Thursday, February 6, 2014

MEETING WITH MEMBERSHIP TO DISCUSS GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE


On January 22nd a meeting was held in the Forest Creek Clubhouse for the purpose of discussing the Forest Creek golf course maintenance programs for 2014. The managers  from that department, Bill Patton, Graham Purcell (South),  and Chris Noll (North)  were there along  with Jim Lewis, green committee chairman and 65 members of Forest Creek.  This “Pizza with Patton” night was an opportunity for the Golf Course Maintenance Department to discuss with the membership the plans and improvement  goals for 2014. Bill Patton presented an outline of plans and  also included responses to several questions that had been provided in advance.  A question and answer session followed. The following summarizes those comments and answers.

 

PIZZA WITH PATTON COMMENTS

The critical element of the planning for operations in 2014 is the 2014 Golf Course Maintenance budget.  The overall budget has been increased by  $320,000 for 2014 over last year’s 2013 budget.  The labor budget for 2014 has increased to $1,068,000 from $903,508 in 2013.  Those percentages of labor to overall budget are in line with normal percentages  in the golf course industry.  One half of our budget increase is going to labor costs.  The non-labor budget increases are going into more money for chemicals, more money for fertilizers, and more money for equipment repair.  We believe that these budget increases are what we need  to produce the conditions that you expect .

We  are reorganizing our staff in several ways to improve performance.  We have added a second assistant superintendent  on  each golf course. These are college trained individuals who have both graduated from the Sandhills Community College program.  One worked as a coop student at Forest Creek while he attended school.  The other individual had been working as an assistant at Secession Golf Club before moving back to Pinehurst to get married.  These additional assistants will improve the coaching and supervision of our staff.   We are also keeping more staff on through the winter to accomplish special projects and we have upgraded the skill level in our new hires by paying a slightly higher wage.

The capital budget  also a reflects our efforts  to upgrade our facilities.  Two programs planned for this year are repairs to the decking and rails of  our bridges and repairs to our cart paths by repaving areas around tees and greens and on steep slopes.  Whether these two programs happen is a function of cash flow to the club.  The profits which the club derives from the 2014 US Open have been earmarked for capital improvements and our programs are dependent on cash flow from this event.  The third leg of our 2014 capital program is the purchase of new equipment.

There is a commitment to go forward with a program of regularly replacing our golf course maintenance equipment.  This program would make a regular purchase of $150,000 of golf course maintenance equipment every year.  As a general rule one golf course requires  $500,000 of maintenance equipment to be successful.  Two golf courses through a sharing of equipment should require the lower number of $750,000.  Most golf course maintenance equipment has a useful life of five years.  Therefore a program which replaces $750,000 worth of equipment with $150,000 of equipment every year should be successful.  Problems developed at Forest Creek because we did not follow this program of replacing equipment every year and instead skipped equipment purchases in five out of six years from 2006 through 2011.  The last two years have seen improvement through purchasing $250,000 in 2012 and $140,000 in 2013. During the last year we have been able to repair many pieces of equipment by opening up our credit lines with our equipment suppliers that were closed during our hard times while we transitioned to FCI.

One of the most important goals for improving conditions on the golf courses for 2014 is a commitment to keeping the golf courses firmer and faster.  Tools which we will use to accomplish this goal are aerification and topdressing.  Last year we began a new program of intensively core aerifying the tees, the  fairways, and the green surrounds followed with topdressing. This effort was aimed at thatch removal, something that had been neglected for the last several years.   We plan to continue that program this year and have scheduled each golf course to be closed for two weeks at a time this summer.  We will aggressively aerify, then verticut  and finally topdress with sand to promote a firmer, healthier, and smoother bermudagrass playing surface. The South golf course has more thatch because of the type of bermudagrass  grown there as well as many years of overseeding with ryegrass.  If we can remove the thatch as well as promote its microbial breakdown with topdressing then we can have a firmer and hopefully drier playing surface in 2014.

Thatch holds water and its removal will promote drier conditions.  Last year our records show that we had 61.75 inches of rain at our maintenance facility.  We usually notice variation in our gauges from one side of the golf course to the other.  The state research station in Jackson Springs recorded 71.11 inches in 2013. The golf courses were wetter last year at times than we would like them to be.  Some of that was due to rainfall that was 50% higher than normal.  We believe that by removing thatch the golf courses will dry more quickly.

