Progress Report on New Putting Green and Short Game Area

We're very pleased with how the new putting green, chipping green and short game fairway overwintered. We seeded these areas just before Labor Day last fall, so they had just 70 days to develop before the cold of winter arrived. Our predicted opening date of July 1st is on track! We have 77 days to mature these areas and get them ready for play. All of these areas were being mowed every two or three days last fall, and that will continue this spring. We mowed the two new greens for the 2nd time this year on Friday, April 10th. Our height of cut is now at .190", and we'll gradually take that down, eventually getting to around .120". Yup, pretty tight! We'll also begin topdressing with sand every couple of weeks as needed, and continue to fertilize. This will create a more dense and smooth playing surface. There are a few minor alterations to the transitions from fairway to green that we'll be making smoother as well. In the meantime, we need to keep all foot traffic off of the new greens and carts off of the new short game fairway. We're optimistic about there condition right now and look forward to the day we open them!  

Getting our MOJO, MARMALADE, and MAGIC back!

How awe inspring this is every time I take a look at the 1937 aeral photograph of Minnesota Valley Country Club!! It's part of our makeup each and every day at this golf course. We know where we are, we know the history of this Raynor designed playing ground, we know how lucky we are to have this glorius golf ground as a workplace!! Take a good look at the original strategic design intent of the holes. Without trees comprimising it, it's easy to see how the bunkering was placed in the line of flight from the tee to fairway. The subtle but significant corners of the greens, squared and turned around the greenside bunkers to create danger. The vast majority of this design intent remains, but it now has another element.....trees to contend with. We now continue to seek a balance of the early design to the modern day game. Lengthening where it makes sense, removing trees where it makes sense, and returning bunker while altering their depth, size and location. The ground remains historic, and each golf season adds new stories to the history.

Late last week I could feel the mojo of our seasoned staff jelling together for another wonderful golf season. Green covers were off, half the course was vacuumed clean, fariways and tees were mowed for the first time,......spirits were high! As I drove the course early last Friday evening, the golf course looked as good as I remember in the springtime. I knew then that with a handful of good work days, the marmalade of turf that we work so hard to get just right would be very good to the anxious golf membership that waited all winter for another taste! That evening drive........Superintendent solitude....... that feeling that tells you the sauce is ready to taste! Last nights snowfall only dampens that spirit for a short while. As soon as we can return to the course, we'll put the finishing touches into it for what's going to be a great 2015 golf season! We targeted Friday as the opener, but it may turn out to be Saturday. Too early to tell though, what this snow will do and what a little more on Wednesday will do. All I know is we're close.......and the MOJO is back!!

Working Towards an Early Start to the 2015 Golf Season!

Here we are again, March Madness, March 16th, 2015, uncovering greens at Minnesota Valley and preparing the golf course for opening! WOW! As the old saying goes, "the writing was on the wall", as we received very little snowfall over the winter and it just felt like it could be an early golf season. We actually opened the driving range last Wednesday, March 11th, due to a March Madness heat spell that pushed temperatures into the high 60's for several days. That wasn't going to last though, like it did back in 2012 when we opened a portion of the course on March 18th and all 18 on March 21st.  Temperatures look like they'll remain slightly above normal for the next two or three weeks, which means highs in the upper 40's or low 50's and lows in the upper 20's. Not exactly ideal golf weather, but hey, we're Minnesotans!!

Yup, the weather last week was ready for golf, but the golf course wasn't, but it's inching it's way there now. It's day by day monitoring conditions and determining when we could open part of the golf course. There's still frost in the ground and the irrigation pond still has ice on it. I'd prefer both to leave asap! Any turfgrass manager prefers there to be no frost in the ground when beginning to introduce traffic on the turf. The turf is still dormant and not growing, so it has no recuperative capacity. Any traffic on it will be detrimental to it until it has the ability to grow. This will require warmer temperatures that heat the soil and remove the remaining frost in the ground. Once this occurs, roots can begin to regrow and we'll also see some top growth. With frost in the ground and the pond frozen over, we have no ability to water the turfgrass. You cannot fill irrigation pipes in the ground until the frost leaves, otherwise the water in the pipe freezes overnight and breaks the pipes. I can't wait to turn the water well on and begin to fill the irrigation pond, but it's just too early to make that happen today. This is one of the things we can't error on! In this type of a situation, it's virtually impossible to predict exactly when the golf course will open. It's literally a day by day decision as to what we can accomplish to get us closer to that point.

