Calumet Country Club Grounds

Hello Winter - For a Few Days At Least

2012-02-14T14:47:00.000-06:00

Winter finally decided to show up for a few days, and the frozen ground has allowed us to get to some tree work that has been put on hold until now. A tree service was here yesterday and today to do some large tree removals and to do some trimming. All in all, they removed four trees, two of which were causing turf problems. The first was behind 17 green, and was shading the green from the south, where the strongest summer sun comes from. It was causing some areas of the green, especially the back tier, to be very weak. The second was behind the 7th green near 8 tee. The back of the green has been getting weaker because of tree roots growing into the green and from the tree blocking the morning sun from the east. Removing this tree will also help the back of the 8th tee, as it will now receive afternoon sun. Morning sun is better, but getting afternoon sun as opposed to no sun will help this very high traffic area.

Getting Started on 17

Almost Down

Yesterday, they were able to finish all the removals that we were not able to do in house, and today they have been working on trimming up some tee shots that have gotten over grown. Tee shots that will now be a little wider are holes 4 and 6. The tree service will be here for a few more days to begin pruning more of the trees on the course. It has now been about ten years since the trees have had a good pruning, and many trees are definitely needing it. We hope to get a majority of the trees trimmed over the course of the next few years.

The other "problem" with no snow cover

2012-01-24T14:26:00.002-06:00

It's going to be a mess out there this spring.

January 12, 2012

2012-01-12T12:32:00.001-06:00

Golf course finally looking like its supposed to in January....white!

Interesting Look to #1 Fwy

2012-01-10T14:48:00.001-06:00

I don't know for sure what the cause of this is, but there are distinct lines of different looking turf on both sides of the first fairway. It's possible that at some time, the sides of the fairway were killed off and seeded with a different variety of bentgrass, but there is also defined lines of earthworm activity. The earthworm activity leads me to believe that there is some difference in the soil on the outsides of the fairway.

The black specks in the grass on the left side of the picture are soil castings, created by earthworms.

Is it March?

2012-01-06T13:12:00.000-06:00

This morning I took advantage of this unseasonable weather, and took a walk on the course to check on all the greens and evaluate how they are fairing through this very mild winter. Overall things look good, but there are a few small spots that are looking a little weak and will need to be monitored through the rest of this snowless "winter" we are having. Snow cover provides protection to the greens from the winter winds and cold temperatures, without snow cover, some of the weaker areas of turf can be susceptible to winter kill.

Dead Ash Tree Near 3 Tee

Without having many cold days, it's been hard to get out on the course and do our tree removals that we have planned for the winter. It's best to do this work when the ground is frozen in order to minimize the damage to the turf from falling trees and the heavy equipment we need to use to clean up the mess. The cold weather we had at the beginning of this week finally provided us a window of a few days to get out and work. Most of the tree removals that we will be doing this winter are due to the emerald ash borer (EAB) that has infected most, if not all, of the ash trees on the course that are not being treated.

Click on the Picture to Enlarge and see the EAB galleries that cut of water and nutrient supplies, killing the ash trees.

Since we haven't been able to get out on the course as often as we like, it's been busy here in the shop. About half of the equipment work has been completed, but there is still a long way to go to get ready for mowing and opening the course in the spring. It will be here before we know it!

The Experience at Farmlinks

2011-12-09T07:42:00.001-06:00

The following post was written by our assistant superintendent, Adam Lencke. Last week, he was given the opportunity to travel to a research golf course called Farmlinks in Alabama. It's a great opportunity, and this was his experience. Enjoy!

______________________________________________

Last week I received the opportunity to visit the FarmLinksresort at Pursell Farms in Sylacauga, Alabama. A select number of superintendents and assistants from the Chicagolandarea were invited by BASF The Chemical Company through salesmen around the areato attend this 3 day trip for research, demonstration, and a little bit of fun.

11/30: Our first event was an education portion on pesticidesmanufactured by BASF. We saw about 5comparisons of fungicide programs and their efficacy during the summer onbentgrass greens. These programs arerated by several factors including turf density, color, disease activity,stress, and overall plant health. Therewere actually 20 overall programs in the study. We finished with a Q and A session with reps from our local BASF distributor.

Frost!

12/1: We woke up to afrigid morning, and yes, they also have frost in Alabama. It was a chilly 31 degrees Thursdaymorning. The highs did reach in theupper 50’s, lower 60’s.

We started off inside with more presentations on productsused around FarmLinks. We covered the GPS system they use for tracking golfcarts, Visage Mobile Golf Information. This program allows the managers to zone off any location on the courseto keep carts from getting too close to greens, tees, wet areas, naturalizedareas, or anywhere that is potentially unsafe. It also has an interactive screen on all the carts. If you ask me sometime I’d love to share moreabout what this program can do.

After more machine demonstrations we finally got to gooutside for a brief talk about their program before we would go to lunch andget to have some fun on our own.

Here is Mark Langner, FarmLinks superintendent discussingwith us the daily stresses and current activities on the course. These greens are cool season grass, just like at Calumet,except they are pure creeping bentgrass. Ours have some poa annua mixed in. AtFarmLinks they go to extremes to keep poa out by plucking and cutting out anypoa annua that seeds itself on the greens. As you can tell in this picture they just aerified the greens a couple weeksearlier.

We also discussed how much heat Alabama can endure in aseason and how they manage over time. Speaking of weather effects, how aboutthis pic!

This is a view of their practice range which is entirelybermudagrass, a warm season species. Everything but the greens have gonedormant for the year because of the low temps, especially those overnight lowsof 31! The actual tee box in thispicture is green because they overseeded all tee boxes and fairways with aperennial ryegrass variety. Perennialryegrass is known for its ability to germinate in 3-5 days and grow quickly. Itis a risky species in the summer however because it is extremely susceptible tojust about every disease in the book.

After the on course tour we broke for lunch and had the opportunityto play golf. The following are picsfrom the course. Note the dramatics ofdormancy in the rough compared to the overseeded fairways.

The Par 3 17th. The lodge behind the green is where we stayed.

The Par 3 5th. The tee box is 170 feet above the green, and provides beautiful views of Alabama.

Par 3 8th hole. Farmlinks has amazing par 3's.

FarmLinks was a great experience. It is a public facility so if you have timeand you’re in Alabama, I highly recommend adding it to your “courses to play”list.

Adam Lencke

Assistant Superintendent

Twitter Added to the Blog!

2011-11-17T09:32:00.001-06:00

I have started a twtter account, and have added it to the blog. For those of you who use twitter, you can follow the link to follow me, and if you don't have a twitter account, my last five "tweets" will show up on the right side of the blog. Using twitter will be a great way to send out short little notes about what we are seeing on the golf course and to quickly provide up to date information about course conditions. If for some reason the link to follow me isn't working, my twitter handle is @CCCSupt

Final Cut

2011-11-17T09:10:00.001-06:00

Over the last week or so, we have been making our final preparations for winter. Beginning last Friday we gave all the bentgrass areas their final mowing of the season. Surprisingly we still cut a fair amount of grass in some areas of the fairways, but on greens and tees there wasn't many clippings. I take this as a sign that the grass has finally gone into dormancy and we can stop mowing and begin our last tasks in getting the course ready for winter.

On Tuesday we took advantage of the warm weather and applied dormant fertilizer to the greens and the tees, and then watered it into the soil . Dormant fertilizer helps the turf to stay strong through the winter and helps it to green up quickly in the spring. Wednesday we began applying preventative snow mold fungicide on the fairways, and we will complete the greens and tees today.

Tomorrow, we will be blowing all the water out of the irrigation system, so if you are out on the course don't be alarmed by sprinklers popping on and off.

It's November Already?

2011-11-01T12:37:00.000-05:00

Wow, I'm looking back at my last post and realizing that it's been a month since I've posted up any new content. October seems to have just flown by, and I apologize for not keeping the blog up to date recently.

