Aerification and Seeding

Just a reminder that we will begin aerification on Sunday September 22nd at 4:00 Pm. We will be closed Monday September 23rd and if everything goes smooth we will have 9 holes open on Tuesday September 24th. Thank you for your pateinces during this process.

We are currently in the process of seeding areas on the course. We were able to seed the area where the bunker was on #10 green right before the first rain this week. We are out doing cool season tees tops that will be used for winter play and after areification we will begin seeding rough areas around green banks and tee banks.

Kansas City Star

On Monday August 26th, we had a photographer from the Kansas City Star come out and take some photos of my staff out hand watering. With the temperatures soaring into the mid to upper 90's we had to continue our regiment of hand watering spots on greens.  A typical 90 degree day starts with watering spots on greens and collars, then at 12:30 we begin 2-3 runs of light watering on the putting surface This process typically keeps us on the greens for less than 5 minutes and we move to the next. Afternoons with high humidity and high temperatures we don't want to have excessive water placed on the green so our light syringing allows us to wet the surface and drop the canopy temperatures.

Here is the photograph that made the Kansas City Star:

From the latest weather report it looks like we will receive a break from this heat wave after Labor Day. The overall course conditions are great, so if you have time please come out and enjoy a round at Minor Park Golf Course.


Here is a video from the USGA on hand watering:

Zoysia Conversion on 13 fairway

About a month ago, we were able to purchase 1000 square yards of zoysia sod from Topeka Sod farm to strip in our only existing cool-season fairway. The process used a skid-steer with 2 cutters on the front that proceeded to cut 7 inch strips on 18 inch centers. The 7 inch stripes were loaded into workmen beds and dumped off site. It will take around 3-4 years for the whole fairway to fill in.

Before sod installation

After Sod Installation

1 month later

 

Vandalism on 8 green

On July 11^th we had a car enter our facility through the fence on 115^th street and proceeded to drive onto 8 green and do donuts on the green surface before leaving the property. We went through the process of rolling the green 4 times, aerified, topdressed, fertilized, and watered it. See below before and after pictures.

 

 

Bunker Removal #10

For anyone that has played Minor Park Golf Course, you may have noticed that the course was blessed with one bunker by 10 green. I am pleased to inform all golfers that on this day Minor Park officially has ZERO bunkers to maintain.

Bunker with sand removed.

 

 

 Grading the bunker down

Rough Grade

 

Mr. Bertels putting down seed



Dragging in the seed for proper seed to soil contact

David packing down seed with tractor tires

Finished Product

final grade and seeded

 

As you can see from the final picture it no longer looks like a bunker was there. We decided to seed this due to the fact that we were able to flatten it out so much and also save on budget that could be used elsewhere on the course.

Aerification

Well its that time of the year again... Aerification!!!. Here at Minor Park Golf Course we have started the process of punching holes and picking up plugs! We are hoping that the weather will cooperate with us so we can get this done within the next couple of days and get Minor Park back open for play. This morning we were able to double verticut greens and then starting at 4:00 tonight we are in the process of punching holes. Here are a few pictures of the process:

Double verticuting to help eliminate some unwanted thatch

David (My Assistant) running the Procore

Picking up plugs with the core harvester

Vandalism at Minor Park

We had some vandalism overnight on a few of our greens and tee boxes.  The putting green and tee box #4 got the worse of it.  We had to strip out a spot on the putting green and replace it with sod from our Nursery green. The black marks where they decided to burn out on the green have been left for now to see what the turf does in these areas.

Damage on Putting Green

Turf removed and replaced from nusery green