Certainly, the demand is strong to open the golf course asap. We have half the green covers removed and within the next two days, they'll all be off. The turf looks great on greens! As we complete this process, that frost and ice is gradually declining. Within a week, I anticipate the ice to off the pond, and within two weeks the frost to out of the soil. For these reasons, I do anticipate an early start to the 2015 golf season. Perhaps we can open a few holes before the weekend, then the back nine, and then the entire golf course by late March. 

We'll keep you informed about the course opening this week and into next as we continue to work hard towards that goal. Nobody's looking forward to that time more than the MVCC Turfgrass Maintenanance team!!

     

What a Difference a Year Makes!

The two-layers of green covers, were removed over three days beginning Monday, April 7th. the lower layer is a thin foam rolled out in nine foot wide widths, held down by sod staples, and is used to insulate the green. The upper layer is a tough impermeable poly that's made to keep moisture from reaching the turf. It's a fairly long process that requires calm days, otherwise the covers blow around and cannot be folded properly for storage.  I'm extremely happy with the way the turf came through. I sort of expected it, given the early snow cover and litterally no thawing periods throughout the winter. Besides a few deer tracks across them, the greens and collars are blemish free with a dense stand of grass. That goes to show you what a nice winter of snow cover can do for turfgrass, compared to the major buildup of ice on the turf last winter. Last year at this time, we were experiencing 16 inches of April snowfalls and evaluating how many of acres of dead grass there was on fairways.

This time around, we had a partial course opening on Friday, April 11th, a four-hole course so players could work the kinks out. Our Annual Member Spring Cleanup Day went off without a hitch the next day, at which time we opened the back nine. And yesterday, we hosted the local high schools golf tournament, with the medalist carding a one-under 72. Not bad at all for this early in the season!

It's cooled down some this week, but that hasn't stopped our progress on course cleanup and spring projects. We have an outside irrigation contractor on site, Hartman Companies, who is installing four new irrigation lines in the rough. This will be a great addition into areas that were never irrigated and proved difficult to keep grass in when it became hot and dry. After the new sprinklers are in, we'll be in those areas renovating them with new sod and seed.

We're also busy cleaning up tree stumps from the 20 trees that were removed this winter. We like trees, but each of these had to go. These trees were removed for one of three reasons, either they posed a safety hazard because their trunks were split, they were damaged by last summers storms, or they were seeding ash that littered the playing surfaces. The course will be better without them.

So, were off to the start that we wanted! Now we'll concentrate on grooming the course into the best possible condition we can. Just what we're here for!  

The National Championship- Torrey Pines

Playing in this year's GCSAA National Golf Championship was a blast! Who could complain about playing golf in San Diego this time of year.....let alone at Torrey Pines! Somehow Torrey didn't make the list of courses I'd played the previous twop visits to San Diego. Mistake made and made up for now! If you haven't experienced Torrey Pines, place it high on your list. The two courses there, the North and the South, are both magnificient in my eyes. The Pacific Ocean is part of these courses, and it doesn't take long to notice as it's visible from the golf shop and the first tees on both courses. Each course has several holes that play down to or alongside of the ocean, and better yet, the ocean breeze and fog are cool elements (no pun intended) across the entire property most days. We experienced a two hour long fog delay on day one of the tournament, something that I'll remember for a long, long, time. My Phoneix buddies and I spent most of the delay putting for dollars on the practice green.This is about the only place I can win money off of these big hitters. The dense and healthy poa annua turf was in fine shape, running very smooth and fairly fast. the putting green fits the greens on the course with plenty of slope from back to front. Our coversation included our taste for the split rail fencing and brickwork that surrounds the putting greens. I liked it, some others didn't. I'll show you a photo so you can get your taste. The fog was thick enough and lasted long enough to convince several competitors that bloody mary's were the route to more pars, I thought otherwise knowing the day would be tough enough without them. Once on the course, I was half consumed with looking at the course and it's archtecture and half consumed with trying to make pars. The overseeded rough was a challenge, wet, dense, about four inches in length and the ball sitting down in it all day. Overall the course was in fine shape. Narrow fairways, I'd say averaged about 35 yards wide, which placed my cut off the tee into the right rough most of the day. Adding a club or two out of the rough wasn't always the answer as it was difficult to get it up and out to begin with. Like many courses with back to front green slopes of poa annua, you need to stay below the hole to have a better chance. Not always easy though as many pins were tucked behind the often single, well groomed bunker protecting the green. The spectacular views added up across the course as did the unspectacular bogies. I'd love to play these courses on a regular basis like many in San Diego do. Pacific poa annua doesn't get any better than this!

