Golf Club at Creekmoor Maintenance

Moving On

2010-12-27T08:07:00.003-06:00

Some of you have already heard and for those of you who haven't I wanted to let everyone know that I have accepted the new position as Golf Course Superintendent for Wolf Creek Golf Links here in Kansas City area. My first official day is January 10, 2011. I am very excited about this opportunity that I have been granted with. However I will always have special memories of the Golf Club at Creekmoor. It has been such a big part of my family and I's life over the last 5 years plus. I am leaving behind a tremendous staff and a membership that has given me such unbelievable support that I will never forget. I also want to thank Cooper Land Development for allowing me the opportunity here at Creekmoor. I appreciate all of you for following and reading my blog and I hope it was insightful and that you were able to get whatever information or knowledge from it you were looking for. Thanks!!

Cold Weather Is Here

2010-12-07T12:48:00.002-06:00

What a change in the weather has given us this past week or so. We have had temperature swings from highs in the 50's to highs in 30's and night time lows have really been cold down around 15-20 degrees depending on the day. However we have continued to stay extremely dry and have gone 19 days since our last significant moisture. Things are drying out and we could really use some moisture. It looks like the forecast is calling for a warm up on Thursday and Friday and then another cold front is suppose to hit and maybe give us a pretty decent chance at some precipitation on Friday we will have to wait and see how it plays out. With the dryer conditions my staff has been able to stay busy and get some work done on some winter projects around the golf course. We have continued to install rock along some of our heavy trafficked areas around the tee boxes and greens on #10,11, and 12. The crew has also been working on clearing out some of the under brush around #2 green and along the left side of #1 fairway. This is being done to help increase air movement in these two areas during the summer months. We are pretty much finished with #2 and are now working on the area along #1 fairway. During the frosty cold mornings my staff has been working on some cleaning projects around the shop that we were unable to get done during the season, and doing some repainting of walls in the break room and bathroom areas to keep it looking and operating in good shape. I hope everyone has a great week hopefully everyone has been able to get their holiday lights hung. If you haven't it looks like Thursday and Friday might be some great days for that and a chance to come out and play some golf.

Cold Temperatures Have Arrived

2010-11-30T07:20:00.002-06:00

The temperatures have been bouncing all over the board over the last week. We have had times where the highs have been close to 60 and the lows have been in the teens. Pretty common this time of the year as the seasons change. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving with their families and friends like I did. Nothing is better then being able to spend quality time with your loved ones over the holiday season. The crew here has been staying busy working in the shop during the cold days and out on the golf course when the weather is conducive. The turf is really slowing down its growth which has really altered our mowing schedules. We are still currently mowing the greens about twice a week and have moved to mowing the tees and rough maybe once a week depending on the weather and growth. We also have stayed busy cleaning around #2 green like I mentioned last week along with the rock project along the cart paths. We also decided to go ahead and winterize the on course restroom facilities for the winter. Some have asked why we did this since we had installed heaters in them . These buildings are not insulated and all the water heaters and piping is in the ceiling of these facilities. It is a little dangerous to try and keep these heated year round without insulation in them. If for whatever reason the power would go out or one of the heaters would quit working we would have a major issue on our hands. So to be safe we decided to try and extend them being open a little longer this year, but ultimately to have them winterized when we started to see temperatures reach the freezing points like we have had.

Turkey Day Already??

2010-11-24T07:17:00.002-06:00

Man where has the time gone this year? I can't believe we are already the day before Thanksgiving. It seems like it was just yesterday that the temperatures were hot and the humidity was high and the stress levels in the maintenance facility were at an all time high. I don't miss that part of the year at all! Just a little update as to what has been going on this week here at Creekmoor. We have officially shut down the on course restrooms for the winter season. Temperatures are suppose to get down around the low teens this week and we simply didn't want to take a risk of having a pipe freeze on us. The restrooms will remain closed until the spring time. We have also removed the water coolers and stations around the course like we usually do as they turn into ice blocks in the colder weather. The ball washers have also been brought in to prevent them from freezing and cracking the cast metal. We have left four of them out and have put a anti-freeze solution in them to allow you to wash your ball. It is windshield washer fluid so please be careful handling your ball if you wash it. The crew has also been working on clearing the underbrush around two green. This will hopefully help establish some air flow during the summer months across the surface of that green. I hope everyone has a great and very Happy Thanksgiving. My family and I are so thankful for the opportunity that you the members and Cooper Land Development have given me to serve as your golf course superintendent. I am also very thankful for a great staff that works hard and truly cares about providing a championship golf course for its members and players. Safe travels to everyone and have a great week!

