Ball mark repair

Ball mark just after the ball has struck the green

Ball marks have increased tremendously on #2 green, due to more people playing over the water. As a result, we wanted to take this opportunity to remind players of proper technique. It is important for each player to repair their own marks. It only takes a few seconds, and keeps the greens in good shape for long term health and immediate play.

There are literally thousands of different repair tools that work well. The Grounds department does not recommend one tool over another. Every golfer should have their own repair tool every time they play. Even a tee will work to repair a ball mark, and every golfer for sure has a tee they can use. Below are a couple of resources on repairing a ball mark. There may be slight variances in instruction, but the basics are the same. Some keys are:

• ·         Don’t pry or lift the turf up

o   This will bring soil to the surface and there will not be any grass, resulting in a serious scar

• ·         Think about the angle at which the ball struck the green

o    If the ball didn’t fall straight down then the turf shouldn’t go straight up! Low trajectory shots have a shallower impact and the turf will need to be moved back towards the initial point of impact. High trajectory shots will leave a deeper mark and need to be fixed differently.

• ·         Take your time

Improperly repaired ball mark. Turf has been
lifted and soil is present in the center
instead of grass.

o    One try will not do the job, it will take 3 or 4 adjustments to get the mark back to near-original

• ·         Fix more than yours alone if you can

o   If everyone fixed their ball mark there would only be the most recent one to fix, but we know that is not the case. Finding another one or two ball marks to fix is only helping everyone.

• ·         Don’t do it like the pros

o   Professional golfers (not our staff) are notoriously poor at fixing ball marks. They are subscribers of the lift technique. This provides a quick and smooth surface over which to putt but does not properly fix the ball mark. Our professional staff has taken the time to learn and teach the proper technique, but touring pros are mostly concerned with making their putt.

Golf Course Superintendents Association of America ball mark repair recommendations

USGA ball mark repair recommendations

Finally, we do perform regular maintenance of fixing ball marks, but we can’t keep up. Far more ball marks are made than we have time to spend fixing. Yet, it only takes a golfer a few extra seconds to fix their ball mark immediately after it happens. This allows us to focus our resources elsewhere, but more importantly it keeps the putting surfaces better for everyone.

Improperly repaired ball mark that is very slow to heal.

Fixing your ball mark is an easy and important way to take ownership over the care of your course.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please don’t stand in one place for an extended period of time to practice putting. Your footprints can be worn into the green.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Construction update

As we push through July, construction on holes 2 and 18 is in full swing. New bunkers were constructed in the same style as previous years and drainage was added to a wet area short and right of 2 green. We also extended the approach around to the left of the green in preparation for the future as we start to use the tee box that plays over the water more frequently. A truck load of sod was laid around 2 green and bunkers last week, and the remaining open soil will be covered early this week.  For now, the new bunkers and sod are all "Ground Under Repair" and are not to be played from until fully healed. We expect to open the bunkers and approach in 10-14 days.

Demolition and reshaping of 18 tee is well under way, also. The new 18 tee will consist of the same rectangular tees as in previous phases, sodded to Bermuda grass, with varying lengths that gives the Grounds department the flexibility to make the hole play different yardages, as well as spread traffic. The tees will be slightly lower in the front than the old tee used to be, and the new tees in the back will be slightly higher. This process will continue at the start of the week, along with the early stages of drainage at the bottom of 18 fairway, as well.

We will continue to open each new portion of a hole as quickly as possible, as it matures enough to handle the foot traffic. Look for the hole construction diagram in the wooden pedestal to find the location of the tee markers as we shift things around to accommodate the work.

We thank you for your patience during construction, and if you have any questions let us know.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please don’t stand in one place for an extended period of time to practice putting. Your footprints can be worn into the green.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Priorities

Bretton Woods is a very large property, with many acres of modestly maintained turf. The golf course itself is also a large layout. Similarly, there are many acres of less important grass across the course that we don’t have the labor, money, or truthfully, the need, to maintain at a high level. So, how do we determine what resources, if any, go where?

Golf is meant to be played in as straight of a line as possible from the tee to the green and into the cup. Everyone who plays the game is striving for this, even though we all know it doesn’t always work out as planned. We base our maintenance program, in part, around this same principle.

If a line is drawn from the center of a tee, to the center of a fairway, to the center of a green, then we could call this the “perfect line.” It is the perfect way to play the hole and it is the line where we want the perfect turf. There is an old saying: “Drive for show and putt for dough.” Basically, money is made on the greens; if you putt well you will shoot good scores. The hole is played from tee to green, but our program focuses the greatest amount of resources on the greens- that is where the money is made. If the greens are first on the list, then fairways are second, and tees are a close third. Fairways are slightly more important than the tees because the turf grass on the fairways has a greater impact on playability. Aside from par 3’s, a tee is used when teeing off, so the turf plays a smaller role.

