Glen Riddle Maintenance

New Blog at Nutters Crossing

2011-03-24T09:55:00.000-04:00

As promised, here is the link to my new blog:

http://nutterscrossing.blogspot.com/

It's been a wild couple of weeks settling into my new responsibilities, so blogging is still on the back burner. I plan on starting it back up soon.

Thanks,

Cody

Moving on...

2011-03-14T13:15:00.000-04:00

As you may have noticed, it's been quite a while since my last update at Glen Riddle. With mixed feelings I can formally announce I have taken another position in the Ruark Golf company: I have started as the new Superintendent at Nutters Crossing GC in Salisbury, MD. Obviously I'm thrilled at the opportunity to "run the show", but I had a great two years at Glen Riddle.

The winter season usually brings some moving and shaking in the industry, and this year was no different. Mike Salvio, who I had worked with at Glen Riddle my first year, and who was the Superintendent at Nutters, moved to Ocean City Golf Club. I have had the good fortune of taking his place.

For now the Glen Riddle Maintenance Blog will be retired. I will be taking over the maintenance blog at Nutters Crossing. As soon as I have that set up, I will post a link for all those who would be interested in following me. Thanks to everyone who has read this blog. See you at Nutters!

Managing Micro-climates

2011-02-10T15:21:00.002-05:00

I snapped this picture form the middle of the fairway on hole 6 of War Admiral today. I thought it was amusing/interesting to see half the hole covered in snow and the other half ready for play. The picture says a lot about the effect trees can have on a golf course and the subsequent micro-climates they create.

One of our goals as superintendents is to create uniform playing conditions around the entire property. Managing moisture is one if the most important keys to achieving uniformity. So as you can see on six, the trees on the left block enough of the sunlight to create unbalanced conditions.

Even in the summer, when the sun is higher in the sky, heavily wooded courses such as ours will have problem areas caused by lighting imbalance. The major issues we face are low light conditions, pockets of little to no air circulation, and an imbalance of wet/dry soils. We spend a lot of effort in fine tuning maintenance practices to the individual needs of the hole. If you happen to be fortunate enough to have the funding of say an Oakmont, you can remove all the trees and minimize factors that cause non uniform playing conditions.

Because that is not an option for us, we utilize a highly customizable irrigation system to distribute water uniformly based on the needs of the turf. We also have large fans which are stationed around greens that see minimal air movement. All in the name of great playing conditions, which is the bottom line for me.

New Month, New Look, New Droid App!

2011-02-03T15:24:00.003-05:00

Finally Google has created a free android app. for mobile posting and picture uploading! Hallelujah!

You might also notice I've also swapped the stock background with one of our own and changed the header pic to hole 5 on Man O War.

February is here and we still find ourselves working on drainage projects, painting equipment, and planning ahead. As soon as the weather starts to get better and daytime temps get above 50, I'll be starting to put down some pre emergent herbicide apps.

Margarito wrapping up painting the Man O War tee markers

The ugly side of fixing bunker drainage

Some of the furniture and trash bins post staining

In the words of Daniel Plainview: Drainage!!!

2011-01-27T15:04:00.001-05:00

During the last couple of weeks we've been spending quite a bit of time adding additional drainage lines to both courses at Glen Riddle. Though the existing drainage system here is superb, (It has to be to handle the amount of rain we get every year) we still find we have areas that will be very slow to dry out after a rain event. We've spent the most time on the 4th fairway of Man O War.

This fairway has the most trouble with persistent wet areas, due mainly to the fairway never being re-graded after it had washed out during the grow in. The erosion wasn't severe, but enough channels and dips were made that any standing water has a tough time getting to the drains. (No one from that portion of the grow in is still here, so I haven't thrown anyone I know under the bus!) Being the good Superintendents we are, we're addressing these issues in an effort to ever improve the course conditions.

Here is one of our trouble areas. You can see the wet area and subsequent tire track.

We set down plywood to keep the area as clean as possible.

Once the lines are trenched we line the bottom with pea gravel, install 4'' perf. drain pipe, and fill in the trench with pea gravel. We cap the trench with sand.

I had little understanding of the necessity of drainage until moving to Maryland. In Idaho I lived in the Snake River Valley, which is essentially a sagebrush desert. Average rainfall for the area is around 10'' per year. Now I live in an area where average yearly rainfall is around 46''. In this area the ability of a golf course to shed water and quickly dry down is of the utmost importance. Excess moisture on the course leads to a multitude of problems, including: Poor playing conditions, unsightly turf, disease pressure, and the list goes on.

Even when the turf isn't active, we still do all we can to promote healthy turf! Thanks for reading!

Cold Weather Projects Heating Up

2011-01-03T15:23:00.000-05:00

To begin: Happy 2011!

The arrival of the new year is often seen as a "new beginning": A time to make resolutions or goals to set themselves up for success in the year to come. At Glen Riddle the winter months are our time to gather ourselves after the stressful summer months, refurbish and reset our equipment and course supplies, and plan for the year to come. I've mentioned a few of the things we work on in previous posts, and wanted to add some other things to the list of winter projects we are doing and want to accomplish in the next couple months.

We are spending quite a bit of time getting re-organized in every way possible. One thing I was able to finish last week was to update the irrigation book for Man O War. The old book had been put together by making copies on the copy machine using a large irrigation map. It served you well if you already knew how the irrigation on MoW was set up, but needed to be organized by hole and cleaned up a bit. A good example is of 16 and 17. 16 was controlled by 2 boxes, one of which controlled 17. Unless you were already familiar with everything, it could take a bit to get oriented in the old book.

Before: Hole 16 and 17 on MoW

After: Hole 16 by itself

With the new book each hole is by itself, and in the case above I've marked off what areas each box controls. I've also highlighted the isolation valves and erased any other heads or lines that don't pertain to the hole. This way anybody should be able to pick up the irrigation book and easily navigate the MoW system.

While John our mechanic refurbishes our equipment, we take time to re-paint the flag sticks and tee markers so they go out at the beginning of the year looking as good as new. It's detail work, which takes time and effort, but is well worth not having to purchase new flag sticks each year. With two courses the cost would add up quickly!

We'll start with the gold MoW markers

Many many flag sticks to paint...

Ready to re-organize our irrigation tools

Here's to a wonderful 2011!

Cleaning Out the Clutter

2011-01-03T14:22:00.000-05:00

One of the projects we spend a fair amount of time doing here is cleaning up some of the high profile forest areas around War Admiral. These areas are often cluttered with tree stumps, fallen branches and limbs, shrubs, vines, and the like. If we never touched these areas I'm sure most players would never notice the overgrowth, unless they had to search for their ball in it. However when these areas are underbrushed and cleaned up the effect is quite noticeable and adds to the appeal of the surrounding area.

Before : View of 10 green from the blue tees

Before : POV from near the black tees

After: From the blue tees

After: From the black tees

We can't quite match the perfectly manicured pine needle beds of Augusta, but this projects goes a long way in adding to the beauty of the golf course by reducing some of the clutter around it.

Winter Agenda

2010-12-08T16:46:00.002-05:00

This was the result of an unintended irrigation cycle running on a cold night.

"So what do you do when there's snow on the ground?"

When I tell people what I do for a living, this is one of the questions that comes up, especially this time of year. Though the winter season is our "down time" we still manage to find plenty of things to keep us busy. For the coming months we've compiled a large to-do list to ensure War Admiral and Man O War are prepared for the winter, and will be ready to roll come spring.

Here are some of the things we've completed so far:

Topdressing greens. We used a little more sand than we normally would to give the turf a protective cover for the colder temps that we see in January. This is a common practice in colder areas, Colorado for example. HERE is a blog post from Sean McCue @ CC at Castle Pines explaining this process in a little more depth.
Bringing in all of the furniture and course accessories from both courses: Benches, cooler stands, ball washers, trashcans, etc...Later they will be cleaned up and repainted/refinished to go out looking new next spring
Irrigation audit and system shutdown. Before winterizing our irrigation system and pump station we wanted to spend time going through our entire system head by head and fixing any issues we encountered. It's much better to get this done now, so that next year we have a fresh start and aren't fighting with our system when we start to irrigate again.
Identifying in house projects we can accomplish with less play on the course including: drainage, tree work, stump grinding, and chipper work.
Budgeting, which is what I'm taking a break from now.

Just a few of the items we bring in from the cold.

Winter time is a nice break from the action, but it's also key to our preparation for the summer ahead.

November Work Record

2010-12-08T11:59:00.000-05:00

November comin up!

Calibrated Fert, set up fertigation
Course set up MoW, mow tees MoW
Mow tees, fertilize tees
Cleaned and organized shop, mow tees
Course set up MoW
Checked courses
Checked courses
Mow rough, topdress greens
Topdress greens
Course set up, mow tees MoW, mow rough
Mow rough
Course set up
Off
Off
Course set up MoW, ESAGCS Turf Conference
Turf Conference
Turf Conference
Sprayed MoW for weeds and grasses
Course set up, mow range tee and tees
Check course
Check course
Irrigation audit
Course set up, irrigation audit
Irrigation audit
Off
Off
Off
Off
Tree and chipper work, irrigation repairs
Mow MoW tees, irrigation repairs

I should mention that almost every morning this month was spent doing some blowerwork around the course to clean up the leaves and derbis that litters the courses this time of year. These work records have been great for me to look back on, as I'm currently double checking all of my fertilizer and chemical application records to make sure they're accurate.

Thanks for reading, I hope to have posts coming at a more regular interval. This black Friday I picked up a Samsung Fascinate Android, so I'm hoping to blog from that more often.

Eastern Shore Golf Turf Conference

2010-11-19T21:58:00.001-05:00

Earlier this week I was fortunate to attend the ESAGCS Turf Conference held in Ocean City, MD. The 3 day event was well attended and I think we all came away the better superintendent for it. I wanted to give a brief rundown of the speakers and anything of note I took from them.

Day 1: The first day was our golf outing and happy hour. The weather couldn't have been better for golf in November, and I think most a great time at Ocean City Golf Club. Those who didn't play well were able to drown their sorrows at happy hour @ the Green Turtle in West Ocean City. they make some great crab dip!