In the last month, the course has taken on it's fall look. About half the trees have lost their leaves now, but we still have a long way to go with leaf cleanup as the silver maple trees make up about 30 percent of our tree population, and they have barely begun to shed their leaves. As you can imagine, leaf cleanup is our main task in the fall, and it continues until Thanksgiving, some years it carries into the first week of December. Other changes that occur to the course during the fall is the 'Washington' creeping bentgrass that is present on on most of our greens turns purple, it is most noticeable on the 18th green. This is a physiological reaction to the colder temperatures, and has no impact on the health of the plant.

A few weeks from now, we will be giving the golf course it's final preparations for winter. On November 18th, we will be blowing irrigation system out, and during that same week we will be spraying preventative fungicides for snow mold disease and applying dormant fertilizer to the greens and tees. The final step in winterizing the turf will be a heavy application of topdressing sand on the greens around Thanksgiving. This heavy topdressing helps to protect the plant from the cold dry winds we can get here, and it has also helps the turf green up quicker in the spring.

Although we are nearing the end of the golf season, we are still working on some projects. The main project that we have been working on this fall is reducing the collar widths to a uniform size of 48 inches. Those of you have been out to play this fall have probably noticed the areas of collar that are being mowed down to greens height. We are a little over half way in the slow process of reducing the height of cut now, and there has been very little area that has been damaged. Over the past few weeks we have been working on "Phase 2" of this project which is making some areas of collar into rough, and reducing the collar size from the outside.

This past weekend, I got a chance to get away from the area and visit my alma mater, Penn State for a football game. When I planned this trip in June, I was definitely not expecting the weather conditions to be what they were. Hopefully we don't see anything like this for another month or so.

I know it's 80 degrees now, but....

2011-10-05T13:09:00.001-05:00

Accuweather is forecasting a nasty winter for the Chicago area. It's calling for colder than average temperatures and above average snowfall. So if this does come true, just remember that snow cover protects the turf from the cold and dry winds. As long as we don't get any snow mold disease, which we treat the turf for in late fall, the turf should be stronger in the spring.

Enough about that, lets enjoy this weather we are having for the next week!

2011-10-03T19:12:00.002-05:00

Today's greens aerification and topdressing went very well so we will have all 18 holes open for play tomorrow morning. The grounds staff worked very hard to make sure that we got it all done in one day for the members to be able to enjoy the golf course during this great weather coming up this week. Most of the work is totally complete, there are just a few greens that need a little more sand to fill the holes and some minor cleanup work that can all be done during play. If you come out and play tomorrow, I believe that you will be as happy with the final result as I am. The greens are rolling suprisingly smooth and they still have good speed.

Here is today's process in pictures

Jesus coring the green using 3/8" coring tines.

Alfredo and Paul using the core harvester to pick up the plugs.

Adam applies and sand which is left to dry.

Dave uses the brush to drag as much sand into the holes as possible.

Blowers are used to move the sand around and help fill in the holes.

The green is rolled to give us the final product.

The final product.

As you can see, all this works ends up with a nice final product. We know that this is a disruptive process, especially when the weather is nice and the greens are rolling well, so we do everything in our power to minimize the disruption and still have the process be effective in benefiting the greens.

Weather and Greens Aerification

2011-09-30T13:27:00.000-05:00

It's been a rainy week here as evidenced by our postponed greens aerification. Leading up to today, we have had rain on six of the last seven days, and if you go back a little farther, seven out of the last twelve. Add it all up and we've had 2.3 inches of rain in the last week and 2.7 inches in the last twelve days. All this rain and dampness leads to a very soft and wet golf course, especially this time of year. As the days get shorter, the sun gets less intense, and temperatures are lower the course takes much longer to dry than it does in the summer. Two and a half inches of rain over the course of two weeks in July would probably be a welcome reprieve from having to irrigate the golf course, but now it just leads to a wet course. The course seems to be starting to soak up the water now, but there are still some very wet and soft areas. The course should be able to dry out over the next week as the forecast is calling for sun and higher temperatures for the next week or so.

Monday's forecast for sun and 70 degrees is holding strong, and that has us excited to get the greens aerified. That is the ideal weather for aerifying anything on the course. The plugs should come out of the ground nicely and be easy to pick up, and the sand topdressing that we put down to fill the holes will dry quickly and be easy to spread around. Also, the warmer temperatures that are called for next week will get the greens growing again, and the holes should fill in quickly. The plan for aerifying the greens remains the same as it was on our first attempt. We will try to get all of the work completed on Monday, October 3, but some of the topdressing work may have to carry over into Tuesday. Work that continues into Tuesday may cause the back nine to be closed for part of the day. As always, I will post updates of the process on the blog and keep the pro shop informed of our progress.

Greens Aerification Postponed

2011-09-26T06:51:00.001-05:00

Due to the rainy weather we are having today, aerification of the greens has been postponed. We will try again next Monday, as the forecast for the next few days isn't looking very conducive to aerifiying either. Hopefully, the weather cooperates with us next week.

Greens Aerification Reminder

2011-09-20T11:29:00.003-05:00

We will be aerifying the greens next Monday, September 26th. Please take this into consideration when making your golf plans for the week. The plan is to finish completely on Monday, but as always, that is subject to change depending on how the process goes. We are going to be pulling small cores, since we weren't able to get that done this spring, and then heavily topdressing with sand to fill the holes. On Monday, we will definitely be able to complete the aerification, but may not be able to finish all the topdressing work. If we are not finished we may need to keep the back nine closed for part of the day so that we can finish up. I will post up our progress Monday afternoon.

Seeding, Collars, and Broken Things

2011-09-17T08:36:00.000-05:00

With the fairway aerification behind us, it was time to move onto some other projects until we aerify the greens on Monday September 26th, so you may notice some of the projects going on this week. The first is the pile of dirt in the driving range that has been an eyesore for the past year or so has been graded smooth and seeded. Now we just have to keep the seed moist, and it should start to turn green in a few weeks.

Another project we started this week and will be ongoing throughout the fall and next spring is our collar uniformity project. Over the years, the collars around the greens havebecome extremely varied in size, mostly larger, because of greens moweroperators trying not to scalp the collars, so we will be working to achieve a uniform collarwidth of 48 inches, except in the areas that are intentionally expanded. Without a uniform width for the collars, thecollars will continue to expand because there is no standard width to use formarking collars for the mowers to follow. Expanding collars and shrinking greens will result in lost holeplacements and even more uneven collar sizes. It's not an easy process to reduce the height of cut from a half an inch down to less than an eighth of an inch so we are going to take our time to minimize scalping of the turf and to try and have as little turf loss as possible. We have marked all the collars and have made our first height of cut reduction down to a quarter of an inch, and for the most part it went pretty well with only a few areas getting slightly scalped. In addition to reducing the height of cut, we will also be doing some extra aerification, topdressing, and verticutting to help the turf adjust to the changing height. Also there will be some areas where there is no benefit to shrinking the collar to add green area so we will be shrinking the collar from the outside by removing bentgrass from the outside and sodding it to bluegrass rough. Hopefully, we will be able to achieve greens height this fall, but it may not be until next spring. Look forward to a few new hole locations and a cleaner look to the golf course.

Remember me saying something about our tractor having a major breakdown last week? Well this is what it looks like right now, and yes it's in two pieces, actually there is third piece on the work bench. Our equipment technician, Tom is tackling this major project. A bearing inside the transmission of the tractor failed and tore up quite a few other parts inside. This is the only way to get at the parts. As always, I'm very glad we have him here. I could never remember how to put that all back together.

The Process

2011-09-07T13:22:00.000-05:00

Here we go as promised, the fairway aerification process in pictures!

Step 1 - Pull the cores, and leave them on the ground to dry.

Step 2 - After a few hours of drying in the sun, the cores are ground up with a flail mower.

Step 3 - Drag the ground up loose soil back into the turf and into the aerification holes.

Step 4 - Blow off the excess soil and left over tufts of grass and thatch.

Step 5 - Mow the fairway with baskets to pick up excess soil and cut off grass that was
tufted up by the drag mats.

The Final Product - From a distance you can barely tell anything happened!

As you can see, it's a lot of work, but the result and the benefits are worth the work.

