Course Update 11/1/12

November Golf Course Update

As the traditional golf season winds down and the leaves start to fly.  Work certainly doesn’t slow down for the grounds department.  While much of November will be dominated by leaf clean up, this is also a good month for applying soil amendments, fertilizers and sodding.  We also have some small renovation projects planned.  The ladies tee on two is going to be moved closer to the cart path and expanded so that it can properly accommodate the I and II teeing positions.  We also have plans to reclaim to some lost putting surfaces on a couple of greens.

Despite cooler air temperatures in late fall that limits turfgrass leaf growth, soil temperatures remain warm enough to promote root growth and promote beneficial soil microbial.  Late-season fertilization lengthens the fall/winter green period and enhances the rate of spring green-up without stimulating excessive shoot growth, thus allowing the turf plant to maintain higher levels of carbohydrates than when spring/summer fertilization is used. This provides both aesthetic and physiological benefits to the turfgrass.  Nitrogen applied during early spring increases shoot growth rates and decreases the levels of available carbohydrates in the plant, resulting in depressed root growth rates. Late-season nitrogen applications have no similar negative effects on root growth and, in fact, increase root growth during mid-winter to early spring. Better carbohydrate storage and root growth ultimately result in a more stress tolerant turfgrass plant during stress periods.

As golf courses age it is common for features of the course to slowly change.  It is always interesting to see how golf courses evolve over time.  Putting greens often shrink and become more circular, fairways and teeing grounds fall out of alignment, and bunkers become contaminated, lose their original shape, and develop higher mounds from sand being blasted onto the slopes. Kings Creek is no exception to this, many our greens have shrunk and lost significant putting area.  This fall we are going to reclaim a couple of our greens.  We are going to start with the 8^th green, it has lost 3 to 4 feet along the front right and back of the green.  The increased square footage will help spread out traffic and create several new hole locations.  While the green will be larger and easier to hit it will also bring the green side bunkers back into play.

Turkey Shoot (Superintendent Revenge Tournament)

November 16

 

HEY GOLFERS! IT’S PAYBACK TIME…
For all of those ball marks, divots and folks who don’t obey the daily golf cart rules…this is a chance for: for me and the grounds crew to seek REVENGE.  This year’s Turkey Shoot tournament is going to also be the Superintendents Revenge tournament.  The Superintendents Revenge tournament is intended to be a really fun event where we set the course up in a really fun and challenging way.  Crazy hole locations and obnoxious course set ups are the norm for this event.   We have lots of great ideas and are looking forward to setting up for this event.