Day 2: This day featured Kathy Conard of KCC Communications and Bernie Cronin of Sandler Training Institute. First to notes on Kathy:

Career Development, Personal Branding & Selling Yourself
     Kathy's presentation was my favorite of the conference. First she touched on principles of self branding and self promoting. We learned how to perfect our 'elevator pitch" and how to promote ourselves through networking and volunteering. Following this we spent a great deal of time on putting together a professional and attention getting cover letter and resume. I think this is where I benefited the most as I've been struggling to find the best way to incorporate my last two years at Glen Riddle into both documents. We finished up with tips on interviewing. I thought all of the information she gave us was very valuable and I especially came away with a lot to work on.
http://www.kccomm.net/

Managing Your Managers, Greens Committees and Owners
     In this session we talked about leadership, improving our communications with the "higher ups", and learned about the DiSC profiling system. I suppose now more than ever we have to be great at communicating our needs and selling our ideas to those who will ultimately decide what resources we'll get to maintain our courses.
http://www.sandler.com/

Day 3:

Understanding and Adapting to Mother Nature: Meteorology 101 - Herb Stevens
     Herb was a great speaker, considering the poor guy had driven all night to get to OC. We all got a crash course in reading the signs that lead to severe thunderstorms and finished with his thought on what this winter held in store for us. He felt that cold air was coming soon and a cold trend would last through January, with average precip. totals for our area. To all my blogger friends in Minnesota: According to Herb you could be in for a cold(er) couple of months!

Choosing the Right Wetting Agent to meet your Agronomic & Economic Needs
   This was Kathy's second presentation and one I had seen before. The title says it all.

Workplace Safety and Safety Management - Dave Madras
   This was about as entertaining a presentation on safety as one could be. Dave is a high energy guy, and he made his presentation pretty interesting. I came away with the thought to never underestimate the risks of our job. We're constantly being conditioned to risk, thinking nothing will ever happen to us because it hasn't before, and you see where I'm going here. Good stuff.

Using Your Golf Course for a Better Community - John Flaschner & Tom Schniedwind
     John came to us representing the PGA Tour and Tom the MD Special Olympics. They spent time talking about all the ways we as superintendents could use our courses to get involved with local and national charities. Golf outings are a great way to raise money and awareness for any given charity, and we were encouraged to do so.

I had a great week and always come away from these conferences refreshed and motivated to do a better job at work. It was great to meet other superintendents from the peninsula and see the guys from Congressional. Thanks to everyone who came and a big thanks to Eric, Matt, Joe, Hope and everyone else who organized and planned this event.

Two Articles of Interest

2010-11-12T12:11:00.001-05:00

As I go about blogging I do follow many other maintenance blogs out there, and two postings recently caught my eye.

The first was from Steve Cook @ Oakland Hills Country Club:

Understanding and Appreciating Firmness

The second from Nathan Peters @ Burl Oaks Golf Club

USGA: Course Care: Firm & Fast At Last

These are some great articles and we always try to do the same here at Glen Riddle. Thanks for passing these along guys!

October in Review

2010-11-03T14:35:00.001-04:00

I haven't given my blog much time or attention in October due to my aforementioned vacation time off. It was nice to disconnect for a few days and not think about grass all the time. That said I'm happy to be back and motivated to get as much done before the snow flies and the turf shuts down for the winter.

To begin I wanted to publicly thank our outstanding seasonal crew for all the hard work they did this summer. Successfully maintaining Glen Riddle at such a high level would not be possible without their dedication and effort. An especially big thanks goes to Jason, Tim, Brian, and Jordan for taking on the new responsibilities of staying late to hand water, among other things, and helping us get through the summer heat. We owe much of our success to you guys, so thanks!

Man O War

The bermudagrass of Man O War is currently undergoing a significant change this time of year. With nighttime temperatures dipping below freezing and daytime highs only reaching the 50's the grass is beginning to go dormant. Dormancy is this warm-season plants natural response to cold/drought growing conditions. A better explanation is given by Patrick McCullough at Rutgers University, and Haibo Liu and Bert McCarty of Clemson University:

Dormancy is a natural mechanism warm-season grasses experience when temperatures drop below optimum for shoot growth and chlorophyll retention. As day lengths become shorter and temperatures drop below 50°F, bermudagrass loses chlorophyll and begins allocating reserves for storage in belowground tissue.

Though Man O War is turning brown it is still quite playable, as long as it isn't too wet. We have overseeded our tees with perennial rye to protect the tee surfaces from too much wear from winter play, and to provide some color contrast.

Hole #10 teeboxes

War Admiral

War Admiral is currently playing at its best. While the cool season bentgrass and tall fescue is slowly ceasing growth it remains as green as ever. We will start to lose color as temps regularly drop below freezing, but the cool dry weather allows us to keep War Admiral dry and firm. We are making some of our last fertilizer and fungicide applications of the calendar year to give the plants some adequate nutrition and protection going into the winter months.

Another reason War Admiral looks so good now is the fall color display being put on by the oaks and maples is spectacular!

#13 War Admiral

#5 War Admiral

#6 greenside, War Admiral

#8 greenside, War Admiral

A little love for Man O War, #16 greenside

The pictures don't do the sights and sounds of this property justice, especially in the fall. At times like these I'm thankful my office is in the outdoors. Thanks for reading.

October Work Record

2010-11-03T13:50:00.000-04:00

October has quickly come and gone. As you'll see from my record I enjoyed some much needed time off with family. I'm also enjoying the less hectic pace of work now that things have cooled down.

Course set up assist/blowerwork, irrigation fixes
Off
Off
Tournament course set up W.A.
Tournament course set up W.A.
Off
Off
Off
Course set up M.o.W.
Course set up W.A.
Rolled Greens M.o.W., h2o greens MoW
Sprayed MoW greens with Trinity and Daconil, fertilized tees on MoW
Course set up MoW, invoices and office work, painted collar dots
Course set up WA
Sprayed Dimension around tee boxes 1-11 on MoW
Off
Off
Sprayed WA fairways
Course set up assist
Off
Off
Off
Sprayed MoW tees
Course set up MoW
Off
Off
Course set up MoW
Blowerwork and irrigation fixes
Course set up MoW, completed irrigation fixes
Off
Off

September Work Record

2010-10-11T12:30:00.000-04:00

Here's what kept me busy in September

DryJect MoW greens, afternoon h2o greens
DryJect MoW greens, tamp and seeded 15 and 17 greens on MoW
Hurricane, misc work
Off
Off
Sprayed MoW greens with soil spray, Trimmit and Insignia
Morning and afternoon h2o
Morning h2o prep, fertilizer calibration for WA
Fertilizer app to WA bunker and green surrounds
Course set up MoW, painted hazards
Course set up WA
Course set up WA
Mowed special greens, blowerwork, misc afternoon work
Blowerwork and helped with course set up, painted GUR areas WA
Sprayed WA fairways, afternoon h2o
Fertilized MoW greens with contec DG 19-0-17, afternoon sod work
Blowerwork, afternoon sod
Off
Off
Sprayed MoW tees 1-11 with Celsius
Sprayed MoW tees 12-18 with Celsius and Dimension
Sprayed MoW rough with Celsius and Dimension
Sprayed MoW rough and driving range, afternoon h2o
Sprayed MoW fairways, afternoon h2o
Course set up and checking
Course set up and checking
Rain, cleanup and misc office work
Course set up assist, blowerwork, invoices
Irrigation fixes, mowed fairways WA
Course set up assist and blowerwork, moved tees on MoW, irrigation fixes

More and more Eric is allowing us to do what we need to in the morning, without having a specific task we would need to stick with. This lets us manage the morning madness. We can make sure everyone is working in a timely manner, is on task, and that the course looks it's best before the members and guests take their whacks at it. Another large chunk of the month was getting out a post and pre-emergent herbicide application on Man O War.

Bullet Dodged pt. 2 with pictures!

2010-10-01T12:56:00.000-04:00

Tropical Storm 16 chugged up the Eastern coastline yesterday, dropping large amounts of rain and flooding some areas. Amazingly the storm stayed to our west nearly the entire time, defying all the forecasts for our area. It was predicted we would received 2-4" or rain. We recorded .24". We feel incredibly fortunate at Glen Riddle to have missed out on the extra precip., as we're hosting the Maryland Women's Open Monday and Tuesday. Consequently we've been able to get caught up with all our mowing. The course should be awesome come tournament time.

Like many other courses do this time of year, we have spent a lot of hours re-seeding and sodding some of the damaged areas from the summer heat. We've also overseeded the tees on Man O War. The rain we have received has helped the course to recuperate and it's starting to look and play quite nice.

Here are a few updates and pictures to go along:

Man O War hole #1. We're slowly losing the bermuda to dormancy.

On Man O War we've applied a post emergent and pre emergent herbicide to the entire course, minus the green surrounds and approach. Here you can see that the application has affected the bermuda's color.

Our practice green is a testament to how much plug repair work has been done to the greens affected by the summer heat. We'll be repairing this green soon.

Sod work to repair the drains on #8 War Admiral.

Here we've repaired the walk on to #7 War Admiral

Since we removed the rope stakes from #14 War Admiral, we've had issues with the entry and exit points for carts. Now with the areas we repaired roped off, new wear areas show up. Managing cart traffic can be frustrating at times.

This is the walk on to #14 green. We re-sodded nearly the entire walk on, which had suffered major decline due to it being the only entry and exit point for players and our maintenance crew. Because of the design it will continue to be a problem for us in the future.

Here are a few hex plugs on #5 green War Admiral. This green shares the same problem with #14, as there is only one area to walk onto the green from the cart path. To assist in the recovery we've dimpled the surface and added some 007 seed and sand.

This picture really does say 1,000 words when it comes to "why" aerification is an essential maintenance practicee on golf courses. This photo is from the large fairway hump in the middle of #11 fairway on War Admiral. The summer heat has pretty much killed off our turf, minus the aerification holes from spring. When you relieve compaction and open space for air, water and roots to descend, good things happen.

War Admiral #1. Things are looking pretty good. Now if we could just get rid of all that bent in the rough. Another project for another season.

You can really see the time, energy, and stress spent by having to deal with cart and foot traffic. As soon as you think you have one problem solved, another rears it's ugly head. Another post for another time.

Thanks for reading.

Fertility and Disease Management 101

2010-09-28T20:49:00.001-04:00

For awhile now I've wanted to write a post about our fertility program and chemical usage at Glen Riddle. Quite often you see me or the other assistant Steven dressed in a white space suit with rubber gloves and boots, riding around on a giant orange sprayer, spraying electric green who knows what on the turf.

I know people are at least curious about what we are up to, and even uneasy at times. We get many long looks from players as well as the occasional question: "What are you spraying?" I hope that I can provide some understanding of these key practices we use to provide adequate nutrition to our turf and keep disease damage to a minimum.

