

Fungicide Application

Sand topdressing of the greens is one of the last things we usually do before we complete our task of putting the course to bed. Sand topdressing helps protect the crown, or growing point of the plant, from desiccation from wind and cold temperature damage.

While we are completing all of these tasks we still have a variety of other jobs to do on the course:

- Taking in all the course accessories and markers, rakes, etc
- Taking in all the drinking fountains and pond fountains
- Covering memorial benches with poly wrap
- Blowing, sweeping and mulching leaves
- More blowing, sweeping and mulching leaves

When the golf course closes for the winter our job is far from over.. Putting the course to bed properly is one of the most important things we do all year, it helps to ensure we get started on the right foot next spring.

Winter Preparation

Once the course is finally put to bed for the winter we can begin our winter turf maintenance, yes we keep busy right through the winter! If you are interested in what we do for the rest of the winter see my previous post: What-do-you-do-in-the-winter?

Membership Survey Results

We have received the results of our Membership Survey.  Through this survey we are able to gain valuable information about membership expectations and any areas that they feel we should be giving more attention to. Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey!

I am always interested to see the comments and suggestions that people put forward. While we get many compliments on the course, it is the negative comments or complaints that really interest me. While I find some of them humorous, and others just nonsensical, I focus on the better ones and use them as a form of constructive criticism; where can we get better?

Through this survey we have come to a few conclusions:

1) People think my name is Trevor.
2) The bunkers need more sand and should be consistent.
3) The bunkers need more sand and should be consistent.
4) The bunkers need more sand and should be consistent.

Yes, we had an overwhelming response that our bunkers need some work.

If you talk to any Superintendent and ask them what the biggest complaint on the course is, they will tell you, BUNKERS. Bunkers are the most scrutinized aspect of any golf course anywhere. However, try to remember that bunkers are a HAZARD.

Old Tom Morris once said: "Bunkers are not meant to be places of pleasure, they are prisons for punishment and repentance."

Please understand that we are trying to do the best we can with what we have. We are aware, especially after the survey, that we will need to do some more extensive work moving sand in most bunkers and adding sand to about 2 or 3 bunkers that need additions.

Consistency  is a whole other issue. As Superintendents, we have to work with and against mother nature. Rain events, irrigation volume, different subsoils, shape of bunkers, slopes of bunker faces, amount of play, and limited staff all combine to make consistency in bunkers virtually impossible. While we try our best to achieve this, it is just not a realistic expectation.

Yesterday I personally spent 8 hours moving sand and "fluffing up" the bunkers. Not to toot my own horn, but we simply do not have enough time or resources to spend on bunkers for 8 hours every day.


This might help put the scope of things in perspective for you: 

The average yard size in Canada is 6000 sq feet, or .13 acres. 

Our golf course is 126 acres including 3 acres of highly maintained greens, 25 acres of moderately maintained fairways and tees, 3.5 acres of bunkers,  an unmeasured amount of rough and approximately 750 trees.

You maintain your yard, and it probably looks pretty good. That's 1 person for .13 acres (on average)

We have 7 staff  plus myself (superintendent) and an assistant superintendent, (9 people)

This equates to 14 acres per person (on average) including 2 greens per person and 83 trees per person. 

Yes we have a lot to take care of! Not to mention trying to work around golfers and dealing with weather events that always seem to happen right before a big tournament. Murphy's law seems to laugh in the face of golf course maintenance.


Anyway, I seem to have gone a bit off topic here. We have taken many of the suggestions into consideration and have already implemented some of the smaller details. It is our goal to provide you with the best bunker conditions possible. We are also changing the way we rake bunkers, hopefully helping to keep the sand away from the edges and in the middle where the majority of golf balls end up.

Here are a few links to short bunker related videos I would recommend checking out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ZzffW2fbk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LAqF62GpRs&list=PLnU5qUEfww3cOAU8iTQTUpF5S4UqhXJka&index=5


We also completed our fall greens aeration last week. The greens have already fully healed 8 days later and we are in the process of lowing the cutting heights to bring the greens speed back to where we had them, and are getting close already! In case you missed the informative video we made and posted to Facebook and Twitter, I will post a link to it here:

Aeration informative video

Thanks again for everyone who took the time to complete the member survey, we gained some very valuable information which will help us in continuing to improve the conditions we provide for you.

Course Update

This week the golf course is enjoying a much needed break from the dog days of summer. The cooler weather gives our maintenance team the opportunity to undertake a few different cultural activities including: verticutting and topdressing greens, aerating and fertilizing disease/dry spots on fairways and tees, as well as overseeding what remains of the weak areas.