Fall Weather Continues

2010-11-19T07:10:00.002-06:00

Cold and frosty mornings and a slow warm-up have been an regular occurrence over the last couple days. Temperatures have gotten down below freezing at night and have struggled to get reach their highs of the 50's in time for much to golf to be played. However it looks like this weekend is going to be nice and should allow for some good golf to played. My staff is continuing to stay busy on projects, a little mowing around on the golf course, and cleaning and raking the bunkers after the rains. We continued to work on installing some stones along cart paths in the area where the traffic has caused us problems. Also we have started to do some cleanup in and around #2 green by clearing out the undergrowth and old weeds that grew during the season this year in hopes of increasing our air flow for the green. We are planning to mow greens and tees today as soon as the frost lifts. I hope everyone has a great weekend and is able to get out and enjoy the warmer weather.

Frosty Mornings

2010-11-16T08:27:00.002-06:00

Frosty mornings have started to be a pretty regular occurrence over the last couple of weeks. The temperatures have started to cool off and the night time lows have been lingering around the high 30's low 40's range, which has really slowed the growth of the turf. We are down to mowing greens about 2-3 times, mowing tees about once a week depending on the weather and temperature conditions. The bentgrass on the greens and tees has really slowed down and thus our mowing schedules have as well. This week we are in the process of repairing the bunkers after the 2.5" of rain that we received last Friday. We should have these completed by the end of today. If you play golf this week you might see double the paint dots around our collars on our greens. We are in the process of shrinking the collar areas down and changing them to 26" width from the 30" width they were before. We are doing this due to the fact that one of our new mowers is a 26" mower and will allow us to mow the collars in one pass instead of having to make 2 passes. My hope is that this will help alleviate some of the mechanical stress in these areas when the summer stress sets in during July and August. We will continue to mark the collar widths through out the year to help them stay a consistent width all the way around. In the coming weeks we hope to begin some drainage work in some fairways mainly. #13, 6, along right side of #10, and 16. The rock work will continue along cart paths on #10, 11, and 12 as the weather permits. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or concerns either by email or by phone.

Pictures of Projects Around Golf Course

2010-11-11T13:16:00.004-06:00

#8 green where the ground had settled from construction we cut the sod off and leveled this area so golf balls wouldn't get trapped in an uneven and settled lie.

Newly seeded nursery green with the winter cover pulled off.

Rock work along cartpath on #11.

Warm and Windy

2010-11-09T06:52:00.002-06:00

Our staff here at Creekmoor has shrunk in size, but we haven't slowed down any on the golf course. My staff has continued to work hard and so me why they are the best golf staff around. Often times I don't mention them as often as I should, but these guys are the ones that make me look good. The growth pattern for the turf grass has slowed down tremendously over the last week or so with the cooler weather we were having. Our mowing schedules have altered according. We are mowing the greens about every other day right now on average. My staff and I are keeping our eye on it and we mow the greens when we start to see the turf getting tall and not giving a good smooth ball roll, which is about every other day right now. Our tee boxes and rough are getting mowed once a week as well. We have continued to work on the rocking project around the cart paths that get an extreme amount of traffic on holes #11 and #12. The nursery green continues to grow and fill in very nicely after we re-seeded it. It was moving at a very rapid pace prior to the cool weather last week, but hopefully the cover we have will help it to continue to fill in and grow somewhat over the winter months. Once spring is here the bentgrass will really take off and it should fill in very nicely and quickly. Another project we have been working on is leveling some of the step cut areas around the greens where they settled out and have caused an uneven lie for your ball when it rolls into these areas. This is very common after construction and is an ongoing problem. Hopefully I can get some photos for all of you to see along with some of our nursery green today and I will post those later. I hope everyone had a great weekend.

Cooler Week Ahead

2010-11-01T14:41:00.002-05:00

It looks like our week is going to be a cool and brisk one. The temperatures have started to lower and the breeze has picked up a little bit causing conditions to be a little cool and brisk. As you can imagine the turf has slowed down significantly over the last week or so. Our mowing schedules as I have mentioned before are on a as needed basis besides the greens. We are still mowing the greens on a regular basis except for Mondays as that is their day of rest. I expect the next week or so our mowing schedule on the greens will start to change and we may go to an every other day schedule depending on the weather and growth. My staff will be switching into project mode in the upcoming weeks. Some of our projects we are going to be working on are rocking of the cart paths, drainage work in fairways, tree work around some creek areas, and installing a few more irrigation heads in the roughs. We have one more fertilizer application to make on our roughs for the winter. This should take place later this week or the following week depending on when the product shows up at the maintenance facility. As most of you already now from our monthly newsletter we will be going into our winter cart rules starting on November 15th. The rule consist of restricting the carts to paths only for the winter months. This is done to help protect our zoysia grass from any winter kill and hopefully minimize any expense next spring on sod to fix fairway areas. Continual cart traffic on the dormant turf can open the turf for winter damage. We have had pretty good luck since implementing this program and have minimized our damage repairs in the spring. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween.