Aerification - Day 1

2011-09-07T07:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's aerfication went really well. We were able to complete all the front nine fairways, number 10, and number 12. Most years, we are wrapping up work on number six (our last front nine fairway) as it's beginning to get dark. This year, we were almost finished with it by 3:30! For almost the entire day, our equipment ran well, which is a rarity. I say almost because our tractor that runs the big blower had a major breakdown towards the end of the day. Fortunately, our friends at Ravisloe are going to be bailing us out today with a spare tractor. Tee and collar aerification also went well, as the front nine is complete and ready for play.

I had planned on getting pictures of the whole process up on the blog yesterday, but it was a very hectic day and didn't get a chance to take the pictures. Since we don't have quite as much work to complete today, I will try to get pictures up later this afternoon.

Remember that the back nine is closed today until the aerification is complete. If all goes well again today, we should be able to open the back sometime in the afternoon. Check with the pro shop for the latest updates.

Feels like Fall

2011-09-05T09:17:00.000-05:00

We've had some cool mornings lately, but this one really feels like fall, there is a steady breeze out of the north, and the guys on the crew donned gloves and sweatshirts. Today was also the first day in months that I grabbed pants out of the closet instead of shorts, and I was very glad I did.

As usual, with fall comes aerification, tomorrow we will begin process of aerfiying the tees, fairways, and collars. The weather that we have could not be any better for it. The rain that we got over the weekend has the soil nice and moist, but not saturated, and the sun and 70 degree temperatures will get the plugs to dry without burning up the turf. Perfect. Since the weather appears that it's going to cooperate, all that we have to have now is cooperation from our aging equipment. If all goes well tomorrow, we will work from before dawn until dark to get the front nine and hopefully a little more completed. Wednesday, the back nine will be closed to golf until we are finished with our work, which hopefully will be done sometime late afternoon, and Thursday golf will be back to normal. Of course, this is all a big if. Fingers crossed that everything goes well. We did some test runs on the nursery to make sure everything was working properly and it is for now, but the equipment really takes some abuse during this process and anything can happen when a machine is punching holes in the ground for 12 hours straight.

Remember that the greens will not be aerified this week. We will be aerifying them on September 26th so get out and enjoy the best golfing weather of the year.

2011-08-29T12:50:00.001-05:00

It's a busy Monday out here on the course and the greens are really getting a workout. Today the greens were aerified with needle tines and then topdressed with sand. On top of the sand topdressing, we also applied a potassium fertilizer to help with fall rooting and gypsum to maintain soil structure and to help remove harmful salts from our irrigation water that build up in our soil. The sand, fertilizer, and gypsum were then dragged into the turf canopy and hopefully, some will work its way into the small aerfication holes. Next the greens were rolled to smooth out the small bumps from the aerifying and now we are spraying the greens with a surfactant which reduces localized dry spots and helps water move deeper into the ground. After all this work, the greens will get a deep watering this afternoon, so they may be a little on the soft side tomorrow.

2011-08-16T12:04:00.001-05:00

In a previous post I mentioned that the 7th hole has very sandy soil, which isn't all that common for the Chicago area, and I think that the history behind that sandy soil is a unique feature of Calumet Country Club. Our course sits on the edge, or the beach, of Lake Chicago which was a larger version of Lake Michigan that was created as the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age. There are also some other pockets of sand on the course, but that is the most concentrated area.

In these soil samples from the 7th hole rough, you can see that once you get about six inches down into the ground, the soil is pure sand. The top is also very sandy, but has some organic matter mixed in which gives it a darker color.

The sandy soil is also home to another unique feature of Calumet, black oak trees. Most of the trees between the 4th and 7th holes are black oak trees, which grow best in sandy soil. This line of black oak trees is a natural feature and continues into the neighborhood on the other side of Dixie Highway along with the "beach" sand. When the course was built, these were pretty much the only trees on the course. In fact, there is a picture in the men's grill taken in that direction from the clubhouse, and those oak trees are the only trees in the picture.

2011-08-13T06:22:00.001-05:00

A sprinkler got stuck on last night on the front of theseventh green. This is what it looks like when a sprinker runs for six hours straight. We will try to squee-gee as much water off the green and approach as possible, but it will still be very soft so please repair your ballmarks and be careful when you are walking on it. Also, we will probably have to skip cutting this green for today, so it may be slower than the rest. Hopefully the breeze this morning will dry it out quickly.

2011-08-12T13:05:00.000-05:00

If you have been near the 7th hole in the last few weeks, I'm sure that you have seen a few of these nasty looking bugs hovering around the ground. Don't let them scare you though, they are not wasps or hornets, they are called cicada killers. They are not aggressive, and will only sting if you stepped on one or grabbed it out of the air, unless you are a cicada. As the name suggests, they kill cicadas by stinging them and then dragging them back in to the burrows that they dig in the ground. They tend to concentrate in that area of the course because they like to dig in sandy soil, and that area of the course is very sandy. On other courses that do not have sandy soil areas, you will often see them digging in bunkers.

Pile of sand created by burrowing cicada killers

Cicada Killer Mounds on 7 fairway

Warm + Rain = Disease

2011-07-28T09:42:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately we seem to have slipped into a similar weather pattern to what we had at the beginning of the year. Last night we had a very noisy thunderstorm come through the area, luckily we only received a half an inch of rain overnight. Now though, we have had a steady light rain for the past few hours and it doesn't appear to be letting up very soon. It appears that it may rain off an on for a few more hours.

So far the course is handling the water relatively well, but there are definitely some squishy areas out there. With the temperatures that are forecasted, this is turning into a superintendents worst nightmare. Saturated soil, high humidity, and night time temperatures over 70 degress are an ideal breeding ground for turf diseases, especially pythium blight and brown patch.

Pythium can be a very devastating disease if it goes unchecked and untreated. So far we have only seen very isolated patches of pythium in our bentgrass areas, because they have all been treated preventatively for it. Monday we did have quite a bit of the disease in the intermediate rough, and for the first time since I've been here at Calumet we went out an specifically sprayed the intermediate rough for pythium. Given the current forecast, it was a good decision.

Brown patch is a different story though. After the rain on Sunday, brown patch really kicked into gear, and many of our wet low areas got hit, especially #7 about 50 yards from the green. Brown patch is typically not devastating to turf like pythium is, but all the fairways were treated with fungicide on Tuesday so the disease is no longer active. The affected areas should be fully recovered in a week or two.

Course Conditions, July 24

2011-07-24T05:38:00.002-05:00

UPDATE:
Due to the continuing rainfall. There will be no carts for the rest of the day. Once the lightning clears the area, walkers are welcome to come out and play.

Earlier I posted that we dodged a bullet last night. We did, but this morning we didn't. It has been pouring here for about an hour, and in that hour we have already received over an inch of rain, and it doesn't appear to be letting up any time soon. The lightning display has been incredible too. As of right now, there are no carts, and it's likely to stay that way for the whole day. As always, we will evaluate the conditions later in the day and I will keep the blog updated with the latest information.

Course Conditions, July 23

2011-07-23T05:54:00.000-05:00

So far this morning we seemed to have dodged a bullet. We received 1.2" of rain overnight on top of the 0.5" we got yesterday morning, but that is nothing compared to what some areas farther north received. Channel 7 was reporting this morning that O'Hare got 5.5" of rain in 2 hours! There is more rain out to the west that looks like it could hit us, but it's still hard to tell. Most of the rain appears to be headed north, lets hope it stays that way.

All that being said, the course was very dry going into yesterday's rain, so it has soaked up the water fairly well. Carts will be going this morning as long as we don't get any more rain. I haven't been able to survey the entire course though, so there is a chance that they may need to be in the rough only depending on how the water soaks in over the next few hours. Why in the rough when it's normally fairways only? That is because the rough doesn't really get much irrigation so when we have long dry periods where the fairways are getting watered, the rough is much more able to soak up the rain.

So far so good

2011-07-20T13:49:00.001-05:00

Even with the air temperature at a sweltering 98.4 degrees, the course is holding up quite well. To keep the chances of promoting disease to a minimum, we have been very conservative with our irrigation. Yesterday afternoon the fairways and greens got a little crispy, but after some much needed irrigation late last night and early this morning they are holding up to this heat very well. With the humidity being so high this water should last us a few days. We will continue to be diligent with our watering and monitoring of the turf and hopefully apart from some burned up rough areas, come out of this heat wave unscathed.

