Monday, September 7th, 2009

Course Conditions
Course conditions continue to improve. The rain certainly helps the rough come back and has helped clear the ponds up. The weekend was a little stormy which created a lot of blowing this morning. It shouldn't take long to clean everything up. The weather promises to be nice the rest of the week. I hope we can make up for some lost revenue due to the weather.

Greens
The greens are due for fertilizer and fungicide. Another strong testament to the greens fertilization program in that the color and growth has not dipped significantly, even after 15 days. We are due for our scheduled Signature/Daconil application which should happen later this week.

Tees
The black portion of the 15th tee box has not really recovered from being scorched. We may have to aggressively aerate it and re seed it to bring it back. I know Zef has been working on it but I thing it simply got to hot for to long. Over all the rest of the tees look great. We are going to start punching as soon as we can work it into the schedule. We will let you know which days we will need to reverse the nines.

Fairways
I have noticed a few thin areas where annual bluegrass got scorched. We are thinking about spot aerating those areas and inter-seeding them to help them recover. I have been real pleased with the overall appearance of the fairways. We have only fertilized them once this year and the color and growth has maintained very well. The next batch of fertilizer has arrived and we will be getting it out this week. I canceled the Primo application a few weeks ago but am thinking it might be good to spray them once more after the fertilizer is applied. With the extra moisture this fall and the cooler temps we are sure to see a lot of growth.

Rough
We ran the irrigation on the range and rough all weekend to get as much water on it as possible. Keep an eye on it and watch how fast it will recover. With fall so close we really don't need to watch the pond levels and will be putting more water on the range and in the rough than usual.

Projects
Tall grass mowing is pretty much all done aside from a few small places around the 14th tee box. Right now our focus will be on aerfying the tees, fertilizing the fairways, topdressing the fairways and finally aerating the greens. Once we finish with our fall cultural projects we will probably get back on the bunkers. We will need to drain and continue to push the sand back up the faces.

Equipment
Steve continues to do a fantastic job keeping the equipment in order. He is assembling the core harvester today and gave the beverage carts a tune-up this morning. We should be seeing the new greens mowers this week some time.
Speaking of the beverage carts...Maggie called me this weekend to let me know that there was a problem with the carts. That is about all she knew. I had Steve check them out this morning and each had a note on it..."BROKEN! HAVE MAINTENANCE CHECK ME! and ALMOST BROKE! HAVE MAINTENANCE CHECK ME! It would be helpful if they could use phrases such as runs rough, sputters, or blows smoke. That way Steve will have an idea where he needs to start looking. Steve mentioned that one cart seems to get used more than the other. It is best if they can even out the hours of operation on the carts so one isn't used all of the time. I hope we can replace these carts with the new cart lease next year, both are burning a tremendous amount of oil and need to be checked regularly. Please mention to the girls to have them swing by the shop at least a couple times a week to have Steve take a look at them so he can monitor the oil use.

Facility
Not to much to report on other than the dust control seemed to help us out this summer around the shop. Other than dealing with rocks being flung into the reels and the strange odor I may budget for it next year until we can find a way to pave the yard.
Leaves are going to begin to fall and we will need to be mindful of slip hazards in the parking lot. Also, the back gutter on the cart barn is growing small trees and should probably be cleaned out before the fall rains arrive.

Personnel
Matt Coombs will finish his summer job this week. It has been great having him on the staff this summer. I hope to land more summer interns in the future from OSU.