Fall Is On It's Way

2010-10-27T14:46:00.006-05:00

Cooler temperatures and high winds has been pretty much the norm around Creekmoor lately. The seasons are changing and the weather is showing it. We are suppose to have temperatures in the upper 30s for lows and highs in the high 50s to low 60s in the upcoming part of the week. My staff numbers have started to decrease with the cooler weather as we have had to make some tough budget decisions. It is not one of my favorite parts of my job, but unfortunately we have to do it each year. The crew that is staying here have been extremely busy this past week. We have installed some rock along the cart path next to #11 green, installed some new fescue sod in isolated areas on #1,2,3,6,9,18,10. These are some areas where the seed didn't take long or areas that were to small for the seeder to hit. I was hoping to have some photos of the nursery green we seeded and show you all how good it is doing. Due to the high winds and that we have it covered to keep the frost off of the new seedlings, I have been unable to pull the cover. Those covers act like sails in weather like this and they will pick you up off the ground and become somewhat of a dangerous situation. I hope later in the week I will be able to get these for you. I know last week I told you I was going to post some. When I got back to my office you could barely see any of the seedlings. Well this week it has really taken off and looks good. We are now on our winter mowing schedule which is mow it when we need to. The turf has really started to slow down so the mowing practices are changing. We will be on a as needed basis for the rest of the season. I anticipate we will try and get the golf course mowed on Thursday and Friday for the weekend. I hope everyone has a great week and weekend. Below I have posted some photos of the newest members to the Creekmoor Maintenance family. Take a look they are some beauties.

New Fairway Units

New Walking Greens Mowers

Nice Weather Continues

2010-10-21T08:44:00.003-05:00

Mother Nature has continued to give us the perfect weather over the last couple of weeks. Warmer temperatures and not much wind or rain. You couldn't ask for anything better this time of year. A year ago the month of October was terribly cold and wet and not much golf was being played. What a difference a year makes. My staff is continuing to stay very busy here at Creekmoor. The turf grass growth has started to slow down a little bit, however we are still mowing on our normal schedule. I anticipate over the next week or so the growth patterns of the turf will start to slow more rapidly and we will start to make adjustments to our mowing schedule. Today we have started mowing some of the isolated areas in the native grass that were overtaken by weeds from the flooding creeks or runoff from the undeveloped surrounding properties. The weeds in the areas have been sprayed and now we are just knocking them down to give it a cleaner look. We also have started installing some rock along some of the high traffic areas along cart paths where some rutting has occurred over the season. These areas are predominately around the tee boxes where golf carts are often parked and maintenance traffic has to get around them. This will be an ongoing process over the winter. Our nursery green has started to show some signs of life finally. After about 8 days of patiently waiting the seed finally popped and the bentgrass is growing like gang busters. We are covering it at night which is helping to protect it from the cooler temperatures and frost and will also help keep the soil temperatures warmer allowing more growth. Everything looks great so far. I hope to have some pictures later today to post of the rocking and the nursery. I hope everyone has had a great week. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Crazy and Busy Week

2010-10-15T07:52:00.002-05:00

Wow where has this week gone. It seems like just yesterday it was Monday and the start of the week. We have had a lot going on here this week and when you are busy time flies. I wanted to give everyone an update on the gentleman that went through the horrific slide down the sewer line that was found here at Creekmoor. As of Thursday afternoon he was still in ICU in an induced comma which is helping his body recover faster and is helping reduce his body from having to work extra. All the doctors seem to think his recovery should be good, but it is going to take some time. What a blessing this is and truly a miracle. We all wish him the best of luck and hope for a speedy recovery. On the golf course we have had a great week. The weather has been awesome and we have stayed busy. The KGA Senior Championship on Tuesday and Wednesday went great and I have heard nothing but positive comments from the players about the golf course which is great. My staff worked very hard in getting the golf course ready for the event. We have been able to stay on our normal mowing schedule and should be able to finish mowing everything by the end of today. It looks like the temperatures are going to continue to be nice so the turf should continue to grow at a pretty good clip. We have started to see some isolated areas where grubs are starting to pop up. This is common especially after all the moisture we had this year. The grub treatment we put down for prevention earlier in the year could have been washed through the profile a little faster then normal so grubs could be present in some areas. We are just spot treating as we see them and they are gone within 2-3 days. So everyone might want to keep an eye on your lawns and if the turfs starts to look a little dry you might want to check under the grass and see if you have any grubs feeding. Some projects we will be starting in the next couple of weeks will be some rocking along cart path edges, isolated sodding in the roughs, bunker repair on #16, and some hand topdressing on #2 and #10 greens. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Golf Course Employees Race To Aid Search - Video - KMBC Kansas City

