#8 bunker project

Fall is a great time for projects. The weather is cool, with occasional rain. The stresses of the summer that require most, if not all, of our attention start to fade away, so our time can be directed to other aspects of the course. We have several small projects planned this fall, but our one main goal is to redo the bunker faces of all the bunkers on #8.

Similar to what we have done in the past, we will be renovating the worn out edges of the bunkers on 8. Please read two previous blogs we have posted for more in depth details of the process, here and here. We started this process last fall and it went so well that we were able to finish holes 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9. All of these holes were the first to be renovated as part of the Master Plan, and have reached the age that the edges were due to be cleaned up. We had initially planned to do #8 last fall, but that didn’t work out. Then we planned to do it this past spring, but that didn’t work out either! Between all of the other projects we were working on, and a warm spring that jump-started the Bermuda grass, we ran out of time to get #8 finished.

This fall, though, #8 bunkers are at the top of the list. Over the next few weeks you will see the Grounds department staff working through these bunkers. As the project progresses, one or two bunkers may be in a state of repair for a period of time. The bunkers in which we are working will be ground under repair, and will have a sign marking them as such.

Weather permitting, we expect to finish by the end of October, just in time for the sod to heal before the weather turns really cold.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please rake your entire disturbance within the bunker, including all of your footprints, not just the area from where you hit.

Note: Starting in November, through February, posts will be reduced to once per month. Thank you.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Weather station

The weather drives nearly every decision we make. Do we mow or roll greens? Or both? Or neither? Can we mow fairways? Or are they too wet? Or do we have to mow them today before they get too wet? Do we need to make a chemical application before a storm? All of these questions and more are determined or guided by the weather. Recently, we upgraded the weather station at the Grounds department facility to help us with some of these questions.

We check the weather multiple times a day. Here are a couple of past posts, one about dry weather, another about wet weather, and a third about cold weather and how these conditions affect the course. We use several online resources, including weather.gov, weather.com, and others. We also subscribe to a weather service that gives us twice weekly video reports plus any alerts for hazardous conditions. Each of these adds a piece of information to the puzzle, yet none of them is on site; we use them to compare and contrast to one another to come up with a general idea for the weather at Bretton Woods. But, we also use our on-site weather station to complement the other sources as well.

Digital display in the office

Our new weather station is an AcuRite brand wireless station. It detects all of the basic weather variables like temperature, humidity, wind, and rain, along with a list of other useful information that it provides. It comes with a color, digital display for the details, which sits in the office. Again, we add this to all of the other information what we gather to make our decisions. One of the coolest upgrades that our new weather station provides, is its ability to be linked online. We can check the current weather at BWRC from any computer, tablet, or smartphone. Computers and tablets link online through an AcuRite supported site to which our weather uploads. For the smartphone, AcuRite has a free app that we have downloaded. Once we sync the app to our specific weather station, we can check the weather on our phone from anywhere. Lastly, online and through the app, we can set alarms when certain conditions are met. For example, we can set an alarm for a pre-determined amount of rain and, once we receive that amount, the system automatically emails or texts whomever we have set as the recipient.

With this information we can make a quicker judgement about all of our agronomic decisions. If we received a large amount of rain, we can plan accordingly. Perhaps the amount of rain has made it too wet to mow; knowing this information sooner may allow us to alert our staff and have fewer employees come to work and save the hours for a drier day. It can also aid in communicating to the membership regarding course conditions. Using the same rainstorm example, knowing sooner allows us to update the website and Pro Staff that we are likely cart path only, or vice versa, determining that we dodged a storm even though they were very nearby.

Very rarely is too much information a bad thing. In our case, having weather details from many places helps us to fill in the blanks regarding what is happening at Bretton Woods and how best to react. We can’t predict the weather yet, but our new weather station should help us monitor it better.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please rake your entire disturbance within the bunker, including all of your footprints, not just the area from where you hit.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Nutsedge

Nutsedge is a particularly pesky weed. It pops up nearly everywhere, is very unsightly, and can be difficult to manage. Lately, due to the scheduling and delaying of some of our regular mowing practices, the nutsedge has become very apparent across the golf course. We are in the midst of eliminating as much nutsedge as possible.

