Moving Forward

Well we are moving forward without our friend John Harbottle and every day I find myself saying, "WOW if only John was here to see this coming together".  Here is the bunker on #11 and we've mowed the new turf twice now and it's looking really cool.  The fescue "bullnose" eyebrow is shaggy and the ryegrass surround is clipped nice and you can really see what it's going to look like.  I have yet to have anyone say they don't like it, but everyone warns that they hope the fescue eyebrow doesn't get so long that balls get lost in it.  If that happens, golf would no longer be fun here since hitting into the fescue will happen when you're only slightly off target.  No one should loose their ball just a few feet from  the center of the fairway so just know now that we will keep it maintained in such a way that you will find your ball.  You may be penalized.................but you will find your ball.  June 14th..............the sand goes in.  Can't wait to see the final product.

Again, I know John would have been pumped up out there today when he saw how the teeways were coming together.  Today we mowed them at 450/1000.  Yes they looked scalped and they are, but that is how they will look in short term.  Really it's just the ryegrass areas that are getting so scalped.  Unfortunately, there is many ryegrass areas since we have done a lot of restoration around the teeing grounds, and ryegrass sod is really our only choice for restoration projects.  If everything was straight Poa, the teeways would look amazing right now.  Here is a picture of the 9th tee complex which has not been disturbed for many years so there is little to no ryegrass.  Notice how nice this looks.  Amazing that just a few weeks ago on this teeing area, we had a square tee box and dew strip very well defined.

To speed up the transition in those ryegrass areas we are overseeeding with a mixture of Poa annua seed and Colonial Bentgrass seed.  Here you see Josh with the drop spreader overseeding the teeway on the 15th hole.

The overseeding should help but be assured that it will take several seasons of overseeding to introduce poa and several aerifications to remove ryegrass before the teeways look like our mature fairway turf.  With that said, I wouldn't worry much since I expect soon even the ryegrass areas will adapt to the new mowing height and look just fine.  Here is a close up of the scalped ryegrass.  

As you can see, there is a lot of green leaf tissue in there.  Next week we will fertilize all the teeways and once the new seed germinates, I expect they will be looking super cool.  I can't wait.  I absolutely love the look and we are already seeing a huge savings in labor since we have stopped walk mowing tees and no longer is there rough between the tees that needs mowing.  Here is a picture of the teeway on #12 today.

If you don't love this...........................I'm sorry.  With each passing day, I am more convinced that this will be a fabulous look and  the practicality of it is clear. John would absolutely love this.  Wish he was here today to see it.

Lastly, this pic also shows that the drinking fountain and "sand and seed" station have been re-installed on the 12th tee.  This kind of completes the cart path, and tree removal project that we started in October last year..................................Man does that feels good.