First fertility:

Our fertility programs are based on our desire to provide adequate nutrition to the turf. We have different plans and use different products for different course areas. Namely greens, tees/fairways/approaches, and rough. I specifically want to talk about the liquid fertilizer applications we make to greens. Our greens management practices differ somewhat from the other named areas. Our goal with greens is to provide a slow, steady source of food to the plant, aka "spoon feeding". We want the grass on greens to grow at an even, steady pace, avoiding any major spikes or flushes in growth. Oddly, lush growth isn't good for greens. Consistency of growth = consistent greens!

Since our greens are grown in nearly sterile sand, we must provide everything the plant needs through liquid nutrition. More on that later.

Second disease management:

I've come to learn that the Mid-Atlantic climate can be incredibly challenging to grow healthy, disease-free turf in. The summer heat and humidity combine to provide perfect conditions for turf damaging disease. While the best defense of disease is to have healthy, dry turf, this isn't always possible or under our control in this climate. At Glen Riddle we are on a disease prevention program. We do not wait to see symptoms of disease in turf before applying chemicals. Rather we responsibly apply chemicals in regular intervals to avoid any major outbreaks that the stressful weather can cause. Consider this disease triangle:

In a typical Mid-Atlantic summer the environment is nearly always conductive and the host sometimes susceptible. Our spraying usually prevents the pathogen from entering the picture.

This is new to me. In Idaho, where I grew up and began working in the industry, I can't remember any sort of disease outbreak. Dry climates with cool nights mean most courses use chemicals on an "as needed" basis. My how things have changed for me!

On to spraying:

We have plans in place to spray our greens every two weeks. At this interval we can ensure the plants have adequate nutrition and defenses according to the recommendations of the fertilizer and fungicide products we use. We have two types of greens sprays: Foliar and Soil. Foliar sprays are designed to be directly absorbed into the plant, while soil sprays serve to provide fertility as well as moisture consistency to the sand beneath. Soil sprays only go out once per month.


The spray hawk is our application tool of choice

What's in a Spray?

Almost any foliar or soil spray will have the following components:

Liquid fertilizers and bio-stimulants
Fungicide
Plant growth regulator
Tracking dye

At Glen Riddle we use Floratine liquid fertilizer products. We usually combine 4 to 6 of their products to cover the spectrum of turf nutritional needs. One or two types of fungicide are added. We plan our applications based on what disease is most likely to occur during the given weather. Plant growth regulators do just as the name implies. The growth on the green is "stunted" so that growth doesn't exceed our capabilities to maintain the grass. Finally we use green dye to make sure our applications don't overlap.

A note on use of fungicides:

Ideally we want to use as little chemical product as possible on the turf. Applications are often expensive, and as I stated earlier, some folks prefer not to be exposed to it. But for us to meet the expectations of our paying guests and members, we need to chemically suppress diseases and keep our greens pristine. I don't feel bad for pulling out all the stops to protect our moneymakers.

That said this is my take home message: We do everything we can to use fungicides and other chemistry in the most safe and responsible manner possible. We take our role as environmental stewards seriously and would never risk damage to the environment around us by misuse of chemicals. Rest assured that superintendents go through rigorous education about pest management from schooling or outside study. We are required to be licensed applicators in the states we work in, which involves more study and testing in our respective state. We always follow the manufacturer guidelines and state regulations when we apply and dispose of chemicals.

I hope this has been somewhat educational. This post may be edited in the near future. Thanks for reading!

Unlucky number 16

2010-09-28T18:41:00.000-04:00

Since Sunday Glen Riddle has received around 2.6" of rain. Though it washes out our bunkers and leaves the course too soft to mow we welcome the moisture. It had been a few weeks since our last significant rainfall, and the course has benefited from it. Heavy rain almost acts like a "hard reset", allowing the course to get back to square 1 in terms of color and h2o uniformity.

Right now I'd give anything to avoid any more rainfall until late next week. War Admiral is hosting the Maryland Woman's Open on Monday the fourth and Tuesday the fifth. Now it's great to host a tournament, I really get geared up for these things. However, because of the rain we haven't mowed anything but green since Sunday and with this little gem of a storm Tropical Depression 16, it's likely we will struggle to get the entire course mowed by Monday. Come hell or high water everything will be ready by Monday, but we continue to get pushed back by the otherwise wonderful rain.

In times like these we prepare by sending the crew home during the week to save up man hours for the weekend. It's likely you'll see us mowing grass all day Saturday and Sunday. I'm really hoping we don't get completely washed out Thursday, but should the rain come hard, we'll adapt and get the job done.

Situations like this are sometimes common to our industry. When you take care of a living, breathing golf course sometimes you don't work normal office hours. Much like nursing, you have to be on call to respond to the immediate needs of the golf course. While the crazy hours often cause my family some added stress, I love what I do. Being able to deliver quality conditions to players is my motivation. It's a passion shared my many in the industry.

Sweet September

2010-09-20T20:34:00.000-04:00

A small update on the goings on here at Glen Riddle:

The September weather has been blissful here on the eastern shore. We are starting to see highs top out in the low 80's and night time lows dip into the low 50's. Such weather is extremely conducive to repairing our summer damaged areas, re-sodding other problem areas, and growing some really strong strands of grass. Take note of the newly sodded areas around War Admiral, particularly the entire right side of the walk on of 14 green. Please take a free drop from these areas and play on.

The weather also allows us to keep the course on the dry side. During the intense summer heat we try to do the same, but often we err to keep turf hydrated enough to get through the day with minimal wilt and scarring. As our risk of damaging wilt decreases we can let the course firm up and play a little better.

On Man O War we've started the process of overseeding tees for winter play. Earlier today I applied a pre-emergent herbicide to the tee surrounds and I will be doing the same tomorrow. We apply the herbicide everywhere we want to prevent the perennial rye from germinating. Soon after we will apply the rye seed to the tee tops and provide plenty of water. Hopefully as the grass grows in we'll be left with nice crisp edges on our tee tops. This is my first chance to overseed and I'm excited to learn a new skill. It's basic in nature, but just as important as anything else we do.

I've mentioned many things I want to post about, and have my list written out at work. I hope to find the time to get them all in. Thanks for reading!

August Work Record

2010-09-08T12:18:00.000-04:00

August has come and gone. Like July, I'm thankful it's over and now the weather conditions are more conducive to delivering optimal golf conditions. The cooler temperatures are allowing us to repair some of the damage we suffered in the heat of the summer.

Here's what I did:

Course set up, afternoon h2o
h2o prepped greens, blowerwork, afternoon h2o and prepping sprayers
Sprayed Man O War greens with Tartan/Daconil
h2o on War Admiral
Needle tined 16, 17, 18 with Toro 648 and rolled said greens, afternoon h2o
Morning h2o, off at lunch
Off
Off
Off
Back at lunch, afternoon h2o
Morning h2o prep on greens, afternoon h2o
Sprayed weak greens, rained in the afternoon, cleaned the shop
Painted hazards
Course set up, morning and afternoon h2o
Course set up, morning and afternoon h2o
h2o prep on War Admiral greens, painted hazards and g.u.r. on Man O War
Course set up on Man O War for Triple Crown Inv. afternoon h2o
Dryjected War Admiral #9, rained 3 inches, pulled drains and went home
Blowerwork on Man O War, flagged sprinklers for War Admiral aerification
Sprayed greens on Man O War, flagged sprinklers for War Admiral aerification
Off
Off
Sprayed War Admiral fairways
Morning management of workflow & scouting, budget and computer work
Off
Morning and afternoon h2o
Course set up and afternoon h2o
Course set up and afternoon h2o
Sprayed Man O War fairways, irrigation work, h2o
Morning h2o prep, irrigation fixes, afternoon h2o

I feel like I did a much better job in august giving my greens the amount of water they needed in the right places. Some of my moss issues have cleared up, and many of the areas on greens I had problems with last year have been fine this year. Though the summer stress is winding down here, we are still very busy getting our courses back into shape for the busy fall season. Also I should note that on the 24th I have "morning management" down for that day. This is something I do every day, but the 24th just happened to be dedicated to that. Until September.

Bullet Dodged

2010-09-07T20:25:00.000-04:00

As many of you may have seen, last week Hurricane Earl set it's sights on the Eastern Coast with Glen Riddle potentially in it's path. Glen Riddle is located in Berlin, Maryland on the Delmarva Peninsula, however we're located only a few miles inland from the coast. Being so close to the coast helps moderate our climate at times, with an occasional ocean breeze cooling things down. But being so close also leaves us a little more exposed to the forces of nature mis-behaved.

Earl has come and gone thankfully. He significantly weakened while coming up the coast, after brushing North Carolina. Friday was almost a let down as we didn't see winds really pick up and we only recorded .07" of rain. (This is my sadistic side speaking, I was truly glad to have avoided storm damage) While the storm didn't bring much weather our way, I did learn a good thing or two about preparation for similar situations.

Beginning Thursday morning we assigned a couple guys to undertake "hurricane preparations". They did the following:

Stored all pieces of patio furniture, cooler stands, and anything else that could potentially blow away.
Gassed up every single cart and piece of equipment we had, including refilling all of our gas containers. In the event of a long term power outage we could be able to operate at full capacity for a few extra days.
Prepared all of our chainsaws. Our chipper was also ready to go.
Tarped all of our sand and soil in our concrete storage areas.
Loaded all the greens mowers into their trailers, along with our collar mower.
At the end of the day Jason Benton and Tim Schultz came back in to remove the flagsticks. A big thanks to them for doing so.
We also spend the entire day Thursday getting as much grass mowed as we could. If anything crazy did happen, we could at least go extra days without mowing.

Eric was really on top of us to be prepared in every way possible. I was impressed with his ability to think ahead and prepare for any adverse situation we'd encounter. These storms can really wreak havoc, as I learned last November. I was temporarily in charge of the entire property and a tropical storm came through the area. It dropped an incredible amount of rain, flooding the course, and it dropped a few trees as well. I think this picture says it all:

If this weren't such a low quality pic, Standard Golf could use it as a promo to show that their flagsticks stay quite secure.

Quick Updates as August Comes to a Close

2010-08-23T19:45:00.000-04:00

If you frequent Glen Riddle you may have noticed War Admiral was closed for 3 days last week. We spent those three days solid tine aerifying our fairways, tees, and approaches, as well as DryJecting the greens. While the project is stressful at times it signals the approaching end of extreme summer temperatures, and so I welcome it. However, this summer has been insanity at times, so I don't plan on letting my guard down anytime soon.

