Needle Tine

- This morning we needle tine the Highlands' greens to help relieve weak areas and allow them to  breath after a busy summer.

- To prevent from causing any disruption to the putting surface, we used 1/8" tines.

- The greens were rolled following the needle tining to give a smooth putting surface.

Bunker Maintenance

 - With the turfgrass growth slowing down, we are able to focus more on bunker maintenance. This time of year the Highlands agronomy staff goes through the bunkers once a week and smooth out the faces.

- Also, we take the time check the depth of the bunker sand and make sure there is at least 2" of sand on the faces and 4" on the floor.

-  With certain pin locations the ball tends to funnel into the same area of certain bunkers. This leads to the sand in these areas to get shifted and can cause damage to the liner if the depth is not checked regularly.

1898 House

-The newest addition to the club is the 1898 house, the new venue allows for members to have a shaded open air dinning experience and have a beautiful view of the two golf courses. The landscape staff were given the task of installing the landscape and sod around 1898.  Before any sod is laid a pre plant fertilizer with a balanced analysis of Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorus is applied to help the sod root down and get a kick start  to growing.

- Finished Product

Overseeding Range Tees

We recently overseeded our range tees with annual ryegrass for the winter. This gives the members the option to practice and hit shots from actual turf, giving an authentic reaction with their swing, as opposed to hitting off of a mat. We verticut the range tees with a 5 reel unit at -0.250" below the bed-knife. This helped to open the existing turf canopy, so the ryegrass seed could germinate and reach the soil surface. The tee was then mowed clean. The seed was then spread over the top of the existing turf with a Gandy Drop Spreader, set to the widest setting.

The seed was spread at a rate of 12 lbs. of ryegrass seed/1000 sq. ft. We used a heavy rate to ensure a healthy, thick stand that would withstand the traffic and hitting patterns on the tees.

The seed was watered for 5 min every hour to promote germination. It will take approximately a month for the seed stand to grow in fully and be useable for golfers.

Mowing Fairways

- Our last remaining intern's morning assignment was to mow fairways on the Highlands Course. Since starting his internship in May, he has mowed every playing service on both courses and operated every piece of golf maintenance equipment. The Highlands mow fairways with two five reel fairway mowers and to keep a clean on edge on the fairways the clean up pass is mowed directly behind the intermediate mower.

Edging Greens

- On the Highlands, to prevent the TifGrand Bermudgrass collars from encroaching in the TifEagle greens and vice versa, they are edged. This keeps the greens and collars the size they were intended to be from the renovation. Also, edging the greens helps the operator see exactly were the edge of the green is when they are mowing their clean-up passes. Edging greens occurs roughly once every three weeks, but really just depends on how vigirously the turfgrass is growing.

Aerification

- The interns played huge roles in carrying out both courses aerifications. They operated aerifiers, top-dressers, gradens, and verticutters. Riverside's aerification went from July 4-10 and Highlands was July 17-21. The guys logged some long hours and had great attitudes through the whole process.

Below: One of the interns is operating a graden on the Riverside greens, this machine removes thatch  to improve the turfgrass' ability to breathe, absorb nutrients, water, and sunlight.