Driving Range Tee

The driving range tee closest to the small putting green was striped, lowered, enlarged, laser leveled and resodded with Celebration bermudagrass. Over the last decade the driving range tee has gradually been rising due to topdressing of the divots. The new tee will be taken back down to its original grade and it will also be enlarged in the front, on the right and in the back. To enlarge the tee we will be using the soil that will be taken off of the top layer to get the tee back down too it's original grade. Celebration bermudagrass was the grass chosen because it is supposed to be very aggressive in divot recovery.

Conversion to Champion Bermudagrass is underway

If you did not know we will be converting the lowest short game green from bentgrass to Champion bermudagrass. We have been waiting on the green light from Champion Turf Farm on when they will begin the conversion. They will begin sometime around the fourth of July. Currently the middle green at the short game area is Miniverde, so it was decided to try Champion on the lowest green to see which one preforms better at ACC. The first step in the conversion process is to spray out the bentgrass using roundup. Champion turf farm has their own pre and post conversion process. We will be following their recommendations to allow for the highest quality of turf.

Mowing bunker faces

Not many new golf courses being built or courses built in the past have grass bunker faces like we do at the club. It just costs to much to upkeep them and more and more courses do not have a big enough staff to upkeep them. I love the design and layout of the course, but the bunkers make us a unique golf course. It gives the course character and offers a different layout then many golfers get to see at their own course. Bunkers on golf courses either have sand faces (Augusta National) or grass faces like ours. Both style of bunker can offer different and challenging options in upkeeping them. With sand faces there is the potential for the sand to wash off of the face during heavy rains. A few benefits to having sand faces are no mowing or spraying herbicides and fertilizers on them. Having grass faces adds the challenge of mowing them plus the added upkeep of spraying for weeds and fertilizing them. We use a mower called a hover mower or fly mower to mow the faces. This mower actually does hover above the ground and it works perfectly for our steep bunker faces. It takes four employees with two mowers and two blowers five to seven hours to mow all the bunkers on the course. Depending on how thick the bermuda is determines how long it takes to mow the bunker faces. I have attached a video of Jared fly mowing one of the smaller bunkers on number 18.

Lots and lots of rain

Starting Sunday night till Friday at noon we have received over five inches of rain. Greens aerification was completed Tuesday by noon and topdressing was completed by 3:00 the same day. The heavy downpours worked in our favor since it moved the sand down into the holes and past the turf canopy. This allowed us to mow the greens sooner than expected. The first cut on the greens was done Friday mid morning. Green Tee Golf was able to strip all the tees that are being converted to zoro zoysia. We were unable to apply the soil fumigant do to the rain. We will apply as soon as we have a dry period where we do not have to worry about a heavy downpour. It will take 10-14 days for the soil fumigant to work then the tees will be laser leveled and sod will then be laid.  

Aerification update

All greens have been aerified and topdressed. We have also aerated all diamond zoysia tees and have started on low cut as well as fairways. As I am writing this we are having one long and hard downpour. This is great for the greens and will work the sand down into the soil. We will have a little set back on aerifiying fairways do to the fairways being to wet to drive a tractor on them. 

Busy week at ACC

The upcoming week is going to be a very busy week for the golf course crew. We will be aerating greens(small tines), aerating tees and low cut and slicing the fairways around a six inch depth. The golf course will reopen Friday morning. Also Green Tee Golf will begin working on the zoro tee project.