The long hours have sapped most of my motivation to blog about the very projects I live for 12 hours a day (imagine that!). The main purpose of my blog still remains to act as an open communication to our members and guests, so I will try to do better to keep you updated on the why behind what we do. To my fellow industry readers out there: thanks for reading! I follow my stats and analytics closely so I know you're out there!

As a refresher on why we aerate:

Aerification helps relieve soil compaction.
Coring the soil creates space for roots to grow and helps increase air and water movement to the soils.
Removing soil cores also removes thatch, which is layered organic matter that can cause problems with water and root movement from the ground surface to the soil below.

Because of the weather (Big surprise: It rained during our aerification when it hasn't rained all summer) we decided to solid tine instead of remove cores. Solid tining cuts significant time and labor from the clean up process, however if we could we would have cored everything.

I also mentioned that we DryJected greens on War Admiral. DryJect involves using specialized machines that inject topdressing sand directly into the soil profile. Aeration in this manner allows for minimal disruption to the playing surface, which is why we do it. It also helps that Eric our director is the Mid Atlantic owner. Notably our first day we did 3 greens in pouring rain. With some clever utilization of tarps, pop up shelters, chest waders, and more tarps we finished the three greens on a day it rained 3.3 inches...If you want something bad enough there's always a way.

Here is a link to DryJect: http://www.dryject.com/dryject/index.php

DryJect in the rain. Once thought impossible!

July Work Record

2010-08-04T14:30:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure how these are received. Interesting? Not so much?

The reason I keep these is mostly for personal reference, but I also do because once I was able to read a daily record from an intern who worked at Merion. Very interesting stuff.

Edit: Here is the report, by Zach Baughman of Iowa State

July

Off
h2o greens prep, irrigation fixes, h2o greens
h2o prep and crew management, afternoon h2o
h2o prep and crew management, afternoon h2o (Are we in the wrong profession or what?)
h2o prep and afternoon h2o, crew mow and go
Sprayed Greens on MoW with Tartan and Primo, afternoon h2o
h2o greens prep on MoW and WA, office work
h2o and prep work, afternoon h2o
h2o prep work, painted collar dots and spot work with 2-4d in a can
Off
Off
Sprayed WA fairways
Misc work: managed crew, mowed greens, cleaned shop
Replaced transformers in 16 and 18 satellite boxes
Finished setting up boxes on 16 and 18, afternoon h2o
h2o prep work on MoW greens, misc afternoon work
course set up, h2o
course set up, h2o
Sprayed WA fairways to deal with flaring brown patch
Course set up on MoW, afternoon h2o
Misc managing and checking irrigation, afternoon h2o
Leveled and sodded 16 tee box (got sent home early for being sick, almost felt guilty)
Sprayed MoW greens with signature and mancozeb
MoW course set up to help out with club championship
Off
Worked, but no idea what I did :/
MoW course set up, 1/2 day
h2o prep on greens, afternoon h2o
sprayed WA fairways, afternoon h2o
sprayed MoW fairways, afternoon h2o
sprayed #'s 5, 7, 14 on WA and #'s 15 and 17 on MoW with Respond 3, Trinity, and Segway. Sprayed Wa's 16th fairway with Respond 3

What a month. Lot's of hand watering in there. Weather wise we had 13 days in the 90's, 3 of which were 98 and 99 respectively. We also experience a 13 day stretch where the night time temp didn't go below 70. We recorded 2.5" or rain for the month. It's best to say goodbye to July. Until next year...

July Updates for Glen Riddle

2010-08-03T19:47:00.001-04:00

I'm quite happy July has come to an end. Though the weather this last weekend was quite kind to me (Highs in the 70's) most of the weekend has been a struggle to even keep some of the turf alive. If you frequently play Glen Riddle you have certainly noticed some of the areas on fairways and greens that have seen better days. I hope to address some of the problems we've been dealing with and highlight some of our successes and projects. As usual I'll have to add photos in a separate post.

In regards to some of the damage around the course:

The hot weather has caused major turf issues not only at Glen Riddle, but in many areas of the Eastern U.S. Cool season turf grass begins to struggle when air temperatures go to 90 and above, as well as when soil temps creep above 70. There are many things you can do to help the grass along, and I'll highlight what we do to get by here. If anything we are fortunate to have received less rain than usual. We prefer to stay on the dry side of things, as hot wet weather only encourages disease and sometimes uncontrollable turf loss when conditions are very wet. When conditions are dry we at least still have some control with the ability to correctively water.

That said we have experienced isolated areas of turf loss on greens due to over saturated soils in low areas. Greens on 15 Man O War and 12 and 13 of War Admiral all lost grass in poor draining areas due to the last round of daytime temps in the 100's. Greens 15 and 17 of Man O War and 4, 5, 7, and 14 have also been damaged due to dry wilt and heavy foot traffic. The fairways of War Admiral are sporting some severely stressed dry spots, some of which even now struggle to come back. While all of this sounds like a nightmare, we really have come out in good shape, all things considered. We aren't playing on dirt yet!

With all this crazy weather I've been very impressed with the ability of our industry leaders to reach out and provide sound guidelines for us to consider. Some of the following links have been passed along, and each contains very useful information when you're trying to keep turf alive. Here is an example:

USGA Regional Update for the Mid Atlantic

Consequently mowing heights have been raised course wide. We are mowing the above mentioned greens at and even higher height. We've also begun to plug out some of the areas that are obviously gone. We use plastic lattice to cover the collars of War Admiral, to avoid any extra mechanical stress. We have also just finished applying Respond 3, a wetting agent, to the tees, approaches, fairways, and sick greens. This wetting agent will help to maintain more moisture in the dry areas and hopefully push out some of the extra water in low areas. Our Precision brand fans have been on almost constantly for the last month. The fans run to keep the air circulating around the greens tucked away in the woods. If you want to see what a difference they make look at 15 and 17 Man O War. Most of the damage to these greens was sustained due to lack of air movement. The recent weather has allowed us to go out with our Toro Pro Core and vent the greens using pencil tines. We anticipate a healthy response.

Projects and Successes of note:

On some of the less stressful days we've been able to finish the tee construction project on 16 Man O War. The predominant mound in the middle of the tees was taken down and flattened to create a larger teeing area. Once the mound was rough graded we went back in with a concrete scree system and fine leveled the back of the tee. The whole project took a few days and 5 pallets of bermuda sod. Just in the last few days we've been rolling the area with our Salsco roller and applying topdressing sand to the area. Tomorrow we mow for the first time.

Personally I think one of the biggest success stories at Glen Riddle is me! Hopefully this doesn't sound like bragging, because it's not. But when I look back on how green I was when I started here a year ago it's shocking. Since then I've acquired many skills and experiences that have allowed me to be a successful Assistant who can handle a stressful weekend relatively alone and still have the courses come out ok. I'm certainly thankful for the adversity, as it alone can develop the strengths a Superintendent can use to be successful anywhere. The past 2 years have been trans-formative for me, and I'm glad. Also much of our own success can be attributed to the hard work of our crews and Steven and Eric. I hope to highlight their efforts in later posts.

A post on my July Work Record and the long awaited SynaTek Fertigation post. I also plan on posting information on our fertilizer applications we make around the course as well as a post about how doing the little things right makes a huge difference to our image.

June Work Log and Commentary

2010-07-07T12:38:00.001-04:00

I'm currently enjoying the refuge of our air conditioned offices at the moment. As anyone else in the Mid-Atlantic can tell you, the last few days have been brutally hot. Yesterday the high temperature here at the course was 98 degrees. Today's weather promises much of the same. Since I stick around until late into the day I don't feel bad for taking some time to rest and blog a bit.

To start, here is my June work record:

Irrigation checks and fixes, h2o on MoW
Monument Spray, sprayer cleaning and prep for next day
Man O War greens spray with Honor
Monument spray on back 9 tees of MoW
Course set up, h2o in the afternoon
Course set up, h2o in the afternoon
Misc work (marking pins, irrigation, blowerwork)
Sprayed fairways on WA with primo and banner
Sprayed fairways on Mow with primo, Irrigation fix in the afternoon
Sprayed tees on MoW with primo, painted pins for member-guest and collar dots
Morning h2o prep with aquaduct, Irrigation work and fixes
Off
Off
Fertilized green surrounds on MoW with Contec DG, Irrigation work and h2o
Irrigation repairs in the morning, h2o preparation, blowing rough
Trained new employee on course set up, morning h2o prep, painted hazards
Monument spray on front 9 MoW tees, afternoon h2o and irrigation repairs
Mowed greens, irrigation repairs on MoW
Course set up for Member-Guest, afternoon h2o
Course set up and afternoon h2o
Sprayed greens on MoW with Heritage TL, Daconil, Primo, and Bifenthrin
Aerated tees on MoW, Reshape and sod mounds on 3 and 4
Finished tee aeration, Laid sod on 3 and 4
Course set up MoW, sod project on 16 tees
Sod project on 16 tees, afternoon h2o
Off
Off
Morning h2o prep on MoW greens, WA irrigation fixes
Sprayed fairways on WA with Daconil and Primo, Irrigation repairs and Monument spot spray
Sprayed fairways on MoW with primo, spot sprayed weeds on MoW

I really was a busy week for us in June. Notable there was a lot of extra preparation for the Member-Guest. Everyone put in a lot of hours to help make that a success. You may also notice that "h2o" shows up quite a bit in my record. I use "h2o" to denote hand watering (or my new favorite phrase: corrective watering). Really I could put down h2o for almost every day of the month because of how the weather has been and continues to be. In June we recorded 9 days in the 90's and 14 days in the 80's. We only received around 2.5" of rain over the month, with 1.75" of that happening over 2 days. I know I talk a lot about the weather, but it seems that this year has been especially tough.

Some of the other items in my work record have been documented in other posts on this blog. All of the new sod on 3, 4 and 16 has taken hold and is looking great. Seeing my work schedule reminds me I need to post more about our fertigation system experience as well as posting about the 'why' behind the 'what' we spray out on the grass.

To finish I've given some thought to tracking how many hours I've been working along with what I do. However, I'd rather not see how much time I spend working in the crazy summer months!

Turf Twister: Glen Riddle Style

2010-06-28T12:03:00.000-04:00

The GCSAA publication Golf Course Management regularly publishes a column called Turf Twisters. Photos are published of some downright bewildering problems photographed on golf courses, and you try to guess the probable causes. I think I might send a few pictures of my own in:

These pictures come from War Admiral. This was a few days after the last time divots were filled. The turf around the filled divots was starting to turn brown and die. I think I'll reveal what happened to the tees at the end of this week. If you think you know what happened leave a comment below! Sometimes the most insane things happen at our jobs...