Nutsedge is not a grass or broadleaf weed, it is a sedge, and thus behaves much differently than other plants. It grows rapidly; often reaching 2-3 inches above the turf grass in a short time, and thrives in the warm summer months. It has a very light, lime green color compared to the turf grass and sticks out very prominently. The plant produces tubers in the soil that can turn in to hundreds of new plants and these tubers can survive several years in the soil before germinating.

If you have been out on the course lately, it is likely you have seen the nutsedge in many locations. One of the main reasons it has been so apparent is that we have adjusted our mowing schedule slightly recently. The seed that we planted around the greens has emerged and is growing well. As a precaution so as to not injure the new seedlings, we have limited our mowing around the greens to 1 time per week. Putting less stress on the new seedlings will help them establish and reduces the risk of tearing them out of the ground with a machine. Unfortunately, this has allowed the nutsedge to shoot up and be very noticeable. A similar scenario has unfolded in the rough around the tees. In this case, we have simply reduced our mowing frequency to focus on other aspects of course maintenance.

We have seen the nutsedge emerge in many places, but two of the more consistent problem areas we see are the new construction areas. First, sometimes when the soil is turned and graded for construction, dormant tubers in the soil are exposed and can break dormancy and begin to grow. This is partially to blame for the many new nutsedge plants that can be seen on the newest holes. Similarly, nutsedge can be transported in the sod we lay for construction. As the sod begins to root, new nutsedge plants will spring up as well. Unfortunately, neither of these situations can be prevented, but our treatment will include these areas as well.

We have now treated the nutsedge in the green surrounds and those plants will be dying soon. We will be treating the tee surrounds this week and we expect to see similar control within a few days. We use a specific chemical that targets nutsedge and nutsedge only. It is designed to be safe on nearly all turfgrass and can be sprayed directly over the top. While the chemical is very effective at killing nutsedge, that is all it is effective at managing, so it is a very specific treatment that only targets the one pest.

Visually, the nutsedge is as ugly as any other weed. We will be continuing our treatment of the nutsedge in the next few days.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please rake your entire disturbance within the bunker, including all of your footprints, not just the area from where you hit.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

New cart paths

As one of the final touches to this year’s construction on the golf course, we had some new paving done around the clubhouse. The new work tied together access from the Proshop towards the driving range tee, up from 18 green, and out to the parking lot. This was a much needed upgrade.

Particularly after leaving 18 green, the cart path was severely crumbled as well as much too narrow compared to the rest of the paths. We also dealt with a great deal of erosion along the edges of the path. Not only did this continue to degrade the asphalt itself, but it also washed quite a mess of soil, mulch, and other debris down into 18 fairway. When the new paving was done, we adjusted the sideways slope of the path to better control where the water flows. We also filled in eroded areas with fresh soil and re-mulched the area. We have already made it through a couple of pretty intense rain events with virtually no washouts.

Further up the hill, widening the cart path has given drivers much more room to maneuver their carts while staying on the path. In the past, the narrow and bumpy path, led to many people driving half on the path and half on the grass, or avoiding the path and driving on the grass completely. In that particular area, the wear on the grass was especially noticeable as well as destructive. We dealt with higher weed pressure from the compacted soil as well as muddy conditions after rain. Now, there is very little reason to not remain on the cart path after finishing on 18 green.

Visually, completing all of these sections of path has now given a much cleaner look from the clubhouse. Although the entire stretch of path was not redone, all of the worst areas were removed and replaced and tied in with existing path very smoothly. Now, looking out from the clubhouse, nearly all of the cart path you can see is older, but in good shape or is new, including near 1, and 10 tees, which were done last year.

Happy Labor Day.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please rake your entire disturbance within the bunker, including all of your footprints, not just the area from where you hit.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org