Very few shots follow this perfect line, yet we don’t want a ball that is off of the line by 10 feet to be in sub-par grass. So, we extend outward from the perfect line, our manicured turf. The entire green is of utmost importance. The entire fairway is of utmost importance, as is the tee. From this point we draw a theoretical circle around the hole, encompassing the green surround, on average about 20 yards of rough on each side of the fairway, and the tee surround. This is the bubble in which we allocate our time and effort. Some of what we include in our maintenance area is non-play areas but that have high aesthetic value. For example, the tee surrounds may not have a shot played from there for weeks, if ever, but we manage these areas intensely because they have a very high visual profile. Likewise, as mentioned, the turf on a tee box is not as important to playability as the fairway grass, yet the tees are still a high priority also because of aesthetics. No one wants to play from a tee box without grass, even if the grass isn’t that important to their shot.  Some of the areas we exclude are so far out of the way that it would be rare for even the worst shot to find its way there. Some areas get the occasional errant ball, but are still outside of our focus area. We do mow almost the entire course so poor shots will still be playable, just not from the same caliber of grass as nearer to center.

A simple diagram gives a visual of the idea of the perfect line and our surrounding maintenance area. The black circle in the top left is the green, the thinner, wavy line extending down to the right would be the fairway edge, and the squares in the bottom right are the tees. The dark line from tee to fairway to green would be the “perfect line.” The red loop around the perimeter signifies where we concentrate. As seen in the second diagram, sometimes the maintenance loop incorporates more than one hole all together, because of each holes’ proximity to one another. In some cases, it does not make sense to leave a very small gap of less maintained turf between two separate holes. For example, at Bretton Woods, when you leave 4 green and walk to 5 tee, there is an area which could be excluded from maintenance of 4 green surround and excluded from maintenance of 5 tee surround. However, if we left this strip under-maintained, when walking to 5 tee, there would be an interval of grass that was not maintained as well. In general, even though each hole does not butt right up to the next, we maintain the corridor leading to the subsequent hole. The final drawing shows a broad overview of our “maintenance map,” the areas to which we give more attention. Using the map from a scorecard, everything inside the red is a notch above what is marked in gray.

Due to the size of Bretton Woods, we do have to prioritize our resources. We select between certain maintenance practices, or select whether to do any major maintenance practices at all. But, we don’t make any of those decisions lightly or without thinking how it will affect the golfer’s experience.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please don’t stand in one place for an extended period of time to practice putting. Your footprints can be worn into the green.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Green patches on greens

Happy 4^th of July! The Grounds department is 1/3 of the way through our toughest stretch: June, July, and August. We can’t take anything for granted at this time of year and we manage the turf grass one day at a time.

You may have noticed irregular dark green patches popping up on the greens. They are present on nearly every green and are hard to miss. This is the result of microbes in the soil, breaking down organic matter and releasing nitrogen, which the grass plant is then consuming. Nitrogen makes the grass turn dark green and start to grow, so we are seeing the result of this increased nitrogen available to the grass. There are so many different microbes in the soil it is difficult to say which may be causing this particular event, but it is not really important which microbe or microbes is responsible.

When we see these green patches we automatically know a few things about the turf and soil of the greens.

First, we know we have organic matter. We pretty much know this anyway but it gives us a visual reminder. Organic matter is not bad by itself, but too much organic matter can be. We know we have to stay aggressive with our aeration and topdressing programs.

Second, we know that we have a healthy ecosystem in the soil. There are microbes, which are very beneficial to the grass in many ways, and there is food available for those microbes on which to live.

Third, we can tell that we are managing the greens' turf towards the lean end of the fertilization spectrum, meaning we are not giving it as much food as we could be. In the areas where more food- nitrogen in this case- is available, the grass is greener and growing more.

Managing more lean than lush turf is exactly what we want, especially at this time of year. Over-nitrifying the plant can lead to several problems. With extra nitrogen come extra pests, both disease and insects. Disease pathogens and insects use nitrogen as a food source also, so increased levels equal a hospitable environment for them as well. Also, increased nitrogen in the plant makes it an even more appetizing host for a disease or insect pest. Keeping nitrogen levels down is one way for us to help mitigate pests.

Another problem that too much nitrogen can cause is too much growth. This is obvious, but why is it a problem? Too much growth is bad for playability. When the greens are growing too much and too fast, they become slow and bumpy, which are two of the worst words a superintendent can hear from golfers. We keep the nitrogen levels low to manage our clipping yield so that we are better able to produce a smooth, consistent, and fast playing surface. Furthermore, the plant requires water to grow; the more growing the plant is trying to do, the more water it will need. Again, for playability and plant health reasons, we maintain the turf with less water than it actually wants and needs.

When too much nitrogen is entered into the equation, the plant will outgrow the water available. Plants don’t know when to stop taking in nitrogen. If it is available, they will absorb it, and grow. Trying to grow when it is very warm, with less water than it needs, can cause the plant to suffer very quickly, wilt, and die. Imagine eating a VERY large meal, not drinking enough water before or after, and then running a marathon on a 90+ degree day. You might suffer as well. This is what the plant is trying to do, but it doesn’t have the ability to get to shade or get more water, so we have to monitor and manage all of the inputs.

So what can we do about the patches? Unfortunately, there is no way to get rid of them. We could hide them by fertilizing the green. If the entire green was dark green and lush, the patches would mix right in. However, we just outlined how and why excess nitrogen could be catastrophic, so that is not a viable option. We also continue to manage and remove the organic matter present in the soil to help limit the available food source for the microbes. We could also eliminate the microbes from the soil, but that too would a very bad long term decision.

For now, although unsightly, we must live with the patches. The health of the greens is not affected and we are doing everything we can to make sure that putting remains unaffected.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please don’t stand in one place for an extended period of time to practice putting. Your footprints can be worn into the green.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org