Burris Equipment let us demo a trap rake since last week.  Our Toro machine is showing it's age.  It's getting expensive to continue fixing problems that arise.  We got to use a Smithco machine.  The quality of the finished product is shown above.  As we continue to upgrade our equipment, this is something we will look at.  I will also try to demo machines from Toro and John Deere.

Clover has been the major weed problem this year.  Growing condition have been good.  My goal is to finish spraying the rough this week before it gets to hot.

Putting Green Damaged by Bug Spray

Please be carefull when appling insect repellant.  It can kill turf.  I'm guessing this happend on Saturday night.  Notice the outline of the shoe.  Please apply on the cart path or deep in the rough.  This will grow out, but it will take a couple of weeks.

We had a great day for golf and fireworks on Saturday.  The rain held off and we had a good turnout for the party.  Chef Dan and his staff had the food ready while Scott and his staff kept everything going on time.  Great job guys.

#17 green after another .9 inches of rain.  That makes it 5.15 inches for the month.  The average is about 4 inches.  This green is a push up style green.  It has poor drainage and floods in the back right corner after heavy rains.  I used a squeegee to push off the water.  If we continue to deep tine aerify in the fall, drainage should improve.

#10 and #18 greens were constructed close to a USGA spec green.  It drains properly and is playable shortly after heavy rains.  The main disadvantage to this type of green is during drought periods.  You will see use hand watering these greens durning dry conditions.  I would prefer this type of green to manage.

This is how we remove water from a cup  It had to do this to most of the greens today.  #10 and #18 were dry.

Plug from #13 green

This picture show the importance of deep aerification.  Notice the roots that follow the deep holes that were filled with sand.  Except for 10 and 18, we have push up greens.  The greens was made with native soil.  Through topdressing and our small aerifier, the top 4 inches have become sand based.  When we deep tine, we created 8 to 10 inch columns which the roots take advantage of.  We don't have a deep tine aerifier, so we hire a company to do this.  It takes a good 8 to 10 times to change the profile to look more like a USGA green.  When you play after a heavy rain, 10 and 18 are playable much faster because the sand based greens drain faster.

We have worked hard to make the course playable after last weeks rain.  So far, 4.25 inches were recorded this month.  That's the average for June.  We were able to get the water off #16 fairway, and now are concentrating on #12.  This pond is feed by the pond on #17.  As # 12 goes down, so will #17.  Since #16 is down, we will start on the bunkers.  We have to concentrate on the ponds first, because all drainage goes there.  If the water stays on the fairway surface, we start to loose turf.  Thank you for your patience this year.

This week, I plan on spraying for grubs and weeds.  The clover is making a comeback at LCC.  I have enough herbicide to make it big difference.  It's been hard to spray this year with the combination of heat and wet weather.

Thursday overnight, we received another .5 inches of rain.  That's 4.25 for the month of June.  If we are lucky enough to avoid any rain Friday night, we should be able to mow greens and tees, and change cups.  Bunkers will have to wait until Monday, because we have to pump them out.  We are currently using all pumps to drain the course.  Hole #16 is draining fine, so me mowed the big pump to #12.

The front sidewalk is starting to bloom nicely.

Rain Update

Standing in the middle of #16 fairway looking at the green from about 200 yards.

Looking at ditch near the 4th tee.  It has overflowed and is surrounding the irrigation box.  Jose and I got out and removed all electric panels that could be damaged before it got any higher.  This area takes awhile to go down because valves are shut in Lansing to prevent basements from being flooded.  This will back up all the way to the driving range.  Once opened, we should be fine.

The updated rain total is 3.0 inches.  As you can see, we are going to need several days to dry up.  I'm hoping that with the cooler temperatures, we wont loose any turf.  We could say we got lucky, my house in Orland Park got 4.5 and Joliet got about 5 inches/

Rain

As of 8:20 am we have had 1.6 inches of rain with more coming.  Course is closed as of now.  We made it through the hot spell without needing to spray for Pythium which saved several hundreds of dollars.  We will work extra to catch up after the rain stops.

#16 

Before and after work.  Every Wednesday the crew cleans up the Bocce courts.

We use a hand blower, rakes and shovels.

This time of year, extra time is needed to clean reels.  Cotton falls for several weeks. The cotton sticks to reels, which raise the height of cut.  Hopefully, it will be done by next week.

Cotton also collects on the air intake.  If not cleaned, the engine will over heat.

You need to ask Scott about this ruling.

#16 Drain

     With all the rain last week, I found the end of a drain line for #16.  We trenched the area and will put in drain tile and catch basins.  This area should be much dryer in the future.  Next week, I will trench across the the path to infront of the ladies tee.



#3 Before we mowed

Jose mowing rough.  After the heavy rains, it takes a few days to dry up enough to mow.  It then takes us an extra day to finish the entire course.  Jose thinks he can have the back 9 finished by Thursday.  We cut all the fairways again on Wednesday, making them much more playable.

#3 Fairway after mowing.