The Hazards of the Job

Last week after we were able to dry out for a day or two, Assistant Superintendent David Carlson went to mow outside the fence along Holmes road. Everything was going smoothly until his last pass.... That's when the trouble started. The Jacobsen turfcat started to slip on the hill, it was stuck. He turned off the blades, and proceeded to raise the deck, at this moment he could tell he was in serious trouble. The mower started leaning and at that moment he had to decide to bail  and run for the fence. As he got to the fence he turned around in time to see the mower begin its trip down the hill.  He told me that it never hit the ground when it flipped down the hill. Luckily everyone was safe and we were able to push the mower back on its side. All we had to do was get the rear tire filled with air, put some much needed oil into the motor that was lost. And then with about 5 mins of blowing out pure white smoke this piece of machinery was back to normal. Something like this doesn't happen everyday but we always have to be on our toes in this profession because you never know when something like this can cause you problems.

The Rough is...well ROUGH!

As you have probably noticed lately Minor Park and golf courses in general are producing long and lush roughs (hence more lost balls!). Thanks to fertilization and perfect weather (well-timed rains and warm temps) the rough is growing at an accelerated rate as it does every spring. Our rough areas and banks at Minor Park are mostly tall fescue which is a cool-season grass. This variety flourishes in the spring, is a survivalist during hot dry summers, and mounts it's comeback in the fall. Here are some facts about cool-season grass:

· Roots of a cool-season grass plant begin to absorb water and nutrients as soon as the ground temp reached 55 to 65 degrees F.  In response, the grass blades soon follow with prolific growth, especially with the air temperatures ranges between 60 and 75 degrees F.

· So with the warm weather early this year coupled with the Barricade plus fertilizer we put down for weed control AND multiple rain events, it's a perfect storm for more rapid blade growth.

Please bear with us another couple weeks, to help alleviate golfer frustration we are lowering mow height and continuing our schedule of cutting rough 5 days a week!  Perhaps the only thing to get excited about HOT weather is the effect it will have on the rough, this will cause cool-season fescue to thin out, then all of us can appreciate a slower rate of growth and easier shots from next to the fairway!

Check out this image showing the growth pattern of Cool-season grasses:

Clubhouse Mulching and upcoming flowers

With the few rain days in April we were able to get out and mulch around the clubhouse and the tee features on the course. In the upcoming week we will be getting in our flowers from the City of Kansas City, MO and will start planting them on holes 3, 7, 12, and up by the clubhouse. If you haven't starting planting or mulching at your house now is a great time to start.

So if your out playing in the next couple of weeks please look for these lovely flowers that the City of KCMO grows for us.  As always, I really hope that you enjoy coming out and playing at Minor Park Golf Course.

Before

After

Photo Quiz

What do you see in this picture?

Answer: Unrepaired Ball Marks. Just in this small picture you will see 5. 

At the start of every season many superintendents have to talk about the amount of unrepaired ball marks they have on their course and how we have to keep letting the golfer know the proper way to fix them. Instead with this post I would like the share the WHY we need to fix them. I found a great article from GCSAA that talks about how long an unrepaired ball mark takes to recover. Here is a insert from that article:

The basis for ball mark repair and divot replacement is for competitive and agronomic reasons. Balls that land in unrepaired divots place a golfer at a disadvantage, just as having to putt over a ball mark. By leaving turf damaged (unrepaired), it becomes susceptible to disease and/or infestation of weeds, resulting in a lower quality of playing surface. This necessitates the need for attention by golf course superintendents and their staffs, thereby taking them away from more pressing duties. As a general rule, a ball mark repaired within 10 minutes will heal with a smooth surface within two to three days. An unrepaired ball mark may take as long as three weeks to heal, but the result will be an uneven surface.

As you can see if you can replace your ball mark within 10 mins of it happening that mark will heal in 2-3 days.  On the other end as you see in the photo these can possible take up to 3 weeks to repair itself.

Have a great day at Minor Park and please repair your ball marks. It makes for a more enjoyable round of golf for yourself and allows myself and my staff time to work on other things to keep Minor Park looking the best that it can be.

Also just a reminder that we will be starting Aerification on Aril 4th and 5th.  

Stump Grinding

Last week we were able to get around 75 old and new stumps ground up at Minor Park. We used a Vermeer stump grinder that we got after winning this auction item at the S and R tournament. Grinding stumps can be a time consuming event but with the grinder we were able to use we knocked out the stumps in about 10 hrs. After grinding the stump we pick up the leftover debris, back fill the hole with topsoil, and will seed or sod the bare spots. Here are a few pictures of the results:

After Grinding

Removal of stump debris

Fresh topsoil waiting for seed or sod

After mowing, 1/2 inch of rain, and nice temperatures greens are looking really good.

Clubhouse Landscape

With the nice weather, we were able to get out and do some much needed trimming of the landscape around the clubhouse. After doing some research on Euonymus (Burning Bush) and Privets we found out that this is a great time to trim them back aggressively. For theses 2 types of plants we trimmed off around 3 feet of old growth to get them down below the windows of the back clubhouse. While we were up there we also reshaped a few shrubs and trimmed off the lower branches of pine and cedar trees. Here are a few pictures of what the landscape looks like now.

Goose Damage Again

It never fails, every year at Minor Park Golf Course geese begin their yearly destruction of green edges. This year it seems to be a bit more evident due to the winter we are having. With the course being thawed for so long it allows the geese to dig and tear holes into the greens while leaving their unwanted mess behind. We go out every morning and on no golfer days we make multiple rounds scouting for geese and scaring them off with our Bird Screamers. This is a type of firework that we shoot out of a .22 pistol that sends a screamer firecracker into the air. This firecracker produces a loud bang sending the birds into flight and off our property. As this next wave of cold and hopefully some snow cover funnels in we can start to reduce the holes that the geese are digging due to the ground getting frozen.