7 tee box, War Admiral

18 tee box, War Admiral

June Course Improvements Continued

2010-06-25T14:01:00.000-04:00

Pictures of the finished products:

Finished hillside on #3

Old peak and bunker on #4. Still work to do here.

This was a bunker whose face had collapsed

#16 tee complex, an old mound

#16 tee complex, previously a large drainage ditch

Behind #15 green. This used to be a large natural mound.

I still have work to do on these areas. They will need to be hand watered, topdressed, and tamped or rolled to smooth them out. With the current weather they should blend right in.

June Course Improvements

2010-06-25T12:35:00.000-04:00

Man O War is our public golf course which features bermuda grass and a links style layout. Kind of a unique combination. Some of the slopes and bunkers on Man O War are quite severe and frankly difficult to maintain. This week we've had the chance to start making some areas on Man O War easier on the eye and more maintenance friendly.

The following pictures are from the hillside on #3, areas on #4, and #16 tee complex. In each case Eric decided to eliminate some of the natural mounds and soften the slopes. I think the results are a great improvement over how it used to be.

#3 hillside prior to project

Filling in the bunkers and rough grading

#3 hillside almost complete

Starting the sod work the next day

This is from #4. We've torn down a severely pointed mound and pushed it into an equally severe pot bunker

More finished pictures to come after I go take the rest!

The Days after...

2010-06-21T11:10:00.000-04:00

Some thoughts about our successful Member-Guest this weekend as well as the U.S. Open:

We were pleased to offer as firm conditions and fast greens as possible without letting the course get away from us too much. We measured the greens rolling around 11.5 on the stimpmeter. We accomplished this without lowering our height of cut on the greens mowers, instead opting to cut and roll them every day leading up to the tournament. The greens were double cut the day of play. We came nowhere near the awesome set up at Pebble Beach, but they have a few more people around to reign conditions in when they get too dry. We appreciate the kind words and standing ovation for Eric at the after party.

Speaking of Pebble Beach: I really wish someone would closely document all of the planning, time, and resources that go intotransforming a golf course for a major championship. For all the work they maintenance staff does leading up to the event, they don't get much recognition or exposure. I couldn't believe how dry they had that place. What was really telling was the difference between the individual hole flyovers (likely recorded a few months earlier?) and the actual open course. I'm gaining a much greater respect for proper water management on turf.

Firm and fast seems to be on the mind of the USGA and it's been on my mind as of late too. The theory seems simple enough to understand, but I imaging implementation is a whole different beast. The articles in the USGA Green Section Magazine make definite note that hand watering will greatly increase, however, fertility costs should go down. I was impressed that Bandon Dunes only budgets $20k per course for fertilizer. Reading about such things makes me think ahead to what kind of experience I want to have from my next position, whatever or whenever that may be.

For now I'm quite happy at Glen Riddle and looking forward to the new challenges that await!

Pictures to Accompany Past Updates

2010-06-14T13:53:00.000-04:00

Here is a record of all the plugs Jason has used to plug out the poa on MoW. Wow!

An area which has healed nicely from the previous
months sod work.

This is what we've been repairing. No bueno.

Here is an example of the cart traffic amplifying the already water stressed turf.

We painted the green Kirby markers with a white ring for the die hards who don't use GPS!

Man O War putting green post renovation.

Course Improvement Projects at Glen Riddle

2010-06-12T13:25:00.000-04:00

If you play at Glen Riddle hopefully you've noticed some of the course improvement projects going on around the courses. Man O War has needed most of our time and attention to remedy specific issues facing the bermuda grassed course.

To begin I've been trying to aggressively plug out some of the poa annua starting to encroach on the greens. Jason Benton, who does our course set up had been spending most of his afternoons in the month of May plugging and picking out the larger patches of poa on the greens. I plan to post a picture of all the plugs he's taken from our practice green/nursery. He's done a great job.

Last year our final Revolver application around the greens possibly did too good of a job. Apparently there was quite a bit of rye still left around the greens. In the last months we've been taking massive amounts of sod from the back of our driving range and re-sodding some of the bare areas just outside the collars of greens. I've really come to appreciate the quality of work our crew has done on this project as well as the recuperative ability of bermuda grass. Some of the earliest sodding jobs are nearly indistinguishable from the established areas.

Finally I've been attempting to eradicate any residual cool season grasses around the greens and tees on Man O War. This spring was not kind to me, as the snow cover and rainfall delayed our roundup and barricade applications almost to the point of missing the application entirely. The Monument has been working slowly but surely, and notably it hasn't discolored the bermuda too much. Learning to maintain bermuda grass has been challenging and exciting. It's not often a kid from Idaho gets to do this.

I hope to document the other projects we have going on around the property, with pictures to come!

June Updates, Member-Guest Fast Approaching

2010-06-12T13:11:00.000-04:00

It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon on the Delmarva Peninsula, made even more beautiful by the fact that it’s my weekend off! I have a paper set before me with scribbles of all the things I’ve been wanting to blog about, but put off due to lack of time. Here goes!

Glen Riddle continues to enjoy pleasant, sunny, and rainless weather for the most part. Time after time we’ve watched as large storms grazed our area, leaving only a few hundredths of rain to show for it. The lack of significant rain over long periods of time has presented a whole new set of challenges for us at Glen Riddle. As of now we continue to battle with dry areas and grass wilting around the course. We’ve been trying to fine tune our irrigation system to deal with the dry weather as opposed to last year when we couldn’t keep the place dry enough. More on irrigation later.

The problems we’ve encountered under these extremely dry and hot conditions have been compounded by carts being able to come off the paths nearly every day for the last 3 months. It’s been almost too much of a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, letting carts off the paths increases our speed of play, we can accommodate more rounds, and most golfers appreciate it. But when heat or moisture stressed turf has to endure intense mechanical stresses the results often aren’t pretty. Our staff has worked hard to redirect cart traffic around the course in an effort to evenly distribute cart wear.

I’m always learning that you can’t let your guard down in this business. The moment you thing you have one problem solved another rears its ugly head. A little over a week ago our VFD (Variable Frequency Drive) in our main pump house computer control system gave out. We were still able to run water on the course, but we had to re-think the way we set up our irrigation to run at night. Before all this happened I didn’t have a clue of what a VFD was or did. I learned that the VFD was necessary to regulate how much the pumps needed to run while we watered. Without the VFD assistance all the pumps would remain on, working at maximum capacity even when it wasn’t required, and we would have to manually turn the pumps off to avoid other issues. Instead of going to the shop in the morning we had to stop by the pump house, check our flow and shut off any pumps that needn’t be running. Needless to say it was an interesting week…Thankfully we were able to replace the drive quickly, with minimal negative effects on the turf.

Finally our Member-Guest is next weekend and I for one am excited. Getting ready for a big event allows us to show off the course and hopefully have it playing its best. Part of my motivation to get involved in this business is to provide memorable playing conditions, no matter where I’m at. I’m also realizing that the amount of success you enjoy on the day of the tournament largely depends on how well you plan and execute maintenance tasks weeks and even months in advance. Still this week will be busy for us; we have many course improvements planned for this week. I’ll document those improvements later, in a separate post.

Thanks for reading.

May Work Record

2010-06-01T12:28:00.000-04:00

Here is my work record for May 2010:

Off
Off (so far an easy month!)
Came in at 12 p.m., assisted MoW bulk fertilizer application
Sprayed WA tees with Concert, landscape irrigation work, H2O on MoW
Sprayed MoW greens with Concert and Primo, half day
Sprayed WA fairways with Concert, Primo, and Trimmit
Finished spraying WA fairways, spread left over bulk fert. on MoW, H2O greens
Course set up WA, H2O in the afternoon
Course set up MoW, H2O in the afternoon
Finished bulk fert. app on MoW, irrigation fixes
Irrigation work and fixes
Drainage projects around snack shack, invoices
Off
Course set up MoW, misc work
Off
Off
Fertilize WA with Dimension granular
Cleaned and organized shop, pulled drains
MoW greens spray with Headway, flagged irrigation heads
Flagged and edged irrigation heads
Managed morning work flow, irrigation fixes along the way, painted hazards on MoW
Course set up MoW, H2O
Course set up WA
Mowed driving range and trained new operators, invoices, painted hazards MoW
MoW soil spray with Headway
MoW spraying with Monument and Chaser, compiling jobs and tasks for MoW
MoW spraying with Monument and Chaser, irrigation fix on 9 WA
Course set up MoW, finished fixing irrigation leak on 9 WA
Off
Off (helped Steven with H2O)
Greens prep, crew BBQ, H2O in the afternoon

Some thoughts on the month:

Preventative spraying is in full swing now. With no spray techs and no one else qualified to spray Steven and I share the load. My early season scheduling for certain chemicals has sorta been moved to the side so we can use what's in our inventory. We came in at the beginning of the month with Primo as the warm temperatures were spurring the growth of turf around the course. Our average high temperature for May was 75. We had 13 days in the 80's. Notably we only received 2" of rain for May and a YTD total close to 17". Quite the opposite of last season.

The irrigation leak on 9 was large. We had some water bed turf so we dug down to find an old fix made with a T coupling. The metal cap in the T had become corroded and failed. The soil was wet and heavy...

I was happy to get out and take care of some of the residual grass and weeds from the winter with Monument. It was Eric's first time using it so were interested to see how the Bermuda comes out of it after a few weeks.

Soon I hope to provide some updates on improvement projects around the course, thoughts on our SynaTek fertigation system, and general musings. Thanks for reading!

Have I Arrived?

2010-06-01T12:04:00.000-04:00

Last week I mentioned that I was fortunate to have been added to the list of bloggers at Golf Course Industry Online. Last Thursday I was happy to see that my blog was recognized on Golf Course Management's blog, and that I've been added as a super blogger!

See the article HERE.

I'm happy that some of the time and effort I've put into this little experiment is paying off some. Though recognition isn't my primary objective with this blog, nods such as these motivate me to greater aspirations. I know my blog will pay dividends in the future.

May Update

2010-05-25T12:26:00.001-04:00

Incredibly the end of May is coming fast. My lack of posting has been due to the frantic pace of work here at the course, as well as my continued lack of a camera. I just wanted to comment on a few of the things happening here at the course and with the blog.

The Eastern Shore of Maryland is starting to see the temperatures warm up into the high 70's and 80's more consistently. At Glen Riddle were fortunate to be so close to the ocean, as it mitigates much of the extreme heat. Man O War is greening up nicely, but I have some weeds starting to poke their ugly heads out of the ground. Soon I'll be going out to clean some of that up. War Admiral looks pretty good right now. The seeding rough is one of the few eyesores around the course. We finally have a full crew which is great because we're on a nearly regular mowing schedule around the course. Extra bodies also helps us complete a few of the sod and drainage projects we have around the course.