2010-10-12T22:32:00.000-05:00

Golf Course Employees Race To Aid Search - Video - KMBC Kansas City

Worker Swept Away In Sewers Rescued - Video - KMBC Kansas City

2010-10-12T22:31:00.000-05:00

Worker Swept Away In Sewers Rescued - Video - KMBC Kansas City

Much Needed Rain

2010-10-11T12:25:00.001-05:00

We finally received a little rain shower overnight and this morning. Things were starting to get a little bit dry over the last week and half or so do to warmer temperatures and low humidity. As I am writing this we have received a little over .4" of rainfall. Course conditions are a little damp. However we are still able to get out and get some of our regular mowing done in front of the Kansas Golf Association event that is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. As I mentioned last week we were able to get our nursery green reseeded and are in the process of waiting on the seed to pop. We will hopefully see some new seedlings in the next couple of days. All of our over seeded areas in the roughs continue to grow and fill in nicely. There are a few areas that aren't taking the seed as well due to foot traffic and cart traffic. We will be doing some isolated sodding on these areas later in the week after the KGA event. The greens have started to really roll out nicely and get a good pace to them. We have been working hard on getting them as consistent as possible and keeping them hydrated at the same time. Several days of low humidity can really start to dry them out and you have to stay up on your watering practices. We have officially put the zoysia to bed for the winter. I was debating about mowing it one more time, but with the temperatures cooling off and the nice mat we have on it I decided it was best to not mow it and let the leaf tissue protect the plant over winter. I hope everyone has a great week!!

First Frost

2010-10-06T06:42:00.002-05:00

The cooler temperatures and shorter days have started to really slow down the growth of the turf. We had our first rounds of frost on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday mornings which is what really started to slow growth down. Our third annual Ladies Member/Guest tournament benefiting Breast Cancer Awareness over the weekend was a huge success once again. Besides the cooler and windy weather it sounds like everyone involved had a great time. Congratulations to Sandy Dolence and all the ladies that participated and helped coordinate this event for a great cause. My staff has continued to stay busy finishing up some spot seeding and working on some small projects behind some of the new home construction sites for 2010. We have completed most of our over seeding and will hopefully start to see some seed popping in the next couple of weeks. Another item we will be working on over the next couple of days is re-seeding our greens nursery. We finally were able to use most of our nursery up and will get the opportunity to seed it again and start over. I was hoping this would be the case as our nursery was needing to be improved and redone. My hope is to get it seeded this week so we can get some decent growth on it before the cold weather hits for good. Several have asked me if I am going to mow our native grass areas any this winter? I am planning to do some isolated spot mowing in the areas where the water set and the weeds took hold this year. As we have talked through out this year the weeds were really popular with the wet and hot conditions we had. It was a banner year for them and it was a dog fight to get rid of them and keep them out. Mowing will help eliminate them for the most part and if the native area is weak we will re-seed it so that it will thicken up next spring. Along with all of these items we will stay on our normal mowing schedule adjusting it as turf growth dictates. I hope everyone has a great week and GO WILDCATS!!

Preparations for Ladies Member/Guest Invitational

2010-10-01T06:32:00.004-05:00

The weather has continued to be awesome this week and is providing my staff a lot of opportunities to get a lot of work and projects completed. We have finally been able to get back on our regular mowing schedule after several weeks here of weather interruptions. The rough is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. We have been able to stay on top of it and are going to be able to mow it twice this week, which we haven't been able to do for the last couple of weeks due to the rain. My staff also has started reseeding a few areas in the native grass that were damaged from home construction. These areas should start to grow a little bit over the next couple of weeks. However it will really start to grow and fill in next spring so please be patient. Greens have continued to improve after aeration and seem to be close to 100% today. They have gotten better and better each day and my feeling is they are finally back to rolling and putting like normal. If you didn't know that the tees were aerified and top dressed you wouldn't know that we did it. They healed very nicely over the last week and half and are back to normal playing conditions. Today my staff is in full preparation mode for our Ladies Member/Guest Invitational. It looks like the weather is going to be fantastic. A little chill in the air to start the mornings off, but then it is going to be in the mid to lower 60's. I hope all the ladies and their guest enjoy the golf course and have a great time for a great cause with the Susan G Komen foundation benefiting. Have a great weekend!!

Cool Down

2010-09-27T06:34:00.002-05:00

Wow what a change in the weather. Night time lows in the low 50's to low 40's and day time highs in the 60's and 70's. Great weather to be doing any outside work or playing golf. The golf course has really started to go through a change over the last week or so. The turf has really recovered well after the summer heat stress and the new grass seedlings have really started maturing and filling in nicely. Our fairways have noticed the weather has cooled as they have really started to slow down and lose some of their color. The shorter days and longer nights along with the cooler temperatures really accelerate the fairways growth and when they start to lose their color. Greens #2 and #10 are slowly getting better and better each week. We have started to do some more repairs on them and hope to continue to encourage them to fill in the stress spots as quickly as possible. We are going to be doing some spot seeding and plugging in some of the bigger areas and I feel the other areas will fill back in naturally over time. This week we will be getting ready for our ladies member/guest tournament on the weekend. It looks like the weather should be good and hopefully all the ladies will enjoy their time. Have a great week!

