August 6, 2011

A little more than a week ago we fertilized the tees. Due to application errors combined with daytime temperatures climbing higher than was forecast, many of the tees were damaged. We watered and flushed to no avail.

Some of the damaged turf will re grow but too much is lost to fill in satisfactorily. We continue to syringe the tees and apply natural growth hormones to the tees to encourage as much re growth as possible. Paralleling this program we are aerating, overseeding, and lightly topdressing the tees, with the most damaged taking first priority. I am confident that these programs, along with late season deep tine aerification, etc, will make the tees stronger in the long run.

The tees have always presented more challenges to our staff than most other playing areas. Within any tee complex we deal with a wide variety of soils and grasses, water needs, compaction, shade, tree roots, wear, and localized micro environments that can be very harsh. For example, on 4 we range from a very heavy soil that holds water to a sandy mix that is droughty. The former receives irrigation once a week while the latter needs irrigation daily along with afternoon hand watering. On seven, which is a closed pocket, we use fans, but still the temperature will rise 10 to 15 degrees higher than the open areas of the course, placing way too much stress on the turf. Remember the picture of icing down the turf that I recently posted? That was the 7^th tee. Every tee complex has different, and similar, challenges.

That’s not to say that the fertilizer application is not to blame – it is. But it explains why any error on a tee will not be forgiving.

Our intent now is to establish an acceptable stand of turf as quickly as possible through aerification, overseeding, and topdressing. After establishment and maturity, I plan to aerify and deep –tine aerify the tees on a more regular basis, and topdress them with a sand/ peat topdressing material, embarking upon a long term soil modification program. At the same time, we will be testing a few different seeding mixes and turf types to see what does best in our soils and micro climates.

In all, we will do our best to make this into an opportunity to do better.