Green surround sod

As we near the end of summer, the course always has a few scars from the stress of the season. Fortunately, this year the playing surfaces have weathered the heat and humidity of summer very well. Nevertheless, we do have some recovery work to do, and last week we started repairing some green surround areas.

The location at #10 green sod was needed

Poa annua, the main turf species on our greens, can be a great turfgrass in some situations (like on our greens) or it can be a terrible turfgrass (like areas in our rough). The greens receive enough attention to prevent major issues with the poa succumbing to summer stress. However, in the rough, while it does receive care, the stresses placed on the green surround turf can overwhelm the poa, which is what happened in the few places that we made repairs.

We placed new sod in green surround spots at the putting green, 10, and #17. In each of these spots there were multiple reasons for the turfgrass decline- high traffic concentration, poor irrigation coverage, poor soil conditions, and more. But each of these locations also had higher than average poa infestations. Because of this, when the poa died through the summer, large bare areas were the result. There are some other bare areas scattered around the course, but most are much smaller and more spread apart, and those will be much easier to reseed in a couple of weeks. Trying to keep very small patches of new sod alive is very hard and we don’t want to remove large areas of healthy grass just to replace a small area of dead grass. So, we focused on the 3 areas mentioned above because they were much larger areas that could be easily corrected with new sod.

#17 green after sod was completed

We typically make these types of repairs to the green surrounds at this time of year. We have had seasons where we are doing multiple locations using several pallets of sod because they year had been so stressful and significant amounts of turf had died. Luckily that was not the case this year, and with the sod laid and starting to grow in, we are ready to head into late summer and fall in good condition.

 

 

 

 

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please do not drive carts into the tall grass native areas. Because the carts are low to the ground, grass gets caught in the front bumper and then falls off back out on the course. Thank you

 

 

Also, as part of a Golf Committee initiative to improve course etiquette, we have included links to videos teaching proper on course etiquette. Please take a moment to watch:

Ball Marks - How to properly repair

Golf Cart tips

 

 

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org