Aerification Update

2010-09-21T06:28:00.002-05:00

After several days and a few rain delays we finally finished our aerification process on Monday afternoon. The rains and wet conditions really delayed us as we had to wait for the ground to dry out before we could finish. All the greens and tees are on pace to recover very nicely with optimal weather conditions for growing grass. We are continuing to mow the roughs as they started to get tall and thick during the cool and damp weather. We should have the entire golf course mowed out by the end of today. Today we are also going to hopefully finish up all of our spot over seeding in the roughs. We have just a few more areas that we need to get done and should hopefully get this completed today. Our plan is then to switch over and start spot seeding some areas in native grass up against new construction homes and isolated areas that have never been seeded. Temperatures are going to be a little warmer over the next couple of days so we have to be careful doing any over seeding during the hot times as the grass really doesn't appreciate the seeder when it is under stress from heat. Have a great week. Feel free to contact me at any time with any questions or concerns.

What A Great Week

2010-09-17T12:29:00.002-05:00

Wow what a week of weather we have had here in the Kansas City area over the last week. Conditions have been cool and wet which has been great for all the new seed and for isolated areas that got stressed out over the summer to recover. However it is bad when you are trying to get aeration done on your greens and tees. The good news is we were able to get all the greens completed prior to all the weather setting in. This was perfect timing for them as the rain helped the topdressing sand on the surface work itself in and also softened the greens up a little which we took full advantage of and were able to roll them to help smooth them out. I have been asked by several people when I thought the greens would be close to fully healed from the aeration. A good rule of thumb I always use is around 2 good solid weeks of good growing weather and the greens should actually start to putt and roll smoother and at a decent pace. Today we are actually back at it trying to get the front nine tee boxes aerified and top dressed. If we are successful we will only have 18, 17, 16,10,& driving range tees left next week to complete. We are also out knocking down the roughs and green banks today as the ground finally dried out a little bit. With all the cool and wet weather the cool season turf has really surged and is starting to grow at a pretty good clip. The fairways have already started to slow down growing. This is a good thing for us as we aren't having to mow them as often, which will hopefully free some man power up to allow us to get some other things completed. Hopefully if the drier weather stays in place we will get our overseeding done in the roughs and native areas. Have a great weekend and enjoy the crisp mornings and bright sunshine.

Aerification Time

2010-09-14T09:54:00.005-05:00

Aerification plugs laying on the turf

Crew working on #13 during aerificaiton

Once again it is time for fall aerification. The weather has cooled off and the rains have started to fall. We were able to get all 18 greens aerified, verticutt, and topdressed on Monday before the rains moved in Monday evening. Greens #13, 14, and 15 were not drug as well due to the darkness and moisture in the sand on Monday evening. However we are hoping by the end of today that the sand will dry out a little and let us drag it in better. The rains overnight (about 1") made conditions soggy and wet and have caused us to postpone our tee aeration until the ground is able to dry out. The aerifiers can not pull plugs when the ground is wet, so we are going to have to hold off until it drys out a little. My hope is too get the back nine completed by tomorrow and then the front nine completed on Friday. There are rain chances this evening and on Wednesday so this might change depending on what happens. The roughs are once again starting to grow and get juicy and lush. What a change a little cooler weather brings. The fairways have really started to slow down now that the days are getting shorter and temperatures are starting to cool. We maybe will mow them one more time and then will let them grow up somewhat and form a protective mat for the winter. We have a few other areas we need to do some spot seeding in the roughs and native areas. We will be attacking these as soon as we get aerfication completed and the ground is somewhat dry.

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-06T06:10:00.003-05:00

All has been pretty quiet here at Creekmoor. The weather has been great and we have had quite a few golfers out on the course the last few days. It is looking like the weather is going to continue to be favorable for us over the next week or so. Hopefully we are completely out of the extreme hot and humid conditions, but that is no guarantee at this point. The golf course has really enjoyed the cooler nights and cooler day time highs. The newly seeded spots are starting to germinate and take hold as well. We are going to be attacking the rest of the areas that need to be seeded this week and will hopefully have the seeding completed by the end of the week weather permitting. It looks like we have some rain chances this week so it will depend on how this plays out. Also we will be applying our fall fertilizer application on the roughs along with fertilizing the greens and tees in preparation for aerification next week. I hope everyone has had a great holiday weekend! I will be out of town starting Tuesday and won't be back until Saturday the 11th. So my blog posting will be on hold until I get back.

Hopeful The End Is In Sight

2010-08-31T11:31:00.002-05:00

It looks like we had a great weekend for the 3rd annual Member/Guest golf tournament here at Creekmoor. Sounds like Sunday was a great day as Mr. Bruce Rehmer cashed in a hole in one on #4 and took home a free two year lease on a new Ford Mustang and a significant amount of cash that was in the hole-in-one fund!!! Congrats to Bruce hopefully we will see you soon driving around in the beautiful new Mustang. My hope is that the weather is going to cool down for good in the very near future. Our temperatures have been better over the last week, but I would like to see them in the low to mid 80's for highs and then have the lows in the 60 to 50 range. This would help the turf to relax and give it a break from the heat and humidity. Overall I think the golf course is fairing very well considering the conditions it has been fighting through. We are continuing to over-seed spots in the rough. There is a lot of seed coming up in the spots that were seeded last week and the week before. The greens on #2,10,12 have really continued to improve each and every day. It is amazing how the cooler temperatures for a few days really does some good. We applied our final high K fertilizer application on our fairways today. This application will help the fairways harden off for the winter and help protect them from the cold winter conditions. I hope everyone had a great weekend. It was great seeing all of you over the weekend at the Member/Guest events. Keep your fingers crossed for some much needed rain and cooler temperatures!!

