Natural Areas

This past winter the greens and grounds committee has decided to add a few more native or un-mowed areas to the golf course.  These newly selected areas are located around #2 tee, #8-18 tee, between #9-11 and between #4-6.  The committee took care in the placement of these areas so that they are not where people will have to look endlessly for golf balls.  This was by no means done to make the course more difficult.  

 

Native, natural or un-mowed areas provide a great list of benefits.

1. These native areas add texture to the course and give it a nice contrast from the tightly mowed areas. 
2. These areas also enhance wildlife that can be seen on the course.  Already many bluebirds and swallows have called Ridgeway home.
3. Money is saved by not having to mow these areas,  both labor and fuel costs are saved by not having to mow extra acreage.
4. By not having to allocate time and money to the native areas it can be used elsewhere. More time and effort can be spent on minor details etc.
5. Once these areas mature in late summer they look beautiful with browns and reds that are a sharp contrast with the green of the rest of the course.

In order to make these areas presentable we need your help.  Please do not drive through the native areas.  If we drive through the long grass it will not be able to reach its potential. I have roped off or put markers defining the edges of the long grass however we do not have enough signage to do all of  them so just use good judgment when nearing these areas. Thanks!

 

Here is an article that may shed some light on the subject of native areas.

 

http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci-1210-native-areas.aspx

Merion Maintenance

 

I was reading Golf Course Industry magazine the other day when I ran across this article about Merion Golf Club in Philadelphia.  Merion is going to be hosting the US Open in a few weeks and  I found it interesting because many of the practices employed at Merion are very similar to Ridgeway.   It is nice to see other courses that utilize our approach. 

http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci0513-merion-golf-club-sustainability.aspx

#2 and # 13 opening

Today we opened #2 and #13 greens for play.  They have recovered nicely but are cut a little longer than the rest of the putting surfaces so expect these to be a little slower.  Try to minimize your foot traffic by only walking in areas of the greens that are necessary to putt your ball.  Thanks for your patience and have a great holiday weekend!

Sod Nursery

The greens and grounds committee is committed to the long term well being of the golf course.  One of the glaring deficiencies is the lack of a sod nursery.   A good sod nursery pays for itself because it is an insurance policy against situations like winterkill, vandalism, and summer stress.  Also sod nurseries are beneficial for projects because you do not need to pay for sod from an outside source. 

Starting today we are starting work on a sod nursery near the maintenance facility in the two vacant lots on Ridgeway Drive.  We are getting over 200 loads of fill and will be leveling the area with a large bulldozer.  Once the leveling phase is finished we will install irrigation, add proper amendments (mainly sand), and seed.  This project will not interfere with the golf course other than some noise on #11.  This is a great long term investment that will pay us back in the future. 

Stay tuned in the upcoming months for progress of this project!

Deep needle-tining



Doug needle-tining #12 green



Yesterday we started the process of deep needle-tining our putting surfaces.  We utilize this process to relieve compaction and to help drive roots deeper.  Roots do not live in soil they live in air and by deep needle-tining we are able to elongate our root system.  Since using our deep tine machine more frequently we have seen deeper roots which translate into healthier turf.  At present our roots are 8-10" deep and in some cases 10+".  This spring however I have noticed a denser root mass at 10" than in past seasons. It is just a reminder of how valuable this practice has become and how far we have come in the past few seasons.

 
We deep needle-tined our greens two directions, rolled and then lightly topdressed the surface.  Overall the surface is very playable with the small holes still visible.  Watching people putt yesterday I did not notice any hopping or compromised ball roll and by the end of the week the holes should close themselves.  Enjoy the nice weather this week!




Justin topdressing #8 green



Finished product



Collar Sod

One of the hardest hit areas from winterkill this year was our collars.  This is typically the case since it has the largest concentration of Poa.  The collar is an area that receives lots of traffic from mowers, rollers, and golfers.  In my experience it takes a long time for these areas to recover by seed and what little grass that does come back, is our weak friend Poa annua.  So because of slow heal in time and the fact that these areas are bigger in size we have decided to sod out collars to bentgrass.

Thursday and Friday we laid bentgrass sod on #5, 10, 11, 14, 16 and 17 collars.  These areas are ground under repair until further notice.  Remember that you may drop to the nearest point of relief no nearer the hole.  Please use a golf club to retrieve your ball if it lands on some sod and do not walk or hit a ball from a newly sodded area. Thanks!

 



Before

After

 

 

 

Pregermination

This past week we pregerminated some bentgrass seed.  Pregermination is the process of getting seed to germinate before you put it into the ground.  There are many different ways to accomplish this, one method is to put the seed into a burlap sack and dunk it into water with a fish tank aerator so that the seed does not rot.  You then replace with clean water every 12 hours  and after 3-5 days you are now ready to use the seed.  Another method is simply putting bentgrass seed into some wet sand and put it into a warm room.  After several warm days in my office the seed is ready to be planted.  There are many other ways to pregerminate seed, we used both methods above for pregerminating.

Keep in mind that bentgrass takes 10-25 days to germiante in IDEAL conditions.  Early spring and cold soil temperatures are not IDEAL for germination of bentgrass.  Because peak golf season is just around the corner we used pregermination to speed up the recovery process on our putting surfaces. 

As you play in the coming days you will notice small amounts of green sand in areas of the greens that expericanced winterkill.  In order to use the pregerminated seed we had to use green sand as our carrier.  Pregerminated seed is very fragile and needs a carrier like sand to minimize mortality.  Here are the steps in the seeding process:

                Step 1: Mix pregerminated seed with green sand and put into buckets.

                Step 2: Poke small holes into the winterkill areas with a hand spiker.

                Step 3: Take green sand and pregerminated bentgrass mixture and spread it over the small holes left by the hand spiker.

                Step 4: Level the green sand and bentgrass mixture with a leveling tool called a levelawn.

                Step 5: Roll the putting surface to achieve seed to soil contact.

                Step 6: Apply light and frequent watering in the days to come.

Most of our winterkill areas are very small and we will try to move the hole locations to areas away from the winterkill so that we minimize disturbance on the newly seeded areas.  The areas that have green sand are smooth and should  not be much of a disturbance.  We are sorry for the incovnience but this will help get our greens healed in sooner, despite the late spring.