Here Comes the Heat!

2011-07-16T07:09:00.000-05:00

After all the whining and complaining about the rain and dismal weather this spring from superintendents and golfers, mother nature appears to have decided that it's time for payback. Although, this time most of the complaining will be coming from superintendents and not the golfers. We are in the midst of a very dry strech, but this weeks cooler temperatures provided some great golfing conditions. Without much heat we were really able to dry out the golf course without too much risk of having grass wilt and die. The coming week will be a different story with the forecast calling for a significant amount of heat and humidity.

Over the past few days we have made some preparations for the heat. The first is that we have "loaded up" on irrigation Thursday night and Friday night. Once the heat and humidity arrives, we want to be watering as little as possible. Irrigating at night prolongs the amount of time that the grass is wet and encourages fungal disease, so we watered everything the past two nights so that we can wait until the heat has passed to water. During the heat, we will try to get everything by with hand watering and running sprinklers selectively during the day.

We will also be easing off some of our mowing and rolling of the greens, and the front rollers on the mowers have been changed to solid rollers to limit the stress on the turf. Our normal rollers (on the mower) are grooved to allow the mower to settle into the turf and provide a truer height of cut, but these grooves can be stressfull on the turf, especially on the cleanup passes when the mowers are turning. So for this heat wave, we have switched our front rollers to solid rollers without grooves.

If the heat wave really comes to fruition, I will make sure to keep the blog updated on how the course is holding up, and some more of the strategies that we use to make sure the turf comes out of it healthy.

Emerald Ash Borer Update

2011-07-13T11:15:00.000-05:00

In 2008, the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) was found to be infesting trees very near Calumet. In fact, the main infestation was less than a mile to the west of us in Hazel Crest. Within a few days of the discovery the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Village of Homewood paid us a visit to check our ash trees to determine the extent of the infestation. It was quickly determined that some of our ash trees had the EAB, they had been here for a few years, and that many of our ash trees were showing the tell tale signs of the borer being present.

One of the signs that can be seen from the ground is woodpecker damage. EAB larvae are just under the bark of the tree and the woodpeckers work to get them out of the tree. Woodpecker holes alone do not necessarily mean that EAB is in the tree.

Trees that have been infested for a few years will begin to thin out near the top of the tree, and will also have water sprouts or "suckers" coming out of the trunk and lower branches. "Suckering" is common on many trees, but is not the normal growth habit for ash trees. The thin top and the suckering is a result of the EAB larvae burrowing just underneath the bark of the tree and cutting off the supply of water and nutrients to the top of the tree. The suckering is essentially a last ditch effort for the tree to survive.

You can see in this picture the burrows or 'galleries' that will eventually cut off the trees water supply and kill the tree.

The signature sign of the EAB in the tree is this D-shaped hole in the bark. It's hard to tell in the picture, but this is actually a very small hole. It is only 1/8 of an inch across. Ash trees may have other D-shaped holes that are larger, but those are made by native ash borers that do not kill the tree.

So what is the fate of the ash trees at Calumet? Unfortunately, most of them are going to end up like this tree on the right side of the fourth fairway. We have about 90 ash trees on the course right now. When the EAB was first found here, we selected 13 trees that we deemed valuable to the golf course and we are treating those on a yearly basis. Most of those trees are still very healthy. The difficulty is that these treatment will have to continue indefinitely to keep the EAB out of those trees. Last summer we were thinking that the ash trees were going to live for awhile because most of them appeared to be healthy still and only showing minor signs of decline. Coming out of winter this year was a different story. Many of the ash trees on the course are in severe decline and quite a few, especially around the perimeter of the property, are completely dead. We haven't gotten a total count of trees that are suffering, but we are estimating that we will be removing at least 30 or 40 ash trees this coming winter. This is just an unfortunate reality of what can happen when an invasive pest comes from another country and our plants aren't able to defend themselves. Hopefully, the ash trees in key areas that were selected for treatment will continue to thrive.

Its a beautiful morning

2011-07-08T06:11:00.003-05:00

We watered!

2011-07-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

After a dry and beautiful Independence Day weekend, the golf course finally needed some water that was not provided by mother nature. Even though we were watering in chemicals (grub control), the golf course was definitely in need of a drink, so we are going to count that as the first regular irrigation cycle of the season, and a big cycle it was. The course was very dry and our goal was to water heavily to provide the turf with enough water to last a few days. A superintendent's, golden rule for irrigation is "water deeply and infrequently." Wetting the entire soil profile and then letting it dry as much as possible encourages deep rooting of the turf. On the other hand, watering light and frequently keeps the top of the soil profile moist and causes shallow roots because the turf never has to work to reach for the water. Watering deep and infrequently is a practice that homeowners need to follow also. Too many times I hear about and see yards or businesses that have the sprinklers turn on everyday for a few minutes. Not only is this practice wasting a great deal of water, it's encouraging shallower rooting of the turf, contributing to disease problems, and not allowing the grass to be prepared for stress. If you are one of these "offenders," consider changing you irrigation habits. Make sure to stop Adam or Me on the course and we can explain to you how to slowly change over to proper irrigation habits. (It could get ugly if you go cold turkey on the watering.) Your grass and the environment will thank you.

Keeping with the topic of yard advice, time is running out to apply preventative grub control products, that is the chemical that had to be watered in with the irrigation yesterday. We apply grub control every year to a good portion of the golf course. Greens, green banks, tees, tee banks, fairways and about 15 feet of the rough around the fairways are treated for grubs. Other areas of the rough we are willing to take a chance on damage because they aren't as important to golf, and they are not irrigated. Grubs prefer irrigated turf over non-irrigated turf.

The forecast for this week looks absolutely beautiful, and dry so I'm sure that it won't be the last time we water this week. Summer is actually here!

Unexpected Storms Last Night

2011-07-01T07:10:00.000-05:00

Last night we came very close to running our first full, overnight watering cycle of the year. No, I'm not exaggerating or joking, we have not had to run a normal irrigation cycle yet this year. The only watering that we have done is either to water in chemicals and fertilizer, or some minor hand watering of the greens. After the last few days with no rain, the course was finally becoming dry and we were set to run a full cycle last night. Then last night some unexpected storms rolled through with an incredible lightning display, a little bit of small hail, and an inch of rain in less than an hour. Fortunately, the course was quite dry and was able to soak up most of the rain. Also, considering how fast the rain fell, I'm sure that a lot of it ran off into drains and the creeks before having a chance to soak into the soil. I would not be surprised if we actually do need to run an irrigation cycle before the end of the weekend. Not really having to water until July has to be some kind of record.

Team Calumet Brings Home the Dom Grotti Cup

2011-06-24T08:42:00.001-05:00

This past Tuesday, Adam, my assistant, and I participated in the Midwest Association of Golf Course Superintendents Dom Grotti championship. The event was held at Prairie Bluff Golf Course in Lockport, and it's a yearly event for Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent teams. It's a net score event, and at the end of the day we came away with the championship. I shot a personal best 80, beating my old best by four strokes, for a net 62, and Adam also played very well, shooting 81 for a net 73.

Course Conditions, June 21

2011-06-21T06:04:00.000-05:00

After receiving another inch of rain yesterday, the golf course is in relatively good shape. It is still quite soft, but the wet areas are very minimal so carts will be going today with no restrictions. There are few areas in the rough that still have standing water on them so I ask that you be careful to avoid those areas. The worst area to watch out for is the rough between 15 and 18 near the 15th green.

Once again, the forecast is calling for more rain today so lets hope that it misses us. Considering how saturated the course is right now, any significant rainfall will be sure to put a damper on the cart situation.

12 Drainage

2011-06-15T08:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we started a new drainage project on the right side of #12 near the fence and in the fairway. It's a little different than the normal drainage projects we do because the water isn't actually going to drain anywhere. This is an area that is essentially a bathtub and fills up with over a foot of water when we get heavy rainfall. Unfortunately the nearest place that we can move the water to is the creek which is a few hundred yards away, so that water has to be pumped off the course.