Member/Guest Weekend

2010-08-27T08:35:00.002-05:00

Well the weather has really given us a treat this week. Who would have ever thought I would have to be wearing a jacket in the mornings after the weather we have been experiencing. It has been very refreshing for my staff and I and the turf as well. The golf course really responded to the cooler temperatures and has bounced back very strong. The greens on #2, 10, 12 continue to heal and the cooler weather is just what they needed. The timing for the cooler weather couldn't have come at a better time as we are getting ready to have our 3rd annual Member/Guest tournament this weekend. We have an extremely busy day today with 230 players on the tee sheet and then a busy weekend after today. We had a good couple of days this week over seeding in our roughs in the areas we had some summer stress along the cart paths and low areas. The new seed is already starting to blow out of the ground and will continue to fill in over the next couple of weeks. We still have a few more areas to get done and will hopefully have this completed next week sometime. It is nice to only have a couple of days worth of seeding after the summer we had. That means our agronomic program was pretty strong and our turf grass was in good shape going into the heat. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Good luck to the members who are playing in the Member/Guest. I hope you all have a great time and you enjoy the golf course.

A Week Long Break

2010-08-23T10:42:00.004-05:00

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Well we are finally going to get a extended break in the weather over the next four or five days. I mean we might even have to wear some jackets in the early morning hours with the lows forecasted to be in the 50's who would have ever thought this was going to happen after the weather we have been having. This break will really help out the turfgrass to continue to recover after the brutal stretch it was in. Our greens continue to improve and are really starting to recover in the stressed spots well over the last week or so. Temperatures haven't been perfect, but they have been a little cooler which has allowed the soil temperatures to decrease and encourage root growth for the grass. We should start to see some new grass in some of the areas we over seeded last week. I am just barely starting to see the seed germinating and I am expecting by the weekend that we should see some sort of green in these isolated areas. We are going to be extremely busy this week preparing or our Member/Guest tournament on Saturday and Sunday. It looks like the weather is going to be good and hopefully everything goes off without a hitch. Several individuals have asked me about using the roller on the greens for the event. I unfortunately am not going to put the greens under anymore stress until they have fully recovered. I feel like they have just come through one of the worst weather summers on record and they need a break to recover and get back to 100%. The double cutting and constant rolling will really put additional stress on the greens (#2,10,12)that they aren't ready for at this time. We will do everything else we can to help the roll on the greens and my hope is it will be just as enjoyable for all the participants. We are planning on lightly topdressing the greens tomorrow in hopes that it will help the greens firm up and roll nice and smooth over the weekend by helping the ball marks level out. The fairways and tees continue to be in great shape and are holding their own very nicely. Have a great week!

Nice Break In The Weather

2010-08-19T10:33:00.002-05:00

Mother Nature finally came through for us and has given us a much needed four day break. Temperatures have been very pleasant over the last couple of days highs in the upper 80's and the night time lows in the upper 60's to low 70's have been awesome. The golf course has really responded to these cooler temperatures and little rain shower we got the first part of the week. I would like to thank all the member volunteers who came out on Sunday August 15th to help repair ball marks and fill divots on the greens and tees. We had a great turnout and I think everyone had a great time. I appreciate all the hard work and your time in helping us try and keep Creekmoor at a Championship level even through these tough weather conditions. The greens on 2, 10,and 12 have started heal from the stress they were under. On Friday last week we double spiked and drop seeded these greens just to help the recovery time. I feel like we could have left them alone and eventually they would have recovered 100%, but I had some seed already, so I thought I would use it and maybe speed up the recovery time. We also have started some over seeding of areas in the rough. Predominately the enter and exit areas of the carts and the few areas where the water set during the big rains and the turf pretty much boiled to death. We are going to continue this for the next couple of weeks and should hopefully have some good success. With the break in the weather we have finally had the opportunity to start spraying our nutsedge and broadleaf weeds in the roughs. It has been a banner year for the nutsedge and this is the worst I have ever seen it. I hope everyone has had a great week. Next week begins a very busy stretch for us as we have a big outside event on Monday and then our Men's Member/Guest tournament followed by the holiday weekend the next week with a couple of other outside events. Don't forget that fall aerfication is scheduled for September 13th and 14th. We will be closed both of those days to allow us to get greens and tees aerified.

KC Weather Factor

2010-08-13T09:07:00.003-05:00

I hope everyone has been trying to stay cool this last week. What a tough and difficult week it has been. Here is a report one of my colleeges put together with some very interesting information he gathered. Take a look at what we have been battling against. It is pretty amazing that we are where we are when you factor in everything this report says. I hope everyone has a good weekend.