Willow Tree on the 1st hole.

Baby birds, nesting in the willow trunk

Over the last month we have had quite a bit to deal with. At the end of June we had a damaging windstorm which downed many large tree limbs on the course, as well as completely knocking over the old willow on the right side of the 1^st green. We had to bring in an arborist to remove the fallen tree while we dealt with the damage to the rest of the course. Upon removing the trunk of the willow the arborist discovered a number of surviving bird nests. We decided to wait until the birds are old enough to fly away from the nest before continuing with the rest of the removal.

We are still having problems with irrigation water quality; debris in the water clogs the filters in the sprinkler heads, causing them to underperform. The result is dry areas that become weak and susceptible to disease. Currently many of these areas are infected with a disease called anthracnose. 

The good news is that bentgrass is very resistant to this disease; the bad news, poa annua is not. Most of our fairways are poa, and fairways are a very large area. To do a blanket application of fungicide to completely control the disease is in the neighborhood of $12,000. Obviously this is not in the realm of budget, so to do spot applications we are looking between $2000-3,000; however, thankfully, the cool weather reduces the severity of the disease, giving us the opportunity to try and bring these areas back to health with fertilizer. Healthy turf resists disease, so if we can get these areas healthy without the use of fungicides, we can save a lot of money. Last week we purchased $150 of an agricultural grade of Urea fertilizer. We melted this down and added it to water to be sprayed directly on these areas. The benefit of this is that it supplies instant nitrogen to the turf. Hopefully we will see these areas recovering this week, but if we continue to see the anthracnose spreading, we will have to consider purchasing fungicide for spot applications.  

Anthracnose, 1st fairway.

     

Clogged sprinkler head, dry spot, 4th tee

As I mentioned, the underlying issue here is the effluent water. If our sprinkler heads were working properly the turf would be healthy and we wouldn’t have a disease issue. Last week Sam and I spent about 30 hours combined unclogging sprinkler heads, only to have ones we fixed at the beginning of the week clogged again. Very frustrating. I am looking into the costs of different filters and screens we can put right on our effluent mainline. So far the cheapest option is a “basket strainer” which is a cost of $3000, plus installation. 

 

Clogged sprinkler head in action. Dry spot surrounding.

I have talked to the City about the quality of the water, and they have basically told me there are a number of different reasons there could be debris in the water. There is a new farm on the effluent line and the other farms are have been using a lot of water through the heat, as have we. The constant pumping of effluent causes debris and sediment in the system to become agitated into the water and then into our system. Hopefully once the farms begin cutting their hay and stop watering, the demand on the system will be reduced and the water quality will return to normal. In my opinion, the water quality is the biggest issue currently facing our golf course. We do not have the staff to manually clean out each head every week, and Sam and I simply cannot be consumed by doing it ourselves.

 

The 12th Green, June 2015

Despite all these issues, the golf course is still in quite good shape, especially considering we just went through about 20 consecutive days above 30 degrees, many of those days in the high 30’s. We have had many compliments from members and the public lately, which has helped us keep a positive outlook as we head into the rest of the season.

Man V. Mother Nature

Kamloops has finally received the weather we have been waiting for. While our greens have been outstanding so far this year, some areas on our fairways have struggled to recover with the cool, dry weather. Mother nature is a tough opponent and sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we simply cannot get things growing without her cooperation. 

Photosynthesis is the primary process used by plants and to convert light energy, normally from the Sun, into chemical energy that can later be used to fuel the organisms' activities. 

The equation for photosynthesis

Although photosythisis is the key to plant growth, temperature directly affects the rates at which this process will occur. 

How Temperature affects photosynthesis

Grass in our climate grows when the ambient air temperatures are roughly between 10 and 25 degrees Celsius. Grass seed will germinate (sprout) when soil temperatures exceed 21 degrees Celsius. Without these temperatures, photosynthesis will not be efficient enough to promote growth; grass simply will not grow at the rate needed to fill in damaged areas.

Over the last week or so, the course has begun to rapidly heal from the damages of winter. The temperatures that we have been getting are right in the growth wheelhouse for grass. In fact, there is so much growth that we are now having trouble keeping up just with mowing, let alone trying to cultivate, seed, fertilize and repair damaged areas. It often feels like a juggling act with either too many balls or not enough hands, or both. Take someone away from mowing to repair an area and we drop the ball for keeping up on mowing. On the other hand (pun intended) we try to keep up on mowing and course services like filling sand and seed stations, cleaning washrooms and we miss an opportunity to repair an area and drop that ball so to speak.