To make this pumping process easier, we dug a big pit that we can insert the suction hose of the pump into instead of digging a hole in the rough. In the pit we installed a sump pump liner and surrounded it with gravel so that small amounts of rain can filter out of the pit and into the ground.

The hole with the sump pump liner. The water in the pit is all ground water that filled the hole after it was dug.

Leading away from the pit we also trenched a drainline to the fairway so that the area in the fairway that holds water would also be pumped down when the pit is pumped out. We used to have to squee-gee all the water to the low area. There will also be a drainline that goes to another area in the rough that holds water.

After the pipe was laid in the ground, the soil and sod was put back over the top of the new line. The fairway drain is visible in the picture.

The new sump pit.

Course conditions, June 11

2011-06-11T06:01:00.001-05:00

We finally caught a break and barely got any rain over night. The difference from yesterday to this morning is amazing. Carts will be going on the course today with some restrictions. Carts need to stay in the fairways and on cart paths, there are still many wet areas in the rough. Also, holes three and six still have a lot of water on them so carts will be restricted to a white line for those two holes only. The sun seems to be trying to burn off some morning fog, so it should be a nice day for golf.

Course Conditions, June 10

2011-06-10T07:48:00.000-05:00

It should come to no surprise to readers of the blog that there will be no carts today. Early this morning we received another 0.3" of rain. Although, that's not a substantial amount, more rain is not something that we needed. There is more heavy rain forecasted for tonight, which puts the whole weekend in jeopardy as far as carts go.

We are going to begin our cleanup work as if it's not going to rain so that we are prepared for play if the rain tonight does not develop. There's a lot of water that needs to be pumped before the course looks like itself again. Check here tomorrow morning to find rainfall totals, and the status of carts.

Today's Course Conditions.....WET!

2011-06-09T12:22:00.001-05:00

There will be no carts today, but rowboat shuttles are running from 4 Tee to 4 Green!

That picture just about says it all. Starting at about 2:00 in the the morning last night the golf course got hammered with rain until about 9:30 this morning. All in all we received 3.25" of rain, and obviously the course is pretty much flooded. If you haven't already heard, the Member-Guest event that was scheduled to be played tomorrow is cancelled and will be played on July 22nd instead. Hopefully everyone that was signed up to play can make it to the new date.

I took a walk onto the course as the rain subsided and took some pictures. I will let them do the talking.

#18 Fairway from the Green

#10 Fairway from the right fairway bunkers looking towards the green

#3 Fairway

#4 Ladies Tee is there somewhere

I know that I have short legs, but water up to my knees is still pretty deep!

Looking from 3 Rough towards 4 green. The margins of the creek are barely visible.

The only silver lining to this situation is that the hot weather is not supposed to be coming back for awhile. If we had this much standing water with high temperatures our turf would be in great danger. You all saw last year what can happen to grass when standing water and heat combine, and I know that none of us want to see that again anytime soon.

It will be interesting to see how quickly all this water goes down. The weather forecast calls for more rain tonight and tomorrow morning, hopefully we don't get much out of that because the weekend is supposed to be nice. I will keep the blog updated with information about how the course is drying out, so be sure to check here for the latest information about the course conditions.

Finally, into our routine

2011-06-08T10:05:00.001-05:00

It's taken all spring for us to finally feel like we are in the golf season routine. The frequent rains and wide temperature swings have really kept us from getting into the maintenance routines that we normally follow, but now that the weather has turned, we've been able to stop pumping bunkers and squee-geeing fairways, and get to mowing and maintaining the course. It's a good feeling to feel like we just aren't spinning our wheels, and getting things crossed off the to-do list.

The biggest thing on the to-do list for the last week or so has been prepping the course for the member guest this Friday. At the beginning of the week last week, the list of detail work and touch-ups that needed to be done was a long one, now it is has been whittled down to just a few minor things like pulling weeds around the clubhouse and repainting the hazard lines.

One change to the course that you may have noticed this year is the long grass around the creek on the right side of #4 fairway. There are a few reasons that this was done, the first being the amount of labor that it takes to keep it trimmed. It takes 32 man hours to keep it trimmed with weed eaters every other week. That is a great deal of labor that can be better utilized other on areas of the course. The other reason is that letting it go was the original intention. When that area was seeded, it was seeded with a mix of wildflowers and prairie grasses, not grasses that were meant to be maintained at low heights. The hope is that many of these seeds are still in the ground and will come up when given the opportunity, and it appears that this is the case seeing as there are already a few wildflowers showing up and many of the prairie grasses are looking really good. This longer grass will also encourage new wildlife to show up on the course. I hope you all enjoy the "new" look of the creek as much as I do.

The new look of the creek on #4

Wildflowers are starting to pop up already

Perennial Plants Looking Great

2011-06-02T14:36:00.003-05:00

I noticed some of the perennials around the course and clubhouse looking good so I took a few pictures today. (To view them bigger just click on the picture.)

'Knock Out' Roses At the Entrance of the Clubhouse

'Globemaster' Allium (purple balls on stems) with perennial Salvia near 4 & 7 Tee

Turning the Corner - Take 2

2011-06-01T14:17:00.000-05:00

Back at the beginning of May, I wrote about the appearance that we had turned a corner in the weather department. Obviously, at the time, I couldn't have been more wrong. May ended up being the 3rd wettest May in Chicago history, and going out with a bang delivering over four inches of rain in five days here at the course. Although it could have been worse - there are areas in the western suburbs that received over seven inches in that same time period - it was bad enough to keep us from allowing carts on the golf course on Memorial Day. Maybe this time we have actually turned the corner into a pattern of good weather.

Today we are having probably the nicest day of 2011. There are just a few wispy clouds in the sky, the humidity is low, and there is a light 78 degree breeze. Between yesterday and today, I couldn't ask for better weather to dry the course out. Nearly all of the standing water is gone, and the only areas that remain wet are mostly out of play areas. The greens, tees, and fairways have also really gotten green over the past few warm days. The fairways are especially noticeable. Even though, it has been almost a month since they were fertilized, they never really greened up very much. The fertilizer that we use on the fairways has a very temperature dependent nutrient release, and with the cold weather we have had it just hasn't released. Now it is kicking in and the fairways are really looking good.

No Carts This Morning

2011-05-30T05:41:00.001-05:00

As expected, the course is still very wet from all the rain we have gotten in the last few days. Unfortunately, we will not be able to allow carts on the course this morning. The sun is coming up and the skies are clear, so we will re-evaluate at noon to see if carts are possible for the afternoon. As always, the course is still open for walkers and caddies are available, so come on out and enjoy Memorial Day at the Club.

Our friend the sun, finally making an appearance!

Memorial Day Golf

2011-05-29T18:46:00.000-05:00

Well, we just can't seem to catch a break. After having marginal conditions for cart play this morning, we were all hoping that we would not get anymore rain today. Obviously, that is not what happened. This afternoon we received another .75 inches of rain that we did not need. Now we have gotten over 4 inches of rain in the last five days. Needless to say, the golf course is completely saturated.

Considering how wet the course is this evening, the chances of us being able to have carts in the morning are fairly slim. There have been mornings that the course has surprised me and drained quicker than I expected, hopefully tomorrow is one of those mornings. Check here in the morning to find out the status of the course and carts. I will begin evaluating the course around 5:00 a.m. and will try to have the status posted here before 6:00. As always, if we can't have carts you are welcome to come out and walk.

Here are a couple of pictures of the course from this afternoon.

#18 Fairway From the Tee

#12 Fairway Looking Back Towards the Tee

Carts are going this morning!

2011-05-29T06:17:00.000-05:00

Although it rained a fair amount yesterday evening, carts will be going this morning. We really dodged a bullet on this one though. The thunderstorms were running in a straight line west to east, and we were right on the edge of it. Talking to other area superintendents this morning shows just how lucky we are. Here at Calumet we received 0.6" of rain, go two miles south to my house and find 0.7", another mile south of there at Idlewild, they got 0.8", and a little farther south at Prestwicke CC they got 1.1". The real whopper that really shows how lucky we are is Lincolnshire CC, pretty much straight south of here, received 3 inches of rain!

