Thursday, August 25, 2011

Finally some relief...

Despite some major irrigation and turf issues we made it through the Invitational and Club Championship!
All in all I think both were a big success!
This past week has offered us some much needed relief temperature wise as well as much need rainfall.
The course has really had a chance to breath.  The turf is loving this weather, as is the staff!

Our plan is to aerify all the greens on Monday (we aerified 2 green this past Monday due to the decline we saw from the pump station failure, the week of the Invitational).
Invitational Shoot Out

Monday, August 1, 2011

Life and Death

Tragedy has struck our maintenance team. Barney Blackshear's brother
> passed away unexpectedly yesterday afternoon. I believe the cause to be a
> brain aneurysm. Services are this week. He did not have insurance
> therefore, the family is trying to do some fund raising for funeral
> services.
> Our Equipment technician Ryan Lee is part of their family and is with 
> the family. It is hard to stay focused at the task at hand. However, I
> must keep pushing ahead.
>
> I came in this morning to a failure in the pump house. No water ran last
> night after very hot Sunday temperatures. I am working on the fix with a
> short staff. Many greens wilted pretty heavily over night and we are
> working quite hard to get some recovery. I have parts being fabricated as
> I type and delivery will be this afternoon. I have spoken with our pump
> maintenance people and they are checking their schedule to fit us in to
> ensure the station is back up and running as well as it can.
>
> The pythium in the fairways has come back and we sprayed for it yesterday.
> The anthracnose on the greens is back and active and as soon as we can
> cool the greens down this morning we will be spraying for it. We are also
> adding a wetting agent to the greens to help retain some moisture during
> this record setting weather.
>
> It was the hottest July on Record with an average high of 89.2. That is
> 6.2 degrees higher than average. According to NOAA data, our July weather
> was the same as St. Petersburg Florida.
> We are doing everything we can under these horrific circumstances.