This site is intended to share information relating to the management of the golf course conditioning and quality of Northmoor Country Club and the art, the science, and the factors that influence those conditions. Please visit as often as possible.
Once again Lorrie Witt has outdone herself with her creativity in designing the winter plant containers on the patio and at the front entry of the clubhouse. She spent four hours on Wednesday afternoon in the 26 degree weather to prepare the planter for the Thanksgiving holiday. Sergio, Rafael and Apolinar also helped with preparing the bedding mix for the containers. We have some tremendous employees for sure.
Lorrie shopping and making her choices for plant materials
Preparing the planters
Patio arrangement
Front entry arrangement
A handful of "die-hard"golfers braved the cold with their yellow golf balls as part of the traditional Thanksgiving morning outing.
Aerification is one of the most necessary and basic turfgrass management practices. As the video below illustrates, relieving soil compaction, improving oxygen availability and increasing penetration and percolation within the soil profile are just a few of the benefits of aerifying. In our case at NCC, aerification also benefits the health of our turf surfaces (especially the greens) by allowing us to remove some of the negative elements that accumulate in the rootzone via the poor irrigation quality water that we use. The aerification process that we implement today, aides our course conditioning in the future.
Aerification timing and methods vary from course to course depending on any number of factors: tournament schedules, amount of play, irrigation water quality, sand or soil rootzone construction, available sunlight and air movement to the green, weather conditions (cold and heat), etc. The size of the aerification tines also varies with the desired outcome. In or fall aerification, we use the larger coring tines that remove the cores from the rootzone. In the summer months we use "needle" or small solid tines that do not pull out a core.
The timing of aerification varies at different courses. I have chosen the mid to latter part of September for four reasons:
1. Even though the weather can still be really favorable for play in the latter part of September, the volume of play decreases after Labor Day.
2. Aerifying while there is still a degree of warmer days allows for the aerification holes to heal and cover quicker.
3. Most significantly, next to aerifying in mid-August, September is the next best time for us at NCC because we have very clean, poa annua free, green's surfaces. Aerifying later is a more optimum time for poa annua to invade our greens. Keeping our surfaces clean with a pure stand of bentgrass is a key to our management and course conditioning program.
4. Aerification in the middle to end of September comes after all of the major tournaments at the club
A microburst of wind and a thunderstorm passed through NCC on Friday afternoon leaving a wake of destruction and damage. Below are some photos of the damage to the course. Over 20 trees are on the ground and the inch of rain has left the course very wet.
This summer has been a bit on the cool side for many of our annual flowers but the perennials are in full bloom. Below are a few of the seasonal colors at NCC.
Lorrie Witt, once again, has added her creativity and special touch for flowers on the tees for the Ladies Invitational.
Incorrectly and unrepaired fairway divots are an eyesore to our otherwise pristine bentgrass fairways. They also diminish the quality of the playing conditions of any quality fairway turf. Nothing is more unfair for a fellow golfer than to hit a perfect shot right down the middle of the fairway only to have his or her ball come to rest in
an unrepaired divot. It is the responsibility of every golfer to leave the course in better condition than he or she found it.
Incorrectly repaired divots in the fairway
Unless the replaced divot is pressed firmly back into place, it will dry out and die as exhibited by the dried out brown dead divot in the photo below.
The following video shows the best way to repair or replace fairway divots. Take a look.
There are times, following heavier rainfalls, when we allow carts on the fairways. We request that the carts stay in the fairway cut because most of the fairways have some form of subsurface drainage and the shorter cut turf dries faster. The rough areas have many "birdbaths" and heavily shaded areas where water tends to stand. Also the areas with higher turf takes longer to dry out. For these reasons, we ask that golfers not drive in the roughs.
The wetness of the course not only depends on the amount of rainfall we may have received on a given day but on the following factors:
The rainfall on previous days
The amount of sunlight to dry the course
The amount of wind to dry the course
The amount of humidity during the day
Below are some photos of the wet areas of the roughs that influence cart access at times. These are photos taken on a day, following a rainfall, when carts were permitted on the fairways.
While the fairways may be drying, the roughs are so wet that carts can damage the course entering and exiting the fairways. As always, I will get carts out ASAP. This is your golf course and I will always place a high priority on you being able to enjoy it and have access to it.
Although carts were running on the fairways following a rainfall, we were still pumping water from standing areas on the course. You can imagine how carts being driven in the wrong place could cause damage.