That being said, the course is still very wet as we now have received 3.25 inches of rain in the last week. So please be very careful with your carts. We will try to rope of some of the worst areas, but please pay attention to where you are driving and keep your cart on the cart paths where there is one available!

Time For Some Color

2011-05-20T15:57:00.001-05:00

Now that the risk of a hard frost is almost completely passed, we have begun to plant all of the annual flowers around the clubhouse and the golf course. We received our first delivery of plants Thursday afternoon and started planting them this morning. A majority of the planting will be completed today, but we won't finish everything until next week, just in time for the holiday weekend. Still to be delivered next week are all the potted plants, hanging baskets, and a few more plants that we came up short on.

You may notice that many of our bed designs stay somewhat similar over the years, but the colors change. Our grower does most of the design work and tends to have a color scheme that ties many of the beds together. This year the two major colors are yellow and pink. Those aren't two colors that I would have thought to put together, but it looks like its going to end up being a great look.

The first picture our "stash" of flowers behind the shop before we started planting, and the second is of Alfredo and Roberto working hard to get as many flowers as possible planted before the weekend.

2011-05-16T06:20:00.001-05:00

It would certainly be nice if mother nature would wake up and realize that it's supposed to be the middle of May. Not only is it very cool this morning, we have a light frost on the golf course that is keeping us from getting to golf course work right away. This is late for frost, but certainly not unheard of, in 2003, I actually remember having a frost on June 1st. That was late. Many people say that you are safe to plant frost sensitive flowers outside, but to be truly safe you need to wait until Memorial Day. Our flowers are coming this week, and given the way this spring has played out, I hope that we are going to be safe from frost.

Even though the frost keeps us from working on the course, it's nice once in awhile to have one to get some things done off the course. Right now the guys are working on patching some cart path pot holes, cleaning inside the shop, and cutting up some branches and trees that fell yesterday. Not having been out on the course yet, I don't know the full extent of what is on the ground, but there are two trees between the 15th hole and 18th green that were blown down yesterday. Hopefully those two trees are the only things that were damaged, they really aren't important to the course and were leaning ash trees that were already infected with Emerald Ash Borer.

15 Drainage

2011-05-12T07:09:00.000-05:00

We are making another mess. The wet area on at the bottom of the hill on 15 fairway, is much worse this year than it typically is. So bad that the water forced the turf to turn into a bubble in the intermediate rough. When we started, we had no idea what kind of drainage existed in that area, so we dug where the bubble had formed. What we found was two clay tiles coming together with one draining nicely and the other not working, and this left the water with no where to go but up to the surface. After cleaning out one section of the pipe, we found another break in the pipe in the middle of the fairway, and we hoped that by fixing this break and clog, the problem would be remedied, but it wasn't. Instead of trying to follow a drain line that could be over 75 years old and trying to fix every break or clog in the pipe, we are going to reroute this water to pipes that are newer and flowing well. This drainage project should be completed today, and we are going to try to get the big hole on #3 closed up before the weekend.

The beginnings of our mess. (The pipe you can see is not the culprit)

This one IS the culprit.

Busy Week

2011-05-06T13:13:00.000-05:00

We finally got a dry week, and that means that we had a lot of work to get to that had been postponed. It's been a very busy and productive week. The only problem is that whenever we cross something off the to-do list, we add two or three more things. It's a never ending battle to try and accomplish everything we would like to do on the course.

Over the course of the week, all of our bentgrass areas got their first fertilization of the spring. Greens were fertilized on Monday, fairways and the range tee on Wednesday, and tees on Thursday. Fertilizer has to be watered in to prevent burning of the turf, so this is why you may have seen sprinklers running this week. Those of you who saw them on probably thought we were crazy for watering when it was just a week ago that we were complaining about how wet the course was. Fertilization of the fairways is also why you may have seen a monster truck cruising the course. We use an outside company that can fertilize all the fairways in about two hours. It would take us an entire day with three people working on it.

The "Monster Truck"

We also managed to make a bigger mess out of our drainage repair on number three. The holes got expanded in an attempt to find the pipe that the water was coming from and we had success! After digging a wide hole that is nearly five feet deep we found an 8 inch clay tile that has probably been in the ground for 75 years. We haven't been able to determine everything that ties into it, but it is a lot, so there could be many problem areas solved by getting this one pipe to flow freely into the ditch. Right now, we are trying to let as much water out as possible so that it is easier to work on, but the water keeps coming. It has been flowing freely for 48 hours now, and isn't showing any signs of the flow dropping.

We've got a gusher!

Yesterday, (Thursday) we were able to aerify the collars around the greens and since we are modifying our greens aerification to solid tines, we core aerified the outside four feet of every green. This is a very high traffic area, and every little bit of aerification we can get in those areas is a big help. Coming up on Monday we will be aerifying the greens with small solid tines, topdressing with sand, and applying some soil amendments that will help get the greens through the upcoming summer.

I know that many of you have taken note of our resident Red Tail Hawks that soar over the course, but there is plenty of other wildlife that shows up on the course. Some sightings are rarer than others though. Once in a while a deer will find it's way on to the course by jumping the fence. This was taken on Wednesday. Click on the photo to make it bigger, I wasn't able to get very close to the deer for a camera phone pic.

Turning the Corner?

2011-05-02T12:01:00.001-05:00

It appears as if we may have turned a corner in the weather department. We have now had almost four rain free days in a row! What's even better is that some of those days had rain showers forecasted, but nothing ever showed up. Maybe we are putting the record setting April in the past. We ended April setting a record for the cloudiest in history, in a normal April we get 53% of the available sunshine and this year we only got 32%. For the month of April here at the course we recorded a total of 6.09" of rain, with rainfall coming on 15 of the 30 days in the month. Unfortunately, having cloudy and rainy springs is turning into a trend.

Interesting graphic from WGN's weather blog.

Over the past few years we have made major improvements to the course's drainage system, but when we have heavy rainfall amounts, old weaknesses in the system continue to cause problems for us and new problem areas appear. The drainage on holes 3 and 6 seems to get continually worse, so we looked at some old drawings and found some old drainage that may be part of the problem. There is supposed to be a six inch clay tile that runs down three fairway and drains into the ditch near one of the culverts that was replaced last year. My fear was that the tile was crushed by the heavy equipment that was used to replace the culvert, that doesn't appear to be the case though.

The mess that we have made on #3 is the result of us looking for this tile. It's hard to see in the picture, but there is actually a very steady flow of water coming out of the ground there. The pipe is there somewhere because of the amount of water, but we haven't been able to find it. When we find it, we will try to find where the pipe is whole, and then run a new pipe to the ditch. With this pipe being so large and deep, fixing it could solve a lot of drainage problems. Fingers crossed on that.

This project will have to be put off for a day though, today the focus is on aerification. The tees are getting aerified and topdressed and will be ready for play again tomorrow. The process:

Aerifying #10 Ladies Tee

Picking up the plugs with the Core Harvester

Topdressing the tee with sand. The sand will be left to dry, and then dragged into the holes and the turf canopy with a drag mat.

As you can see, aerifying is quite a process, but a very important one. On that note, the greens aerification that has been postponed a few times because of the weather is now being modified. Originally, we were going to pull cores from the greens too, but since aerification has been pushed back close to some golf events we are going to be modifying our plan. Greens will be aerified sometime in the next week using solid tines that leave a smaller hole and cause less disruption. The collars and the outside four feet of the greens will still be core aerified due to the high amount of traffic they receive from mowing and rolling the greens. Core aerfication of the greens will now take place in the fall.

Rain. Again.

2011-04-25T13:06:00.000-05:00

The puddles/ponds on the course were starting to shrink, so it had to rain again. We haven't gotten a whole lot of rain today, but it was enough to keep everything wet and we are supposed to be getting a significant amount of rain tonight. Let's hope that it misses us.