I also wanted to comment on some recent success I had in the blogging world. A few weeks ago I recieved an e-mail from Michael Zawacki, Editor of the magazine Golf Course Industry. He wanted my permission to publish my piece "What Gordon Ramsay Taught Me about Golf Course Management". I was excited, to say the least. It's nice to have some of the work you put into blogging pay off. You might have noticed the post has been edited a few times. I asked Mike if I could tweak my post, knowing that it might be read by more than a handful of people. The current post is my final draft. I was also pleased to see that this blog has been added to GCI's blogroll on their website. I appreciate it!

So hopefully I can save the $$$ to purchase a new camera to post more pictures. I'll also try to provide some more perspective on the things I'm learning about my craft here at Glen Riddle.

Man O War Landscape Pictures

2010-05-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

I'll step down from my soap box for a while.

Enjoy these older pictures of the Man O War putting green surround re-do. We've since mulched the beds and poured the concrete pad by the snack shack.

Facing the clubhouse

Looking at #10 tee

The concrete patio was later poured

View from the mound near 18 green

What Gordon Ramsay taught me about golf course maintenance

2010-05-11T17:40:00.004-04:00

I'll start by saying cooking is one of my favorite hobbies.

I'm drawn to cooking because of its artistry and its innovation. Think of how many different ways there are to prepare a simple egg. Add to that the many varied ways to present an egg on a plate. Throw in a few hundred seasonings and thousands of other ingredients and you have countless combinations of food dishes to eat. This is what it all comes down to for me: I love eating good food. I’m a novice cook so to improve my skills I watch cooking shows on TV and read cook books, which brings me to Gordon Ramsay.

You might have done a double take at the title. What could a world class chef possibly teach a golf course superintendent about greenskeeping?
Many of you may have heard of Gordon Ramsay. He's the star of TV shows like Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. He operates many successful restaurants across the world. He was the recipient of 3 Michelin Stars, one of the highest honors a chef can receive. He came from humble beginnings in Scotland and has risen to the top of his industry by learning from the best chefs in the world and working his tail off. There are a lot of interesting parallels between great chefs and great golf superintendents.

In my winter boredom I began to watch some of Gordon's earliest TV programs: “Kitchen Nightmares” and “Boiling Point”. These aired in Britain, and are far superior to what we get of him in the United States. I discovered you could gain a large amount of business sense from watching Gordon Ramsay operate.
To illustrate: In “Kitchen Nightmares” Gordon visited failing restaurants, working with management to turn things around. You find that virtually all the restaurants were being horribly mismanaged. Chefs were cutting corners and sacrificing quality for ease. As the standard of food dropped, so did business. Gordon did not tolerate mediocrity and whole operations were blown up in an effort to re-prioritize food quality and operational efficiency. When the restaurants followed his directions they began to thrive. Gordon might have succeeded in making every restaurant profitable if it weren’t for the reluctance of the owners or chefs to swallow their pride and make the necessary changes.

I clearly saw why Gordon Ramsay has become one of the most successful people in his industry: he never compromises the quality of his operations. Consistency is king. Every customer receives their food exactly as Gordon envisioned when he first wrote the recipe. Minor details never go unnoticed. Each restaurant staff is expected to maintain his highest standards. When his employees do not meet his expectations he loses his temper. Consequently he’s known for this, but his brutality gets results, and it also makes for great TV.

(This video has some language near the end that is not edited)

I’ve taken a lot of Gordon’s style to heart to become a better assistant. At the end of this last season I found I was a pretty timid manager. I was a new assistant and felt uncomfortable telling people with more experience than myself what to do. I was especially anxious to stop a guy mid job and correct him if he wasn't doing it properly. I'd beat around the bush all day to avoid confrontation. I’ll still never be the type to shout and bully my employees into submission, but I’ve learned that to be successful I must consistently enforce the standards our members (and I) expect.
To be a great manager you should live and breathe quality control and operational efficiency. As I travel the course to manage the crew I'm constantly asking myself: "How does the fairway cut look? Are they cutting the right direction? Did they cut the whole fairway? Are we staying ahead of play? etc...” Now when I find something isn’t up to standard I’m much more assertive. I won’t hesitate to immediately stop someone and help correct the error. Consequently the crew learns to be more accountable for their work and overall quality of work goes up.

We have a saying from a fortune cookie written on the board in our break room:

"Great things are accomplished through the perfection of minor details"

Those most successful in life are those who give attention to every detail of their work and they never compromise their standards for an easier way. Under the present economic conditions our industry is often being asked to deliver the same course conditions as before, but with fewer resources. It’s sometimes difficult to meet the continually high expectations of golfers. We’re facing similar challenges at Glen Riddle Golf Club, but we’ve committed to uphold the standards our members and guests have come to know us for.   We strive to be consistent in the perfection of minor details. We anticipate our consistency will reward us in the long run. This attitude has brought us success in the past, and it is why we continue to see people coming back to play golf at Glen Riddle.

Principles of Good Leadership and Management

2010-05-10T12:37:00.001-04:00

This winter I read the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I'm a little late to the party, I know.

I read hoping to gain some insight on leadership and management, since I was soon to become a full fledged Assistant Superintendent. The book was inspiring to say the least. It's a best seller for a reason. I found some of the insight I was looking for. I wanted to share what I learned about good leadership and proper management of employees.

In the book leadership and management are explained via an example of a large caravan traveling in the jungle. The leader of the expedition is the one who sits at the top, having an excellent vantage point above the trees and brush. This allows him to guide the party on the correct route. Managers are those who work to keep the brush cutters at the front of the lines supplied with directions from the leader and sharp swords to cut through the brush.

The image is somewhat comical, but very effective in defining the roles of a leader and manager.

I learned that leaders must have vision and foresight of the path ahead. They must be good decision makers; always able to keep the caravan headed in the right direction and with minimal problems. Eric is very good at this. He will often anticipate the needs of the golf course long before I do. He also is focused on making Glen Riddle better years from now, instead of just this week.

Managers must be effective communicators, delegate effectively, and maintain operational quality control. Keep communication lines open. Keep the work flowing smoothly. Keep those machetes sharp.

Later in the book Mr. Covey talks about stewardship delegation, which I subsequently copied and posted above my desk. It's one of the best explanations of my job here at Glen Riddle:

1. Create clear, desired results for crew members.
2. Create guidelines for the work.
3. Supply resources to get the job done.
4. Instill a sense of accountability for the work to be done.
5. Create and enforce consequences for a job well done or poorly done.

Every day I try to apply these directions to my staff management. I'm finding that numbers 1 and 4 are the most difficult to attain. Often times I can't explain exactly what I want done in Spanish, and your typical day laborer often doesn't share the same passion for the job as you do. He's just there to get paid, but that's ok as long as he works hard. Regardless, I still try to motivate them to take pride in their work here. Their role in our success is huge and they deserve to feel good about that.

Keep those blades sharp.

April Work Record

2010-05-04T12:56:00.000-04:00

For the month of April:

Bayer Trial Application to 18 MoW, SynaTek fertigation system training, barricade and round-up gun work
Barricade/Round-up on the range, 10, and 1
Course set up, MoW
Course set up, WA
Barricade application: 1,2,3 MoW, misc work
H2O greens on MoW and WA, irrigation check on MoW
Moisture check on MoW greens, irrigation work
Barricade application: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11
Barricade application: 12-18, misc areas
Off
Off
Barricade in missed and misc areas
Sprayed greens on MoW with Floratine and Honor, prepped sprayers
Sprayed fairways on WA with Dimension and Accelypryn
Sprayed T's and apps on WA with Dimension and Accelypryn. Sprayed WA rough with Dimension, Chaser
Sprayed WA roughs with Dimension and Chaser
Off
Off
Sprayed WA roughs with Dimension and Chaser
Sprayed WA roughs with Dimension and Chaser
MoW greens prep and course set up, painted MoW hazards
Soil spray on MoW with Heritage, half day
Course set up on MoW, irigation work, H2O and sod project
Course Set up WA
Course set up MoW
MoW irrigation work and repairs
Fertilized MoW greens with Contec DG, irrigation work
Course set up MoW, sod work on MoW, irrigation repairs
Finished DG application on WA greens, mulching new beds around putting green, H2O new sod
Course set up MoW, mulch work, drainage, H2O sod

We sprayed a lot in April. Last year we had 3 people spraying but this year it's just Steven and me. This is another example of how our industry is being asked to do more with less. Luckily the weather in April was outstanding. We recorded just a little less than 2" of rain for the whole month. We've been averaging 5" to 7".

In the month of May I still have a lot to work on to get ready for the summer heat. I'm only about half way through a full check of our irrigation system (even though we run it!). Hopefully soon I can spray herbicide to get rid of some of the grassy and broadleaf weeds that have hung around through the winter. I'm also hoping the bermuda will kick start with the warmer temperatures.

I'm starting to see that some of the most important work you can do for bermuda is in the winter and spring. You absolutely have to be diligent in spraying round up and pre emergent herbicide while the bermuda is dormant, or you have an ugly course in the spring. Hopefully it gets better soon!

A busy end of April

2010-05-01T11:28:00.000-04:00

The last few weeks have been very busy for us at Glen Riddle. We've been working very hard on getting both golf courses to come out of the spring ugly phase by fertilizing as much as we can. Subsequently we've seen tremendous green up because of our work. I would love to show pictures of this but the loss of my camera has left me a broken blogger. :(

Besides the nice green up from the fertilizers those who frequent Glen Riddle may have noticed the major landscape project we just completed around the Man O War putting green.

For some time now we've been frustrated with the looks of the bermuda grass surrounding the putting green . Our putting green is located in a very prominent area, near the entry road, range, and snack shack. The constant high amount of foot traffic has caused very slow and spotty growth around the green. We've also been hammered by spring dead spot in these areas. Needless to say the poor looks give a poor first impression to players.

Eric first started tossing around the idea of re-sodding the putting green surround with tall fescue. This would at least allow us to have year round green in the area. Eventually the plan developed into a complete redo of the area with landscape beds, tall fescue green surround and a new concrete patio near the snack shack. Quick planning and execution of projects is one of the things Eric is quite good at. He also has the attitude of go big or go home. We went big in this case.