  

Hot Weather Requiring Extra Watering

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I were a corn grower right now, I'd be loving this hot weather! But I'm not, I live turfgrass, and it's sort of ironic that they classify the grass in this region of America, cool season turfgrass. Corn is a monocot also, but it loves really hot days. Turfgrass not so much. 

 

Yes, that's me in my in-laws cornfield a couple of weeks ago. They are Bill and Sharon Wintz of Milford, Iowa, and as you can see, they have a beautiful piece of America's heartland. They tell me you can almost see the corn growing on a real hot day. The classification of cool season turfgrass for our area is correct though, as we're growing grasses that grow best in cooler temperatures. 

 

This extra hot weather we're experiencing now, increases the need for irrigation of our turfgrass. We would prefer not to water as much as we've been forced to, as playing conditions and the health of the grass are both compromised. Soft greens occur when we have to cool the turf during the day, and roots actually become shallower and weaker with the constant availability of water at the surface. Each time we've attempted to withhold water for the sake of playing conditions recently, it's come back to bite us, with wilt occurring in the hot afternoons. 

 

We're between a rock and a hard place, as the surface needs to be cooled, but the soils beneath are already saturated. Unfortunately no one wins under these conditions. We are also nursing along certain areas on greens right now that are suffering from a number of damaging conditions, including poor surface drainage, poor water percolation, weak roots, shade, and increased traffic levels. Turfgrass thrives in temperatures between 55 and 75 degrees, and we're well beyond that right now. Our turfgrass will hold up though in the majority of areas on the course and the course will continue to play nicely. 

 

We are evaluating some of the weakest areas on greens this summer, and determining what steps or procedures we can take to alleviate any poor conditions that exist that is contributing to the decline of turfgrass. Glass half full, as we will improve these areas once more favorable weather arrives and we determine the correct cultural methods to alleviate some the detrimental things occurring in those areas.

Japanese Beetles Attack Minnesota Valley

Over ths past week, thousands of adult Japanese Beetles have appeared on the golf course. Some of these emerged from the ground right here on the course, and some flew in from other areas. As I drove out to the course two mornings ago, one flew right into my lip. I lucked out and didn't swallow it.

These are true pests to golf courses and need to be controlled when they reach large populations. They can damage leaves on trees and shrubs by chewing on them, leaving a skeletonized look to the leaves. They also love to deposit their eggs into turfgrass, where in a very short time, the eggs turn into grubs which chew on the roots of the grass.

We started seeing more of them two years ago, and in 2010 their populations grew to the point where we had to make applications of insecticide to protect our plants. We made a preventative application on all greens several weeks ago, which should give us good residual activity. An application to tees and fairways will be made in the latter part of July, targeting the very young grub stage of the insect. We will also be making an application to some of the trees on the course where we see large numbers of them. They especially like to chew on elm, linden, apple, and some Maple trees, and also reside in many evergreens such as white pine.

You'll see them on the course right now in clumps, especially on fairways. They are mating, and the female will lay up to 60 eggs in one season in several locations. It's best to target reducing the very young grubs which result from the egg hatch which normally happens in late July. They are identified by their metallic colored overcoat, of which is green around the head and a golden brown on the rear. They do not bite, but try not to swallow any, I don't think that would be any fun!