I have also heard a few of the same questions from a number of members, some have some truth behind them, while others are just rumors. Here are a few questions about the course that I have heard from members lately and how I have responded to them:

Did we lose turf on the fairways because we didn't have water early in the spring?
No, we lost turf on the fairways because of ice formation over the winter, this suffocates the turf, causing it to die. We had a limited amount of water early in the spring, and were irrigating these areas.

But these areas looked fine early in the spring.
Yes that is true. The decay of dead plant material will take some time to show. Living areas green up, while the dead areas decay and turn brown and white. Imagine putting a turkey in the freezer all winter, it'll look pretty good when you take it out, but leave it on the counter for a few weeks, stomp on it, drive on it, and things wont be quite so pretty anymore.

What are we doing to prevent winter damage next year?
We have been aerating, verticutting, overseeding with bentgrass, basically trying to replace as much of the damaged poa annua areas with bentgrass. We will also be using a higher percentage potassium fertilizer this fall to promote better winter hardiness. The higher bentgrass population we can maintain in these chronic damage areas, the better we will be able to winter in future seasons.We will be hitting these areas with cultural practices again in the fall.

How long until these areas are back to normal?
Many of these areas are already fully healed. Most of the 5th fairway and a good portion of the 1st, 11th and 16th fairways all suffered a great deal of winter ice damage. Today, you can hardly see most of these areas, while some of the worst areas are still filling in. Once we get into June, these areas will virtually be fully recovered and back to "normal."

Ice Damage, 2nd fairway, April 21 (Top), May21 (bottom)

Ice Damage, 3rd fairway, April 2 (Top), May20 (bottom)

Ice Damage, 5th fairway, May 1 (Top), May25 (bottom)

I think some people might be forgetting how much damage was done this winter, and just how far things have come in the last month. Sure a few areas are still filling in, but I think it is a testament to our Turf Care team who has been able to bring these areas back despite being short staffed and battling mother nature.

Without mother natures cooperation with warmer overnight temperatures and some precipitation, our efforts may go unnoticed for some time. It takes a great deal of patience to do what we do, and sometimes a little patience, and maybe a little rain dance, can go a long way; I think that is evident in how the course looks and plays today. Things have certainly come along way since we opened on February 27th this year. We are in store for another great season.

Men's Night May 20th 2015

Turf Grass Health: Winter Kill

We have had a few comments lately about the course being very very dry. I wish I had been able to sit down and address this issue earlier, but until now we have been busy just trying to keep the course from getting too dry.

We have been waiting to be hooked up to the city effluent water, as we do every spring. This spring we had an exceptionally early snow melt, allowing us to open the course early (Woohoo!). Usually we do not need to begin irrigating the course until early April, but the early melt this year required irrigation to start by mid March. We have been bugging the people from the City who are involved with getting the effluent going and they were trying their best to get us water earlier than usual, but as I understand, chlorine was back ordered and delayed the process about two weeks.

We are able to pump a small amount of water from the river into our irrigation pond, (thanks to our Links Director, Robin Johnson) but until we are hooked up to effluent water, our system cannot run to its full potential and we cannot irrigate overnight. We can manually irrigate during the day, using a hand held radio (walkie talkie) to communicate with our central irrigation system, but this becomes difficult as more and more people are on the course golfing. We irrigate in the priority of greens, tees, dry fairway areas, fairways, and then everything else. 

A few people were concerned that we were losing turf on fairways and tees but I can assure you, these areas were already damaged, they were damaged before the snow even melted. We are not able to see this damage until the turf around these areas begins to grow and green up, leaving areas of brown and white turf very visible. These areas are known as "Winter Kill" and can are caused by a number of different factors:

1. Ice damage - Thaw and freeze cycles during the winter cause ice to accumulate in low lying areas, especially on fairways.The ice suffocates the turf, causing a build up of toxic gases like carbon dioxide. You can see the result of this in many low-lying areas on the fairways.

   

   Low area, ice damage (anoxia)

2. Crown Hydration - This occurs when water, either from snow melt or rain, accumulates and rapidly freezes. The plant is essentially tricked by the water available and begins breaking dormancy. As the plant takes in water and if the temperature rapidly drops, the freezing process causes the water to expand as it forms ice and breaks the plants cell walls, much like a frozen glass bottle full of water. Some of the damage you see in low lying areas may also be caused by crown hydration.