The problems that we had with goosegrass contamination on the South golf course in 2013 was a function of poor application and poor  performance of preemergent herbicides.  We applied Specticle and Ronstar to the North golf course and had a good result.  Because the South was overseeded with ryegrass we were unable to use those two products and relied on our traditional herbicide of Barricade.  Its performance in many areas was unacceptable and a serious problem.  Because we did not overseed this year on the South we will be able to use Ronstar on both golf courses.  Ronstar is much better at preventing goosegrass than is Barricade.

At the suggestion of the USGA green section we will use a different aerifier in the fairways this summer which will be less disruptive to playing conditions.  Our goal will be to loosen the soil, promote air exchange while not creating unacceptable turf conditions.  We want to return the golf holes in good condition at the end of the two weeks that we have closed.

We have done the most extensive prevention program for “spring dead spot” this year that we have ever done at Forest Creek.   We applied “tebuconazole” to all the fairways and tees on the South golf course and  to typical problem areas on the North golf course. “Spring dead spot” is a fungal disease of bermudagrass roots which typically occurs in fall but only becomes visible in the spring.  We will not know how effective our prevention program has been until spring.

We have several regrets about what happened in 2013.  The outbreak of goosegrass was devastating and we regret not using different herbicdes and applying them more carefully. We regret not overseeding the driving range on our regular schedule of between 9/15 and 10/15.  We waited until after the Member/Pro tournament which pushed us into November.  With this year’s early hard freezes that was too late  to have the ryegrass established going into winter. We also regret that  we did not communicate  effectively to the membership about why we were closing  the golf courses for aerification and why this disruption  was necessary.  We did not explain the ultimate benefits that it was intended to produce.  We felt that we had put this information on our blog but the message did not get out.  In the future we want to do a better job of directing people to the blog for information.

A major goal for 2014 is to do more golf course maintenance on the weekends to promote better playing conditions on the weekends.  We will schedule more people to work weekends and we will do more mowing.  We have spent the winter rehabilitating two older fairway mowers so that we can mow more often.  We will begin walk mowing the smaller tees on both golf courses in 2014.  We will also begin walk mowing the approach cut outside and around the greens to reduce compaction and wear between the greens and the bunkers this year. We want to mow our tees and fairways  more often and with sharper mowers in 2014.  We will try to handrake greenside bunkers when we are mowing the greens to reduce the problems with our mechanical trap rakes.  We will continue to remove asphalt cart paths where they are compromised by tree roots and replace that asphalt with native sand.  We will install more drains in our sand cart paths to stabilize them and also experiment with some spray-on polymer products that will stabilize the sand.

 We have begun a leveling and topdressing program on the left side of the driving range.  We will continue this effort and also install herringbone drainage if necessary. We have constructed  a new cart path on the left side of the driving range which will enable golfers to get to the practice area at the back of the driving range without going through the maintenance facility.  We hope to continue to upgrade that area  with improved accessibility and improved turf conditions.  We have found that this practice area at the back of the driving range is being used more and we wish to further promote its use.   We plan to pump bunkers that continue to hold water after rainfall and to work on the internal drainage of these same bunkers. We have already repaired the internal drainage in bunkers  on holes 9,15,16, and 17 on the north golf course this winter.  We have rebuilt the bunker  faces in the front bunker on 17 south and we have also changed the bunker sand in this bunker.  Due to concerns about  the wire grass plants on the bunker faces on the North golf course, we will communicate with the Fazio Golf Design  to get their input on these features and follow their directives.

There is an ongoing program of tree removal where the trees are causing agronomic problems.  We have rebuilt the championship tee on 18 south and sodded it with “zeon” zoysia grass.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     We have leveled the short tee on 2 south. There are plans to address drainage issues on the tees of 15 north and 12 north with topdressing and internal drainage.   There are plans  to add  a new tee on 16 south in front of and below the existing Long tee.  The completion of these plans on 16 are depends on the availability of capital funds later in the year.

It is our general practice to mow the greens every day when the weather is suitable for their growth.  Sometimes mowing is done when they are not growing to simply remove the brown winter-burned leaf tips. Sometimes in the summer when the greens are stressed because of heat we will skip mowing. This winter has been unusual and we have been mowing more than usual; the temperatures have fluctuated widely with extreme lows followed by remarkable warming.  Cups are not scheduled for changing every day.  However,  during  the seasons of the year when play is busy, we will change cups every day.  As a rule of thumb, we use 75 rounds as a threshold for changing but will not go very many days without changing.  We are now committed to changing cups on Friday, Saturday and Sunday regardless of the number of rounds played when we are in season.  Our practice in regards to the “cleanup” pass around the greens is different from what was done historically in our industry, but it is commonly done this way now.  We mow the “cleanup” pass around the edge of the green with a different mower set at a slightly higher height of cut which is operated by a veteran skilled operator. This cleanup is usually mowed every other day.  This pass around the edge of the green can become worn and compacted if done every day.  When the morning dew pattern shows that we have not made this pass it is not usually a mistake by the greensmower.   However if you can look down and see a difference in the grass heights then we have gone too long between cleanups and have made a mistake.