In just a few days we had stripped out the old sod and replaced it with tall fescue. We added 6 or 7 new landscape beds with trees, shrubs, and mulch. Lastly we had a new concrete pad poured near the snack shack, so we could have tables and chairs available for patrons to use. The area looks 100% better. Certainly now the area is able to make a big first impression on our customers, which is a staple of good business practice.

I hope to have pictures up soon. Also look for my April in Review soon!

Irrigation Troubleshooting

2010-04-12T18:55:00.001-04:00

Another area of maintenance that I've improved upon 100% has been the understanding of irrigation systems. I've found out that there's a lot of need to know information when it comes to water management. Presently we are blessed to have some powerful tools to help us water effectively and efficiently. The most modern irrigation systems are completely computerized, with some systems even allowing individual control of heads from a radio or PDA. The first system I irrigated with was entirely quick couplers and impact heads. We've come a long way!

At Glen Riddle we run Rain Bird exclusively. The system is computerized, called RainBird freedom. The following pictures detail a pretty serious problem we had this winter.

Short version: Last winter I observed some heads turning on at random on Hole #1 on War Admiral. A short time later the stench of burnt electrical seeped from the control box. As far as I understand we had a massive electrical surge come into the box and fry the equipment pictured above. This spring we've been working to replace the damaged controllers as well as diagnose the problem.

Luckily Eric knew that the lines coming in from the affected stations had been installed afterward by a contractor. During the install he hit the power wires running to our green side fan. The problem lie in the splice box installed to repair the connections. Apparently we had some arching from fan power lines to irrigation head power lines.

Thankfully we had Eric's local knowledge and the problem has been fixed. I've found that irrigation troubleshooting often requires you to think outside the box to diagnose problems and find solutions. Had something like this happened in the dead heat of summer we would be facing some serious waterless consequences.

Edging Bunkers

2010-04-12T18:53:00.002-04:00

We've completed the edging of our bunkers on both courses. Over the fall and winter they get undefined and overgrown. We come back in the spring and edge them with a RedMax reciprocating tool, helping them look clean and new. Now we need to fertilize those edges. They've looked better. :(

A greenside bunker on 18 of War Admiral

Adelso works his magic with the edging tool

The finished product. It looks so much better with sharp, defined edges

Do the Dew

2010-04-12T18:48:00.003-04:00

One of the most important maintenance techniques I've picked up at Glen Riddle is the ability to read early morning dew patterns on the greens to monitor the soil's moisture content.

I've included a couple of pictures to illustrate how the dew can be an indicator of low soil moisture. These pictures came from #1 on Man O War. If you look closely you can see that the humps and slopes have significantly less dew than the rest of the green.

The mounds and the slopes on greens tend to dry out a lot quicker than the flat areas. Consequently they need a little more water attention. When we see these spotty dew patterns we will usually soak the areas with plenty of H2O during our morning course preparations. Our goals are to prevent the grass from wilting, as well as to maintain even distribution of moisture in the soil profile.

Even though I've worked in the golf industry for 8 years this is the first time I've had to monitor moisture carefully. The course I worked at in Idaho over watered the greens, plus I was just the grass cutter and bunker raker. During my internship in Coeur D'Alene I worked on the night crew, so I never saw this time of day. A big thanks to Mike Salvio for enduring my process of learning last summer. We had a couple crazy mornings!

March in Review

2010-04-04T10:44:00.002-04:00

Here is my March work schedule:

War Admiral greens aerification
War Admiral greens aerification
Final budgeting and shop work
Gradens on MoW greens, 1-7 and 9
Gradens on MoW greens, 8, 10-15
Off
Off
Sprayed greens MoW (florantine + daconil), applied barricade to burned area on 11
Farm Links
Farm Links
Farm Links
Finalize budget
Pulled drains and course cleanup
Pulled drains and course cleanup
Purchase journal, invoices, course set up MoW
Rolled greens MoW
Calibrated 300 gal sprayer, core aerated tees WA 18-11
Tee aerification WA 10-1, roundup application 1,2,3,10 MoW
Mowed greens and course set up MoW, repaired #1, set up rope stakes, misc work
Off
Off
WA fairway aerification, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18
WA fairway aerification 15, 16, 12, roundup application 4-18
Mowed MoW greens, WA fairway aerification
MoW course set up, WA fairway aerification
Rain day shop and office cleanup
Off
Off
Office work, pulled drains MoW
Misc work
Gun work w/ round up and barricade on slopes and bunker complexes

What a month! You can start to see how spraying is ramping up, and it will definitely show up in April.

Bayer Herbicide Trial

2010-04-04T10:33:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week two representatives from Bayer stopped by to set up a trial application of a new pre-emergent herbicide. We made the application on the beginning of 18 fairway on Man O War, covering one acre.

From the small amount of information I got, the herbicide is designed to prevent the germination of new weeds in the bermuda grass during spring greenup. Eric also mentioned its ability to suppress or kill poa.

I'll be monitoring the test plot vs an untreated area and vs areas where we apply barricade. Hope to have some pictures up soon.

Cart Path Only: An explanation

2010-03-24T21:36:00.003-04:00

To begin I hope this post doesn't come across as a lecture to our players. I hope my post comes across as informative and educational.

For most of this year we have been keeping carts on the paths, which has been due to the large amounts of rain and snow we received this winter. The soil is saturated and the water table is high, which causes poor water drainage. Saturated soils = spongy turf, and spongy turf cannot handle cart traffic without being damaged to some degree. Even on dry ground constant cart traffic causes thinning of turf and compaction of the ground. Think of it as Club Car blight.

When we enforce cart path only we are trying to minimize the stress and damage to the turf. I think this is the #1 reason we keep play on the paths. Below I've included photos of some of the damage that the maintenance crew's carts have created over the past couple weeks.

Admittedly, enforcing the cart path only rule is not my favorite thing to do. It makes us look like the mean superintendent. When carts come off the path we can accommodate more players and have a quicker pace of play. When we are cart path only we lose revenue because some players choose not to come out. However we also lose revenue when the golf course is in bad condition. As superintendents we get paid to produce great turf and optimal playing conditions, so sometimes it's tough to balance the needs of the golf course and the needs of the players.

It's easy to see how much damage one cart can do. That damage is compounded by the large numbers of carts going out. If we can avoid damaging the turf when it is susceptible to injury we will have a much nicer golf course when the weather is nicer.

We appreciate your patience with us as we deal with the wet conditions. I hope this has been informative for everyone!

War Admiral Fairway Aerification

2010-03-24T21:31:00.003-04:00

This week we've been working hard to aerify the fairways and approaches on War Admiral. Again we aerify to remove the thatch from the soil, decrease compaction, introduce more oxygen into the water logged soil, and give our turf less competition and more room to grow.

Here is the process in action on #5

This is the core we pull out.
Notice the spongy thatch layer near the top.

Once the cores are pulled we run large sweepers

to pick them up.

Fairway #9 after the plugs have been cleaned up.

A pile of all the plugs from #9

The process is stressful for the turf as well as to us. We appreciate your patience and hope that our efforts will deliver great playing conditions this summer.

War Admiral Tees

2010-03-18T07:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we started to aerify tees on War Admiral.

We aerify with our Toro 648 using 3/8" hollow tines at a 2.5" spacing. We tine deep enough to punch through the thatch layer. Once the cores have been cleaned off the tee we roll the surface with a Salsco roller which helps firm the tees and smooth them out. Play isn't really affected in the process, which is important to us.

We hope to finish up today. Thanks for reading.

February in Review

2010-03-18T07:38:00.002-04:00

I've been meaning to post my February work records for a while now. With the early frost I have a few minutes to do so.

February:

Plowed snow in the parking lot, cleaned and organized work area
Worked on chemical budget
Chemical budget, moved chemicals to the pump house, checked golf course
Chemical budget and research, stump grinding
Chipper work and underbrushing #'s 1 and 9 WA
off
off
Snow removal
Snow removal, tree cleanup, budgeting
Snow removal, half day
Snow Day
Snow removal, cleaned up computer, performance evaluations
off
off
Evaluations with Eric, office work and budgeting
SynaTek seminar @ Bulle Rock
Harrel's education seminar @ Sussex Pines CC
Check of both courses, half day
Chemical and fertility budget
checked for geese, Farm Links survey
checked for geese, paperwork
Pump house door, fertilizer estimates
Genesis seminar @ Sussex Pines CC
Course set up MoW, course cleanup, paperwork for new hires
Pulled flag sticks and drains, prelim fertility budget
Fertility budget, misc office work
off
off

The snow caused us to spend a lot more time inside than we wanted to. Usually we try to spray any of the straggling grasses and weeds left on MoW. We also had to spend a lot of time and money to take care of the snow buildup in the parking lot. This was a February that felt much like the ones in Idaho.

Glen Riddle Maintenance now on Twitter

2010-03-12T09:24:00.001-05:00

I've created a Twitter account for any members or players out there who want to keep up to date on the latest information from our maintenance staff. If you follow here you'll be getting the latest on cart path rulings, weather, projects, closings or anything else important to you.

Follow HERE or copy and paste

https://twitter.com/GlenRiddleGolf

into your web browser.

Thanks!

Farm Links Days 2 and 3

2010-03-12T09:03:00.002-05:00

Day 2: Education Day

Most of day 2 at Farm Links was spent in educational seminars. The presentations were accompanied by the steady sound of rain pounding the roof and surrounding area. We were told that the property received 4.5 inches of rain from late Tuesday night into Wednesday afternoon.

The rain prevented our group from getting a tour of the golf course from Mark Langner, Director of Agronomy. His presentation and comments on his practices of course maintenance were insightful. They maintain bentgrass greens in the summer heat of the South and are very successful at it. He talked about his use of Toro moisture sensors, The Club Car Guardian system, and showed us the equipment they use.

Other topics covered by other speakers included:

Irrigation Auditing to maximize the efficiency of your irrigation system
Polyon controlled release fertilizers
BASF fungicide and herbicide products

We also had a round table discussion about the future of our industry and we talked about what we could do as superintendents to help grow the industry. I've picked up a few ideas we can possibly implement to make Glen Riddle a better golf course.

Day 3: Harrell's Plant tour and homecoming

Our last morning at Farm Links was spent saying our goodbyes and thanking our hosts for a wonderful time. We then bussed to the Harrells fertilizer plant, located in Sylacauga. We spent a little time observing the massive operation and trying to accumulate as little fertilizer on us as possible so as not to be detained in the airport later that afternoon. It was cool to see all the chemical products we use on the golf course under one gigantic roof. I must also mention the many people who work hard to mix and bag or bottle our fertilizer products. They do a great job.