   

   Ice formation beneath snow cover

3. Dessication - This is just a fancy word for removal of water. Dessication takes place when the turf is exposed to the elements for long periods of time. Snow cover is blown off of an area and over time, the wind and sun cause the evaporation of moisture stored in the plant. After a certain amount of time the plant becomes too dry and dies. You can see this type of damage on some of the high mounded areas of the fairways or on elevated tees.

High and Dry - Dessication area

The good news is that the type of grass we have on our fairways is mainly "poa annua" which is actually an annual plant. Much like the annual flowers in your garden, poa is supposed to die each winter. To ensure its survival poa produces millions of seeds in the fall to re-seed itself in the spring, and then has another episode of mass seed production in the late spring to ensure its survival after the heat of summer.

Areas like this will fill back in quite nicely with warmer weather and fertilzer

Now that we have effluent water (hooked up on April 10th, yay!) we are able to supply enough water to these areas that require some extra maintenance. Once we get some warmer weather, the poa seeds from last fall will begin to germinate and fill in the damage. We have already aerated these areas to allow for better penetration of water, air and nutrients into the soil. We have applied an initial application of fertilizer and will be continuing with more to help these areas fill in faster. We also try and overseed some of the chronic areas with bentgrass, which has a better tolerance for ice, to help prevent future damage.

Aerated fairway areas, allows water and and fertilizer to reach soil easier

Although the course was very dry, the damage you see is from winter kill, not from being too dry. With our maintenance practices and some warmer weather I can assure you that with in a month these areas will hardly be noticeable. We usually see some damage in the spring, this year, although it was a milder winter, we still had quite a few freeze-thaw cycles causing a bit more damage than we have seen in the last few years. If you ever have any questions about the course, please feel free to stop by my office or track me down on the golf course, I always enjoy a good conversation about turf! If you would like to read more about winter damage in Canada, please click this link: Winter Kill

-Travis

Trees and Turf

Lately I've been reading more and more twitter comments and blog entries from Superintendents about cutting down trees on the golf course. They've been to referred to as giant weeds and basically a nuisance to any turf manager and golf course.

Shade issues causing damage to turf

Tree's compete for nutrients with the turf; they cover turf with shade, limiting photosynthesis and reducing turf health, as well as reducing air flow and creating a higher probability of turf disease. Trees make a mess in the fall, shedding leaves and debris everywhere, increasing labour costs. They can even block beautiful vistas and views! Yikes. While these are all true and valid reasons to remove a tree on a golf course, I can't help but think things are trending in the wrong direction.  Some people, golfers, superintendents and even architects may be forgetting how important trees can be to the integrity of a golf course.

Aerial View of Kamloops Golf Club

At Kamloops Golf and Country Club, our course is defined by its fairways lined by mature and beautiful trees. If we adopted the thinking that tree's are weeds, it would severely alter our course's playability and architecture. Sure there are a few trees I would like to see get into an accident with a chainsaw, that would definitely make my life easier. And what kind of Superintendent doesn't like to fire up the chainsaw and go cut some wood, "OUH-OUH-OOUH" (Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor Grunt), it's pretty much the most
"manly" thing one can do. But I think there are other solutions out there, ones that don't involve full tree removal

Arbourist removing standing dead tree

We have worked with the Board of Directors to get an annual Tree Maintenance budget, which I would love to see doubled, but of course... we just can't fit it all in. Each winter we work with an Arbourist to remove hazardous limbs and some trees that have basically
died. We also try to save some of that budget to reduce the tree canopies in areas that may be causing an issue with the turf. This type of arbourculture, known as "crown thinning," and will help light and air pass through the tree canopy to reach the turf; a compromise in the relationship between the turf and the trees.

A few years ago one of the the local courses here in the Kamloops area was ravaged by pine beetle and was forced to remove 1000's of trees. After the tree's were gone and the native grasses filled in, I think the course was changed for the better. A course a few hours up the road has removed some overgrown trees that blocked beautiful views of the adjacent river and mountains. In both these situations removing trees improved the course.

The 10th Fairway, mature trees

Some courses have installed large fans to increase air flow in heavily treed areas. However, these can be expensive to purchase and maintain. Many places with smaller budgets must remove trees. Each situation is different and I'm not suggesting to stop all tree removal, but to just think about the purpose of the tree and it's role on the golf course before deciding to cut it down. Maybe there are other options, maybe there are not and the tree has to go. The relationship between turf and trees is a difficult one, but the relationship between trees and the golf course is also important, lets try not to forget that.