KC Weather Factor, 2010

By Eric Bickel
Superintendent Hallbrook Country Club

Extreme heat and humidity have persisted for over four weeks. The wet conditions this spring coupled with the heat stress have combined for peak turf loss conditions. The cold spring and wet conditions (33” April through July) was not conducive to healthy deep root development. The cool season grasses have been surviving for the last six weeks off reserves in the root systems. Those reserves and the root systems have all but run out. In addition, high humidity has created constant high fungal disease pressure.

Dew points, temperatures, wind speed, and soil temperature are the key climactic factors which measure the stress associated with cool season grasses ability to perform its basic physiological functions, (respiration, photosynthesis, evapotranspiration). A brief summary of these factors, their critical values, and their occurrence follows for the period of June through Aug 11th.

Days with highs of 90 or above 37

Days with a low temperature above 70 43

Days with a average dew point above 70 46

Days with an average wind speed of 10 mph or less 65

Days in which soil temperatures have been above 86 52

When all five of these factors occur simultaneously at their critical values (highs & lows above 90 & 70 respectively, dew points above 70, soil temps above 86, and wind speed below 10), cool season grasses are in a state of full blown decline. There is no recover for that day. The plant can no longer perform its basic functions normally. Metabolic activity is sustained solely at the expense of the root system. When this occurs for extended periods of time little can be done to alleviate the issue.

Total days in which all five of these factors occurred simultaneously over the last 20 years, (i.e.# of severe root decline days)

Year 90’ 91’ 92’ 93’ 94’ 95’ 96’ 97’ 98’ 99’

# of days 5 8 1 3 2 14 5 10 12 17*

Year 00’ 01’ 02’ 03’ 04’ 05’ 06’ 07’ 08’ 09’

# of days 9 16 13 9 5 7 11 8 5 6

*1999 had the most consecutive days with 13

In 2010 this has happened 29 days, (this could hit 32 on Saturday, August 14th!)

Heat Stress Continues Along With Hot Temperatures

2010-08-09T10:03:00.004-05:00

Photo of drainage trench on #2 Green

Picture of the new trench line where the drain for #2 green exits the green.

Photo of the green drain on #2 that was clogged and we repaired it to get it draining once again.
The hot and humid weather continues to make it's presence felt here at Creekmoor. We are working extremely hard to help the turf grass continue to fight through these extreme conditions. Greens #2, 10, & 12 are continuing to improve each and every day. Some days are slower then others depending on the weather and play, but to notice an improvement in the weather conditions we have been having is a great thing. Hopefully by the end of this week night time temperatures will start to cool off and allow the turf to finally have a much needed break. We will be keeping our fingers crossed and keeping a close eye on the forecast. Our rough continues to amaze me with how well it is holding up with these extreme weather patterns. We have some areas where the water set after the big rain storms earlier in the summer on #10 on the right side and then on #11 in the low areas that we will be addressing as soon as the weather is going to break, but all in all I am very pleased with it. We will hopefully be out throughout this week spraying for nutsedge that has just taken over in some spots. It is a banner year for it and I have been getting a lot of questions from homeowners about their lawns and how to address it. You have to get a special chemical called Sedgehammer or ProSedge along with a spreader sticker. These chemicals are available at John Deere Landscapes or other professional distributors. I don't think they are available at Home Depot or Lowe's at least they weren't the last time I checked. Fairways continue to love life and grow by the minute. It is a great year to have zoysia and to set back and watch it grow. It is a nice luxury to have one less thing you have to worry about keeping alive and know that it is doing just fine. It allows us to concentrate on the other cool season grasses and help them survive the conditions. Here is a link to a story in the Wall Street Journal that came out today http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704017904575409411501359450-lMyQjAxMTAwMDAwOTEwNDkyWj.html. You can just copy and paste the link into your address bar. It just goes to show how drastic and severe the weather we have been dealing with is on turfgrass. I hope everyone has a great week.

Heat Wave Continues

2010-08-03T08:20:00.002-05:00

Wow "Mother Nature" just doesn't want to give us much of a break. Temperatures are soaring into the upper 90's along with humidity levels in the upper 50's to 60's. This combination causes the heat index to be up around the 100 to 105 degree mark. Needless to say these are undesirable conditions to be growing turf in. I have been monitoring the soil temperatures and surface temperatures throughout the day. The lowest soil temperature reading (at a 1.5 to 2 inch depth) in the last 6 days I have seen was 81 degrees with the surface temperatures going from 92 degrees in the morning to 106 in the afternoons. These are extreme conditions that require us to be a little more cautious and conservative. I have raised the mowing height of the greens just slightly from .125" to .140". This is to help the plant photosynthesize and produce more carbohydrates so that it can survive the extreme conditions. We also have cutback on the rough mowing and other mowing around the golf course just to give the turf a break and not to put it under anymore stress then we have too. We are still trying to mow the golf course one time entirely and then are making mowing decisions at the end of the week depending on the growth and weather pattern we are in. Today we are working on repairing the collar on #10 green. I hope to have this installed before the temperatures get too hot today. We will continue to work on some of the other holes (i.e. 2,6,12) as weather and play permits. I feel that the greens are holding their own right now and seem to be turning the corner. It is tough for turf grass to recover in the extreme conditions we are having. If we can get a little break and have temperatures in the high 80's to low 90's and have night time temperatures get into the magic 60's it would really help us tremendously. The night time temperatures is where the turf really recovers or gets stressed.

