Indian Hills CC Turf Management: July 2014

We have been blessed with incredible weather this summer, especially so considering the hellacious 2013 summer and winter. Our golf course, due to it's tremendous variety of soils and landscapes, reacts to what we are dealt in both good and bad ways. This year we are benefitting from cooler temperatures and while quite dry, the lower temps have allowed our turf to stay strong.

There is a tremendous amount of science involved with our day to day decisions, and despite what some think, we do not randomly maintain the golf course. a quick example... we do mow our greens everyday, occasionally skipping a cut on a Monday if the club is closed and we do not have an outing. We do not change the height of cut during the season. We are currently mowing the greens at .120" - all the greens are mowed at the same height, everyday. Last week we were accused of raising the heights or not mowing at all. There were complaints of the greens being very slow for our 1 day Member Guest. The tournament naturally came on a very nice day that was preceded by 3 days of rain where we received over 3.0" of rain on our push-up greens. They were soft and quite slow despite being mowed and double rolled. We were again accused of not mowing and not rolling. Weather..... its all about the weather.

Many of you may have noticed a difference in color on the chipping green. We are one of 10 courses in the US selected to test a "poa annua" control product. We agreed to treat one sprayer width pass of the chipping green with the product while the other two-thirds is treated as all the other greens. The two photos below show the discoloration.

I tried to keep up with tradition and gather some of our flowers to make arrangements for the Ladies Tees on 1 & 10 during their Member Guest. The flowers hold up well throughout the event, but do wilt by mid afternoon. We also have made 1/2 pink flagsticks and have purchased pink cup liners that add a little something special to our women's and Babe Z events.

Our new theory on replacing divots instead of filling with sand, only works if the divots do get replaced. Three keepers here on #10 were not replaced and dried. Our staff is constantly our filling divots with sand and seed, but please try to help by replacing your divot(s).

Met up with this LUNA MOTH on the right of 14 last week

We tried this product to help us keep our very shallow ponds cleaner. Without question it has helped tremendously, the ponds are much clearer, have far less algae, and do not have the foul odor they usually have in the summer.

Random shots taken around the course:

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