We are seeking feedback on the practice of painting fairways.  It has not been what we expected.  Early dormancy and harsh weather has made for a different experience industry wide with painting than in past years.  We purchased sufficient paint in the fall to apply 10 gallons of paint to the tees and fairways of the South golf course and planned three separate applications of 5 gallons, 3 gallons, and finally 2 gallons.  We used all our paint by December 1 to produce an acceptable look which is now fading.  The industry recommendation is now to start with 8 gallons and not paint as early as they had previously recommended. 

 Efforts are being expended this winter to refine our pin position matrixes and to coordinate tee position placement with those pin depths to give variety on par three golf holes. We are edging golf holes and edging around tress to give defined lines to the golf courses.  We are also trying to manage the turf edges to maintain playability so that an errant shot can be found and played.  This involves making sure that the blowers do not pile pine straw up in areas as well as limbing up the holly trees that are in play so that a golf ball can be found underneath them.

We want our golf course to be a “player’s “ golf course and we will try to achieve firm and fast conditions.  We will not manage for color.  We may not always achieve that goal but that is what we strive for.

We realize that bunkers are a priority and that we have to work at getting them better.  The trap rake operaters have to be careful  coming out of the bunkers and also not ride too high on the edges.  These efforts are part of ongoing golf course maintenance.  We constantly coach and instruct our employees how to do this properly.  We are hopeful that more handraking of bunker and changing the rakes on the riding trap rakes more often will solve some of this. The plan is to have the greensmowers hand rake all greenside bunkers as they mow their set of greens.

The maintenance employees are trained to get out of the way of golfers.  This is a constant educational process for us.  We have 25 core employees who work throughout the year.  We will add 20 more throughout the season.  Ten will be brought on for the March through October season and ten more will come on as summer help or as part time interns or coop students from Sandhills Community College.  We are constantly training these new employees throughout the season.

Irrigation for Forest Creek’s two golf courses is controlled by one central computer so we have to be careful with watering because often we will get rainfall on one part of the property and not another.  We adjust irrigation through field satellite controllers so that different areas get different amounts of irrigation based on their topography and their soil types.  We strive to keep the grass healthy with sufficient irrigation but without over watering.  Sometimes mistakes are made with heads sticking on and control systems not working.  There are more sophisticated systems available with more opportunity for control of different areas through multiple weather stations, but these are expensive.

The management philosophy of  “firm and fast “ also embraces having playable fairways.  The mowing height of our bermudagrass  fairways “ in season”  is .045 inches.  We believe that this allows the ball to roll while also providing sufficient grass under the ball for it to be playable.  Firmness will be managed with moisture control, thatch control, and frequent mowing with sharply adjusted mowers.

The conversion of either golf course at Forest Creek to ultradwarf bermudagrass is not planned at this time.  We have planted two bermuda grass greens to experiment with  ultradwarf bermudagrass and to learn  the different cultural rquirements that these grasses have.  The advantage of ultradwarf greens is in the summer when you can have firm greens.  We will almost always be soft in July and August with Crenshaw bentgrass greens.  Normally we should recover and begin to firm back up during September. This year the most difficult weather for Bentgrass was in September and the greens were late to firm up.  Firmness is a function of a healthy growing root system and soil that contains the proper mix of organic and mineral matter.  We believe that the greens are still performing properly with good internal drainage and good greensmix.  There are problems at the edges of the greens with bermuda grass encroachment and there has been some discussion  about resodding those edges with one of the newer bermuda grass hybrids such as “tifgrand”.   Most of the problems with the greens in the summer are heat related.  We experience difficult weather in which to grow bentgrass .  Bentgrass grows roots throughout the fall and spring, but when the hot weather arrives in summer the bentgrass roots recede.  The plant will feed on its own roots to such an extent  that by the end of summer the roots  are very shallow.  This diminished root mass allows the soil to become softer.

Deer have become a larger problem on the golf courses with the eating of ornamentals. They are more numerous than ever but they cause little damage to the golf course itself.  We have had some success controlling the geese with the use of dogs, a motor boat and string lines.

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