The cool weather is finally here, and we have been working on our cool season cultural practices. Greens aerification was completed at the beginning of September. We had a small issue on #2 and #3 greens when our aerifier tine protruded the tine guard and left bigger holes than intended. I had the question “why wouldn’t the operator stop” when you are removing plugs and they are laying on the surface after you have aerified, the larger holes were not noticeable. We have either plugged these areas out or seeded, and with great bentgrass weather upon us….finally…we shouldn’t notice these areas.
If you have played golf in the past week you may have seen a white tint in our fescue areas in our tree lines, this is from a herbicide called Pylex. Pylex removes warm season grasses as well as undesirable weeds, this in turn will help us get our fescue roughs back to a pure stand of fescue. The GCM staff has started aerifying these fescue roughs as well, and will be seeding these areas when we are finished.
Now that fall is here it is especially important that we get back in the habit of remaining on the cart path and following the 90 degree rule properly. This means carts remain on the cart path next to Tee boxes and use the cart path until you are even with your ball in the fairway. You then exit the cart path and drive straight to your ball, hit and drive back to the cart path. We have struggled in the past when breaking dormancy in heavy traffic areas being either so compacted or loss of leaf tissue that the Bermuda is beyond recovery. Bermuda is NOT actively growing in the winter, there is no recovery process during the winter months, so making sure your group is adhering to the cart path rules properly helps provide a better spring green up.