I like to get my forecasts from weather.com because they tend to be more conservative. The local news stations could be reporting that it's going to 95 degrees one day in the summer and weather.com will forecast 87 degrees, and the 87 is usually closer to reality. This goes for rainfall too. It's very rare that weather.com puts a large measurement of rain in their forecasts, and for tonight it says, "rainfall possibly over one inch." I hate it when it says that.

When we get large quantities of rain in a short amount of time, the creek/ponds that runs from the twelfth hole to the eleventh hole comes out of it's banks and creates a huge mess. The amount of garbage that flows through that waterway during a large rain event is just incredible, or disgusting, depending on how you want to look at it. I vote for the latter.

The mess left from Fridays rainfall. And yes, that's a piece of a telephone pole.

Hopefully, my next post will be talking about how all the rain missed us, and that everything is drying nicely. In the meantime, Nittany says GO HAWKS!

Easter Sunday Course Conditions

2011-04-24T06:37:00.001-05:00

Carts will be allowed on the entire course today, but there are still going to be some restrictions. The golf course is still very wet, and there is still a fair amount of standing water in places, mostly in the rough though. So for today the cart restrictions are:

Carts in Fairways only - Driving from the tee to the fairway, keep your cart within the width of the fairway, and when you get to the fairway, do not drive in the rough.

Keep Carts on Paths when one is available

Keep Carts on the White Line for Hole #3 and #6 - these holes are very flat and are the last holes on the course to dry out when we have the kind of rains that we have been getting. There are areas on these holes that carts will cause severe damage to the turf.

I can't stress enough that it is very important that cart users abide by these restrictions in order to protect the golf course from cart damage.

2011-04-23T06:58:00.001-05:00

As of right now, 6:54am on Saturday, there are no carts allowed on the golf course. Over the course of the day yesterday we received another 1.25" of rain, bringing our seven day total to 3". We are going to try to let the course dry, for a few more hours and reevaluate our options for cart usage at 10:00. Hopefully, we will see the sun soon. We need it.

UPDATE: Carts will be allowed on the back nine beginning at 11:00 a.m. "Cart Path" only. Carts will be required to stay on a white line ("cart path") that will be painted in the grass, and on the cart paths the white line leads to. It is very important that carts stay on the line. The golf course is still extremely wet and carts not following the line will damage the course.

What a great day for a walk...

2011-04-22T11:42:00.000-05:00

Well, after a one day reprieve from the rain and a little glimpse of the sun, we are back to being soaking wet. After receiving another 0.9" last night and into this morning with more on the way later today, we have no carts on the golf course. Again. Maybe the forecasts for this afternoon are all wrong. Since last Friday we have now received over 2.5" of rain.

Nittany and I just got back from a walk to check on the golf course and to clear some debris off surface drains that were plugged up. The puddle in the picture was on top of a drain that was plugged up with grass clippings. That puddle is probably almost gone now. I took a few other pictures while I was out there. It's certainly not the most standing water that has ever been out here, but it's definitely close to the most saturated I've ever seen it.

Our drainage system hard at work.

Looking Down 5 Fairway from 5 Green

No Carts Today, April 20th

2011-04-20T06:55:00.000-05:00

Due to the amount of rain we received last night, there will be no carts on the golf course today. As usual, you are welcome to come out and walk the course if you would like to play.

Last night we received an inch of rain in under an hour, and practically flooded the golf course. I checked out the golf course last night soon after the rain subsided, and there was water just about everywhere. This morning, much of the water has gone down, but the course remains saturated. Our rain total since Friday afternoon is now up to 1.86". Without warm temperatures and sun, it is difficult for that much rain to evaporate from the course. Lets keep hoping that there is a change in the weather soon.

Aerfication Postponed

2011-04-18T09:52:00.000-05:00

With the weather being significantly less than ideal, we will not be able to aerify the greens this week as was originally planned. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate with us next Monday, April 25th. Currently the forecast doesn't look good for next week either, but it's a long way off and we all know that forecasts have a tendency to change.

What's the reason that we need a nice day for aerifying? The biggest thing that we need is dry weather, and some sun helps too. We are going to be pulling cores from the greens, and if they get wet or stay wet after they are pulled, the dirt turns into mud and gets smeared on the greens as we are picking them up. Also, we can not spread sand to fill the holes in wet conditions. The sand that we spread is wet, and needs the sun to dry it out so that it can be moved around easily on the greens to fill in the holes.

I will post up any updates on the aerification schedule. In the meantime, think about sunny and warm weather, and be glad that it didn't snow in Homewood.

Your Friendly Etiquette Reminder

2011-04-14T12:58:00.113-05:00

Last week, there was an article in the USGA Green Section record that described the difference between a good player and a good golfer, and that the two are not necessarily the same. It explains that you can be a good player and be a bad golfer, and vice versa. The difference between the two being that a good player is someone that can go out on the course and shoot a good score, and a good golfer is someone respects the game, and especially the golf course, when they are out playing. A good golfer is someone who replaces and fills divots, fixes ballmarks (even when they don't make one themselves), and exercises good cart etiquette. I thought that this was an interesting perspective, and that it is a good time to review how to properly be a good "golfer," and not just a good "player."

Ballmark Repair

Ballmarks are one the most common complaints that golf course superintendents hear, but it is also one of the easiest things that a golfer can do to help keep the greens in good shape. It is early in the season, and there
hasn't been a lot of play on the golf course, but every morning there are multiple unrepaired ballmarks on every green. Please help us in maintaining the smoothness of the greens and fix your ballmarks. If you didn't make one or can't find yours, fix another one that you see. Also, everyone needs to make sure that they are properly repairing the marks, an improperly repaired mark can damage the putting surface more than one that is left unrepaired. If you are using one of the short pronged repair tools that are in the golf shop, all you have to do is use the tool to push the grass towards the center of the mark and smooth it out with your putter. If you still have one of the longer pronged tools, be sure that you never lift the center of the mark, it will tear the roots of the grass and cause a dead spot. All you have to do is insert the tool around the edge of the mark and gently twist the outside of the mark towards the middle and smooth by tapping your putter on the top of the mark.

Divot Repair

Filling or replacing your divot doesn't just reduce the chances of your ball coming to rest in a divot, it also helps to maintain a smooth playing surface. When you take a divot, I would like everyone to first think about replacing the divot before immediately reaching for the sand bucket. If the divot that you took is deep and has a fair amount of soil still attached to it, chances are pretty good that it will be able to grow back quickly, so it needs to be replaced and stepped down so that it can take root again. If your divot flies apart into several pieces, or there isn't any soil attached to it, then reach for the sand bucket on the cart. Fill the divot with the seed and sand mixture so that it is level with the soil. If you accidently put too much in, just level it out with your foot. Mounds of sand on the fairways and tees can damage mowers and make for a bumpy surface. Also remember that we have a different type of grass in the rough than we do on the tees and fairways, please do not use the green sand in the rough.

Cart Etiquette

Calumet Country Club was designed before golf carts were invented and we need to keep this in mind when using carts on the course. Traffic patterns show up very quickly and many areas where golfers want to have good turf is where the worst violations of cart etiquette happen. When using carts please follow these rules:

Keep your cart on paths where there is one available.
When parking by a tee or green, keep all four wheels of your cart on the path. Pulling part way off the path causes uneccessary damage to high profile areas.
Do not drive your cart onto green banks, tee banks, bunker banks or mounds.
When approaching a green from the fairway, please do not drive your cart up into the approach. Keep your cart 30 feet away from the green.
When following another cart, do not follow directly behind them, choose another path to spread out the traffic. Along this same line, if you see an area that is matted down or worn out from cart traffic try a different route.
Please don't move ropes so that you can drive your cart into an area. We try minimize the use of ropes as much as possible, but they are a necessary evil in managing cart traffic.

Improperly Parked Cart on a Green Bank

Cart Parked Properly at a Green

When parking, keep all four wheels on the path. This cart is causing damage to the turf next to the path.

With all this information in mind, I hope that we all can become better "golfers," and maybe better "players" too! Just taking ten seconds to fix your ballmark, replace or fill your divot, and to think about where you are driving your cart will go a long way to keeping your course in great shape. If you have any questions about any of this information, make sure to stop me or my assistant Adam to discuss it.

