Marathon Day!

Today we had our annual Golf Marathon. This tournament is a beat down. How many holes of golf can you play in a day? Next year sign up so you can find out. We had a few things we are trying to accomplish today on the course. We put down a granular fertilizer this morning before everyone hit the course. We also topdressed all the tees with sand (photo on left) and caught up on a few other task after the rainy weekend. We recieved a much needed .75 inches yesterday.

The picture above is of our cartpaths. You may ask yourself why the cartpath edges are brown? Last week we sprayed out all of the cracks in the cartpaths with Round-up. This browning look on some of the egdges was overspray. Grass grows in the seems and cracks of the paths overtime. Sometimes I scratch my head and think how can we grow grass on concrete but sometimes not on good soil? And even on asphalt? The oversprayed grass should recover just fine and I am sure in the future we will have to spray out the seems again. We have two full weeks to get ready for our Black and White Member-Guest. With the cooperation from mother nature we are hoping to have the course in great shape for one of our biggest tournaments of the year. Get out and enjoy the cooler weather. Thank you for your continued support of the club, and I hope to see you on the course!

Golf Course Superintendent

Carter Hindes

What's Going on at "The Crest"?

Wow we could'nt have picked a hotter day to do this! It is 99 degrees and feels like 109. Today we are core aerifying the Greens. We will continue tomorrow on the Tees. We are using a traditional coring tine that is 1/2 inch on 2 inch spacing. We will use a 5/8 inch coring tine of the tee boxes. Usually we try to verti-cut and aerify at the same time but because of the heat, we are trying to get holes punched, covered and watered as quickly as possible. We will then verti-cut and topdress again next Monday. The following are some pictures from today. The second is of a two-ton asphalt roller we rented. This will help work sand into the holes and roll out any tire tracks from equipment on the green. This will also help us level out some of our high collars around the edges of the greens. The high collars allow water to stand on the green and create problems because the water is not able to run off of the greens. We will continue using the roller on the Greens and Tees all week. We are looking forward to cleaning up and getting ready for the Club Championship in a few weeks.

Carter Hindes

Golf Course Superintendent

The NGA Hooters Tour is come and gone!

I can't believe we are already into mid July. We had come crazy weather to make the NGA Hooters Tour tournament even more challenging to setup for. The week prior we had 11 inches of rain and the Wednesday of the Pro-Am we had 3 1/2 more inches to top us off. Its was a whirlwind the week of the tournament to get the golf course even playable. We had many early mornings last week pushing water out of fairways shoveling bunkers and trying to cleanup before the four rounds of the tournament. My hat goes off to the staff and volunteers that helped us last week and put up with the enormous mosquito's. The tournament was a great success and that was made possible by all the hard work they put into it.

It is nice to be back to normal for our members to enjoy the course. We solid tine aerified and topdressed the greens on Monday. This will help break up the top layer of thatch and help us move water down into the profile of the greens. This practice was definitely needed after all the rain and wear and tear during the last seven days. Looking ahead we have the four-ball at the end of the month that we will be preparing for. Below are a few pictures I took during the NGA week. Hope to see you on the course!

The Heat is On!

The month of May has been full of projects. The first of which we stripped, leveled and re-surfaced number 11 black tee. We have had some shade issues in the past in this area so this winter we removed a lot of tree limbs that were not necessary. After leveling the tee, we re-sodded the tee with Tifway 419. The tee is back open to play so enjoy.

The last photo is of the aerification that we are doing in the fairways and rough. We are using a 14 inch tine that will go into the ground about 7 inches. This will help break up the hard-pan clay layer and help water and nutrients to penetrate the soil. In return this will help the grass grow thicker and healthier as the roots can now grow down. We are also topdressing (sanding) these areas. This process will help smooth out bumps and sand will fill these holes to create bigger pour space for the plant to breath and make nutrients and water more available. This will also help to drain the fairways when we receive rainfall, if we ever do. We will continue throughout the next few weeks to finish the rest of the golf course.

Carter Hindes

Golf Course Superintendent

Aerification is Here!

There are many benefits to this cultural practice. Many innovators have tried to come up with a way to complete this practice with the least amount of disruption as possible. There are many different ways you can slice it, but in the end if a green needs to perform up to today's golf standards, this cultural practice is imperative. We are using a 1/2" tine with two inch spacing for our conventional coring. We also used a 3/8" solid tine 10" inches deep which is what you see on the tractor. This will help move water and air to our existing roots. If you have ever seen the puddles on the greens after a heavy rain or irrigation, you know that this practice is greatly needed. After all of the sand is down and the greens are smoothed back out, we will work hard to regain our playability. We have positioned a few different spray-able products to help speed this process along. Tuesday and Wednesday we will also core-aerify our tees and approaches around the greens. Again this process will only help to make the greens, tees and approaches that much better and easier to manage throughout the coming months. Thank you for your patience and I look forward to seeing you back on the course!

Golf Course Superintendent

Carter Hindes

New Equipment

Thank You!

I want to take this time to say thank you to the group of members that came together to help us purchase this brand new sod cutter. This will be a great tool for us to use for years to come. We will start Monday on patching up some areas around the golf course that thinned out during the winter. We will continue as time allows to get back to full coverage on the fairways, greens and tees. Your continued support allows us to make Golfcrest Country Club better every day. The weather is great so get out and enjoy your course. Thank you.

Pre-emergent Herbicide is out and Fertilizer is on the ground!

Our spring pre-emergent herbicide applications have been completed. The herbicide we use is coated on a fertilizer granule so in a sense you knock out two birds one stone. This will not only help with weed suppression but fertilize the entire golf course. This application was completed in one day with our new Lely broadcast spreader. Below is a picture of our new Lely spreader that a generous member donated to us. Thank you!

Carter Hindes

Superintendent