After lunch it was back to Birmingham for a 4 hour stay at the packed airport. Thankfully we all arrived safe and sound at our homes that evening. I feel very fortunate I was able to attend Farm Links, and I hope to go back soon!

Farm Links Day 1

2010-03-09T22:09:00.000-05:00

Day 1 at Farm Links is in the books.

We arrived in Birmingham around 11 and got to the property around 12:30. After a quick lunch I decided to play 9 holes. We played the front nine and the golf course is remarkable. They have test plots on every hole, which are marked in the yardage book. They have 20 different kinds of grass on the course and the course was given 4.5 stars by Golf Digest. The facilities are first class and we are treated very well.

The picture above is hole 5. A par 3 with an elevation drop of 150 feet. Beautiful. Tomorrow will be education day. I'm excited to learn more about this awesome course.

Labor of Love

2010-03-09T22:05:00.001-05:00

Last week we were also able to run the gradens on the greens on Man O War.

The gradens are heavy duty verticutting units. We set them deep enough to barely scrape the sand layer in the greens. Our goal is to remove as much as the thatch layer as possible.

The guys worked very hard to accomplish this task in 2.5 days. Props to them for a job well done!

En Fuego

2010-03-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

This weekend we found out that cigars and dry bermuda don't mix.

Luckily no one was hurt and the damage was minimal. We sprayed barricade on the area the day after, and hopefully we wont have to re sod or re seed the area. Apparently some people burn dormant bermuda as a cultural practice to get it to green up better. Time will tell if that is the case here.

SynaTek Fertigation System Installation

2010-03-01T20:34:00.002-05:00

Today SynaTek started the installation of our new fertilizer injection system. I'll post the pictures now and hopefully clue you in on what everything is later.

One of a few fertigation tanks

Pre-set up equipment

Our acid injection tank

Fertigation storage tank 1 and 2

Mix tank 1 and the control panel

Spring Aerification: Day 1

2010-03-01T20:26:00.001-05:00

This morning be began aeration of greens on War Admiral.

I don't know of any other maintenance practice that is so beneficial to the golf course, yet so unpopular with golfers and understandably so. Why do we want to punch holes in, and dump sand all over a perfectly good green? I sympathize with golfers who wish we could just leave the greens alone, because I play golf too and know the disruption it causes the game. Back when I was in high school I dreaded the time when my home course was aerated. It was the one thing that made me not want to play golf, and I played almost every day.

Now I'm seeing the practice from the perspective of a turfgrass manager and the view is quite different. Aeration is essential to giving players the best quality surface to play golf on. I hope that I can offer a better understanding of why we aerate.

Aerification is a practice we use to remedy some of the naturally occurring problems facing healthy greens. Some of these problems include:

A build up of spongy organic material known as thatch
Soil compaction
Poor water drainage through the soil profile
Low oxygen content in the soil

When we remove the soil plugs from the greens we remove some of the thatch, decrease soil compaction thus increasing drainage, and we introduce more oxygen into the soil. This is the very short version. Suffice to say if a green was not aerated at least once or twice a year, it would become very spongy and bumpy as well as unhealthy due to increased compaction and water retention. Less than ideal conditions to play on.

Typically after aerification a light covering of sand is spread on the green (Topdressing). Topdressing sand helps smooth out the inconsistencies of the surface and fills the holes we create. This is one of the keys to keeping greens firm and smooth for play. We've applied the sand first because the greens are usually very soft after we aerify, and driving a heavy top dresser across the green would leave ruts.

Once the cores have been cleaned off the green we roll it to help smooth in out

It makes a huge difference

I hope this has been beneficial to understanding the practice of aerification.

New pumphouse door: part 1

2010-02-22T15:23:00.002-05:00

This morning we started installation on a new 6' rolling door for our pumphouse. We're installing the door so that later this week we can install a new fertilizer injection system provided by SynaTek. The system will include two 1000 gallon injection tanks, one 300 gallon mixing tank, and the pumps and controller system required to make it all run.

We're excited to learn more about the injection system and to see the benefits of applying fertilizers and wetting agents through our irrigation system.

March Madness

2010-02-20T09:14:00.000-05:00

Things are about to get busy for me here at Glen Riddle.

When the snow finally melts we're going to have a lot to accomplish in a narrow window of time. It will be great to get out of the office and do some manual labor! (Can you believe I just said that?)

Here is short list of projects and events I'll be blogging about in the near future:

Spring aeration and maintenance of the golf course
Installation of the new Synatek fertilizer injection system
Farm Links trip (really looking forward to this one)
Intergrated pest management research and pest tracking

One note on my last project:

Justin C. Ruiz @ The Rim Golf Club blogged here about his spring IPM practices. I decided to ask a few more questions about GDD's and tried to understand how I could apply this at Glen Riddle. He was very kind to give me this detailed explanation. I'll be working on tracking the pests we have here in order to be much more efficient with our time and money spent on controlling damaging insects.

Thanks for reading!

Continuing Education

2010-02-17T09:04:00.000-05:00

One of the most important aspects of a superintendents job is not only to maintain a perfect plot of turf, but also maintain a high level of education throughout their career.

The rapid advance of technology and science is the last 40 years has changed the world and changed the way we maintain turfgrass. It seems every year we gain a better understanding of what grass needs to thrive under ever more intense maintenance standards. We also receive new tools in the form of fertilizers and pesticides which help us fight poor health and disease. Superintendents can attend winter education seminars designed to teach us about new technologies in our industry and refresh our memories concerning basic maintenance practices.

Today I'm attending Harrell's Eastern Shore Educational Seminar held at Sussex Pines CC. Topics such as insect management, disease management, aerification basics, and new technologies will be covered. Yesterday I attended a smaller seminar hosted by Synatek, designed to educate us about injectable fertilizer technology. Glen Riddle will be be installing a new injection system in just a few weeks. More to come on that!

The take home message is this: I believe the most successful people in life are those who keep their work skills sharpened and can adapt to competitive and changing industries. Coming to these seminars helps me maintain a competitive edge in the industry, which is motivation enough for me to attend! It's also a great opportunity to network with sales reps and other superintendents.

Staying busy during stormy times

2010-02-09T08:56:00.002-05:00

Winter has officially arrived at Glen Riddle!

Thankfully, last week we were able to do some work on the golf course. Friday we spent the day clearing underbrush from the wooded area between numbers 1 and 9 on War Admiral. We removed dead/damaged trees, downed limbs, chipped wood and ground stumps. Keeping our wooded areas from looking "mangy" adds a lot of visual appeal to the rest of the golf course.

This week we are focusing on the snow removal from our clubhouse parking lot. As I mentioned in my last post our clubhouse is fortunate to share space with Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. This weekend is Valentines Day weekend, which is a very busy time for the restaurant. The recent snows have made parking somewhat treacherous, so we are working hard to make sure as many parking spots as possible are clear and de-iced so that things go smooth for the Ruth's Chris staff. We will be challenged again to keep the lot clear when the next storm system moves in tonight, possibly bringing 6-10 inches of snow or ice. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime we'll dig ourselves out. I am using my extra time to work on our chemical and fertilizer budget, and blogging. Right now spring can't come soon enough.

The Idaho Snow

2010-02-03T20:31:00.002-05:00

There has been a bit of a running joke about me since I've moved to Maryland: I seem to have brought the generally poor Idaho weather with me. I had been told the winters were generally mild here.

It began with the day I arrived in Maryland. It had snowed almost half a foot and was bitter cold. Since then weather oddity after weather oddity has occurred in my first year as an Assistant at Glen Riddle.

This last weekend was no exception. We received almost a foot of snow this last weekend. I was the lucky man to be working, tasked with keeping the parking lot clear so customers could get to Ruth's Chris Steak House without incident.

To top it off we are staring down the barrel of another storm system set to move into the mid-atlantic this weekend. Hopefully it rains, as I am eager to start working outside again!

On a side note here are some of the deer that call Glen Riddle home:

Learning to swim

2010-01-28T12:48:00.002-05:00

At the beginning of the year I asked Eric if I could be involved in the budgeting process for 2010. I needed experience with budgeting for large operations such as we have here at Glen Riddle, so I expected to sit down from time to time with Eric and see how things were done.

It's as if Eric and I were standing at the edge of the pool's deep end, and I had asked him to teach me how to swim.

*PUSH*

After some sputtering and flailing I think I'm starting to tread water, and loving the learning experience. I've been tasked with preparing a chemical/fertilizer program for Man O War, and budgeting said program, as well as trying to meet monetary guidelines in the preliminary budget. One of my weakest areas was my lack of knowledge concerning chemicals, namely fungicides and plant growth regulators. I could certainly spray them like a pro, but I've been caught more than once not really understanding what I was applying to the grass.

Now I've been forced to know more about the chemicals we use to maintain healthy turf, and how to properly apply them to the golf course during the year. Through this process I've learned more about fungicide formulation, rotation, and application with growth regulators that at any time in my career. I feel like I'm much more knowledgeable and useful than ever before.

Sometimes the best way to learn is to jump right in, or get pushed.

I see the brown grass and I want to paint it green...

2010-01-20T18:55:00.004-05:00

Golf Course Graffiti:

For the last three days I've been applying a mixture of Roundup and Barricade to the areas on Man O War with rye grass hanging around. We've been fortunate to have temps in the 50's and low winds for the last few days which has allowed us to make the application. We started with all of our high profile areas: The entry road, practice green, driving range, and all the holes you can see from the road. I've also been working on tee and green complexes, where it's easier to use the gun.

It can be tedious at times, but this is one of the simple things you can do to really make your course look great in the summer.

Introductions

2010-01-20T18:44:00.001-05:00

Here at Glen Riddle we maintain 36 holes of golf: The public Man O War course and our members course War Admiral.

Man O War

Man O War is a links style layout, par 72 and measuring 7,163 yards. Maintenance on Man O War is unique as the entire course, excluding greens, is grassed with patriot bermuda. The greens are a mixed G-6/L-93 bentgrass. Most of the course runs through wide open spaces and man made dunes. The final five holes wind through a wooded area. We encounter various climates because of these variations.

War Admiral

War Admiral is a parkland style course, par 72 and measuring 6,889 yards. Notably the slope from the back tees is 142. The tees and fairways are bentgrass, the rough tall fescue, and greens are G-6/L-93 bentgrass. Most of War Admiral runs through the forested areas of the property. The last 4 holes open up into tidal areas. We also encounter varied conditions on War Admiral.

Maintaining both courses at Glen Riddle has been challenging as well as very rewarding. The diversity of conditions provides countless opportunities to learn more about my craft.