Season is rolling now

2011-04-12T11:08:00.014-05:00

After a weekend with summertime temperatures, the grass is really starting to grow and our tasks and pace of work is starting to feel more and more like the heart of the golf season. We've had a lot of small projects to complete, and we still have many more to get to. Now that we are having to keep up with mowing grass our efforts and staff are really ramping up.

One project that was front and center to the membership was the giant hole we cut in the parking lot near the bagroom. The waterline that runs from the clubhouse to the cartbarn/caddyhouse was leaking again, and instead of trying to find the leak that could have been anywhere in a 50 foot area, we decided to tie the golf course irrigation system into the newer pipe that runs to the cartbarn from the hole we dug. Here is what our completed work looked like before we filled the hole in with gravel.

The irrigation pipe is the white pipe at the top of the "T" and the pipe running to the cartbarn is the copper pipe at the bottom of the tee. The wires that you see are the control wires for the sprinkers in the front clubhouse lawn. A paving company will be coming out to patch the asphalt.

Something that golfers notice every spring, is that the pond on number 14 is very low. It's actually only low for a few days and then it gets refilled. We pump the water out of the pond into the creeks using the irrigation system. This is done because of road salt. The pond next door fills up with drainage from the office park roads, and that pond feeds into our pond. Since the water in our pond is what we water the golf course with, and salt water and grass don't get along very well we need to get rid of this water. By pumping the water out of the pond and filling it back up with our well water, we can greatly reduce the salt levels in the water that is being used to irrigate the golf course.

Driving Range Opening

2011-04-05T13:03:00.001-05:00

The driving range will be open for the season tomorrow, Wednesday, April 6th.

Mad Science?

2011-04-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

Compared to many other golf courses, we've been pretty lucky to not have too many problems with moss growth on our greens, but some spots are starting to develop. The worst spot is on the front right of the 14th green on the slope, which is where moss tends to develop.

In the grand scheme of things, moss is a relatively new problem to golf courses for two main reasons. The first is the EPA removal of mercury fungicides many years ago. Mercury is toxic to the moss and now that all the residues of those fungicides are gone from the soil, the moss is able to grow. The other reason is the low heights of cut that we use on greens can cause turf to thin out, especially in high traffic areas and on severe slopes, allowing the moss to encroach on the turf.

Unfortunately, removal of the moss can be a tricky process, especially when it becomes a widespread problem. There are newly available herbicides that are somewhat effective on the moss, but are not a 100% cure. Since our moss problem is isolated right now, we are trying a different "herbicide" that has been known to be quite effective in reducing the moss population, but can also be effective in reducing the turf population. We are using a mixture of baking soda and water applied directly to the moss with a handheld squirt bottle, so that we limit how much gets on the turf surrounding the moss. We will make two applications this spring, I will keep you updated on the results.

Spring Aerification

2011-03-31T11:52:00.000-05:00

Eventhough the turf is hardly even growing right now, we still need to plan our aerification to ensure that we have quality turf for the season. We will be aerifying the greens on Monday, April 18th (weather permitting), so be aware of this date when making any golfing plans. This date gives the greens a few weeks to heal up and be in prime condition for the Men's Mixer on May 14. The tees and collars will also be aerified, but we will probably wait until the week after the greens so that we can focus on getting all the greens aerified, topdressed, and cleaned up in one day.

What Happened to Spring?

2011-03-23T09:37:00.000-05:00

Just last week, we were having a great early start to the golf season. Quite a few members made it out to enjoy the weather and the golf, and it was great to see all the familiar faces that I haven't seen in a few months. Now I'm afraid it may be a little while before I see you all again, the 10-day forecast doesn't look promising. So far this week, the sun has been scarce and it's been raining off and on, hopefully this rain doesn't turn into the dreaded white stuff. We have been lucky with the rain though, some other places in the Chicago area have had much more rain than we have. Over the course of the past few days, we've received about 0.9" of rain, and other places have gotten well over two inches. In the summer time we can usually soak up this amount of rain, but with the cold cloudy days, the golf course has gotten very wet and saturated.

This return to winter does have a silver lining for the grounds staff though. It's allowing us to methodically chip away at our spring cleanup with a smaller staff as opposed to bringing more staff in and scrambling to keep up with mowing on top of the clean up effort. After a few days of hard work, the sticks and branches that fall on the golf course have all been cleaned up. Now it all needs to go through the chipper, a job that will be saved for a frosty morning when we can't get out on the golf course. Cleaning out all the debris out of the bunkers and getting them raked is up next.

A winter's worth of sticks and branches.

For those of you who have made it out to play, you may have noticed the "new" bridge on the right side of the 16th hole. The week of the golf course opening, all the wood that made up the bridge was replaced because the old wood was rotting and quickly becoming a safety issue. A new rubber mat to provide traction for walkers will be added to the bridge soon.

The remains of the old bridge alongside the new frame.

The new decking.

First cut

2011-03-17T14:50:00.001-05:00

Along with opening the golf course to play today, we also started cutting some grass. The greens and fairways were cut for the first time today. Just over the course of the day I noticed the greens get greener, hopefully the rest of the turf isn't too far behind. If it doesn't rain too much tonight we will cut the tees and collars tomorrow.

It's good to see stripes again.

Golf Course Opening Thursday, March 17th

2011-03-15T16:40:00.000-05:00

I'm glad to say that I have to eat my words from my first post on the blog. Originally, I thought that there was no chance we would be able to open the golf course as early as we did in 2009, and now, we will be opening the exact same day as we did then. The course will be open for play with carts (weather permitting of course) on Thursday, March 17th at 11:00a.m.

The small skeleton crew that we have working on the grounds staff has been hard at work the past two days. Yesterday, we spent the day working at cleaning the sticks that litter the course every winter, and today we spent the day blowing debris off the greens and the tees, and also got a start on rolling the greens. Tomorrow, we will finish rolling the greens, finish blowing off the tees, and continue to clean up the course. When we open, we won't have all the winter debris cleaned up, so please be patient with some of the mess as we continue to clean it all up after we open.

Thursday's forecast is calling for the temperature to be in the 60's, so make sure to come on out and enjoy some St. Patricks's day golf and the early opening of your golf course!

First signs of spring.

2011-03-08T09:45:00.001-06:00

Although there are still patches of snow on the golf course and some pretty big piles in the parking lot, some plants are beginning to get ready for spring. The daffodils near the front drive of the club house are starting to poke out of the ground. Hopefully everything else isn't far behind.

Another sign that I just noticed around lunchtime is the sound of Sandhill Cranes flying overhead. They fly over this area in November and in March in their migration to and from Canada and Florida. They typically fly at pretty high altitudes, so they probably wouldn't be noticed if it wasn't for their loud calls. Take a look up at the sky next time you hear this sound.

USGA Green Section Article

2011-03-04T08:50:00.000-06:00

The green section record is an electronic publication the USGA publishes that focuses on the grounds maintenance part of golf. This week there was a good article explaining why aerification is a necessary evil.

http://turf.lib.msu.edu/gsr/article/bevard-putting-3-4-11.pdf

March is Here!

2011-03-02T09:16:00.000-06:00

After a very long (and still going) winter, March is here and I'm sure that many of your thoughts are starting to turn to golf. Unfortunately, we are still three or four weeks from the dates that we are typically able to open the golf course to play. Stranger things have happened though, in 2009 we were able to open on March 17th, but we are going to need some drastic changes in the weather to make that possible again. Although it may be somewhat warm in the afternoon, it is still going below freezing at night and keeping the soil frozen. When the top layer of soil thaws, there is nowhere for the the water to go creating extremely soft and easily damaged turf, so it is very important to stay off the turf this time of year.

Now that the snow is melted, we have been able to get a good look at how the turf made it through the winter, and everything is looking good. There are only a few areas that are showing any signs of winter kill, and as of now, the fairways, tees, and greens, are clear of snow mold disease. All we need now is some warm weather to thaw and dry out the course and we will be ready to go.