Monday, April 11th, 2011

Another week of interesting weather behind us. Although it felt a bit like January we did at least see the sun for a good portion of a day or two. Friday was down right chilly with the low temperature dipping in the high 20's. Although golf was delayed until 9:00, it did make for some nice photos.

Last week we began to prepare the greens for aerification. We like to make sure they are going to be growing actively so we fertilized them early in the week. The greens will often become stressed after aerification, so we sprayed them Friday with a fungicide that will keep them healthy while they heal.

The Men's Club Masters Tournament was Saturday and we wanted to be sure the greens were running smoothly so we used the new roller brush to "flick" the greens. In other words, ran it over the greens with the brush and stood up the grass blades so we could get a nice tight clip. Again, I was extremely impressed how gentle yet thorough the the brush was. Here are some pictures below of the operation.

It actually worked like a broom, sweeping the loose material from the canopy and leaving only the living grass blades standing to be cut by the mower. I can tell that if this was used on a regular basis it would tighten up the canopy leaving a more dense surface.

Here is Jorge mowing 14 just after Mike brushed it. Look closely and you can see how the grass is standing up on the uncut portion of the green.

Aerification Weather Forecast

I asked Rod Hill what he thought about the forecast over the next two days and here is what he sent me:

Monday: Scattered showers, likely some sunshine.
We might see a mostly dry period mid-morning into early afternoon??
Convective temperature around 50 degrees. Meaning, with sun breaks and warming temperatures around noon, Showers will pop.

As you know, when it comes to scattered showers - they could miss you or nail you! If the models are right, Monday afternoon will be
fairly tame..........meaning not much heavy and widely scattered. All depends on how cold the air is aloft and how warm we get.


Tuesday: Looking dry, but afternoon - evening showers will become at least possible.
I trust Rod and I think this is going to be our best chance. Like Rod says, the showers can either "miss you or nail you". I am going to count on the miss. Tuesday looks good so we can count on picking up what we didn't get to on Monday.

Let's keep our fingers crossed!