Heat and Humidity

2010-07-30T08:51:00.002-05:00

The heat and humidity continue to make their presence felt here in the Kansas City area. The turf grass has been under a tremendous amount of stress with the heat and down pours of rain that have been happening. These two together are not a good combination like I have talked about before. Earlier this week we found a plugged up drain line on #2 green. This means that that part of the green wasn't able to drain and the roots were sitting in over-saturated soils and boiling itself. We have since trenched in a new drain line and the water just came flowing out of the green. This should hopefully help that green a bunch and help it to stay dry and healthier. We are continuing to see improvement in greens #2, 10, 15, and 6. Once they dry out and the temperatures are high it is a long and slow process to get them back. I told everyone that I was wanting to keep them dry and that is still the case as wet over-saturated soils can cause death this time of year by choking out the turf and not allowing oxygen to get to it's roots. I know some players have expressed concern for #2 and 10 but I assure you everything is going fine and we are giving them some TLC and look for them to continue to improve. We will be continuing to sod some of the stressed out areas in the collars as weather conditions and play allow us too. We have started already and I am planning to continue on #2,6, and 10. The fairways continue to amaze me with how fast they are continuing to grow. We seem to not be able to stay in front of them. They are thick and lush and look great this year which is a little different then in the last two years when the temperatures weren't as warm. Hope everyone has a great weekend. I will try and upload some pictures of the plugged drain line on #2 when I can get my camera to cooperate.

Short Break In The Weather

2010-07-26T09:51:00.002-05:00

We are currently in a two day break from the extremely hot and humid conditions we have been dealing with. Unfortunately this isn't going to be around very long as temperatures are going to once again rise up into the upper 90's and humidity levels are going to soar. Although at this point in the summer I will take whatever I can get. A few people have asked me about the conditions on the greens and all the off color spots that are on them. We are currently trying to keep the greens as dry as possible to allow them to breathe and keep the disease away from them. Saturated soils don't allow the plants to breathe and in this heat can cook the roots of the plants and choke it out and wet soils are a breeding ground for diseases. The spots on the greens are localized dry spots and have come to the surface due to the fact that they dried out at some point. This is not a bad thing although it is aesthetically unpleasant the turf is in a healthy but stressed out state. We will give them some TLC and they will heal back over time and when the temperatures relax. This summer has been a very unusual summer and it has really tested our patience and our grass growing abilities. The collars on #2 and 10 continue to struggle a little bit in the areas where the moisture runs off the greens and sits against the moisture barriers that I mentioned several weeks ago. These areas will eventually heal or if they continue to struggle we may look into some isolated sodding. The good news is the zoysia grass fairways are the healthiest that I have ever seen them here at Creekmoor. They are just loving life right now and are getting everything they need warm and humid conditions. The rough is really holding it's own as well. It continues to grow and stay healthy. There might be a few areas where Brown Patch is present, but this disease is every where right now especially with the prime weather conditions we have been having. I hope everyone has a great week!

Summer Stress Continues

2010-07-20T13:02:00.003-05:00

The summer temperatures and humidity have continued to make their presence felt here in the Kansas City area. It has been a huge challenge for my staff and I to try and alleviate as much stress on the turf as possible. The golf course has been holding up relatively well with all things considered. It is really important to watch your water management this time of year especially in these conditions. It is better to error on the dry side then to have things overly wet. Wet conditions encourage disease and insects to harm the turf, which puts the turf in a weakened state and then the grass can't survive the extreme weather. I have had a few people ask me about the small spots on the greens. These are called isolated hot spots and are a sign that that area of the green is drying out. It also tells me that I have the greens at a dry level and that I shouldn't have a lot of problems with disease although stranger things have happened. Hot spots recover with a little hand watering, disease spots do not so it is better to have hot spots then wet soggy conditions. I am aware of the spotting and my staff is monitoring these on a daily basis. These areas will recover over time and with cooler weather. We are starting to repair some of the collar areas on #2,6, and 7 greens. We should have these areas repaired by the end of the week. It is a little dicey this time of year to be sodding and I wouldn't encourage it to be done unless you have the capabilities to babysit it and keep it moist. Since it is around our greens areas and we are babysitting them anyway I thought what the heck we can get these done and out of the way. The tees are continuing to heal from the verticutt that we did to them a week ago. They are healing a little slower this time due to the extreme heat and humidity, but they are healing and with a little break in the weather should be back to 100% or close to by next week. I hope everyone has a great week and is able to stay cool!

Temperature and Humidity Continue to Rise

2010-07-16T14:21:00.002-05:00

Over the last week the temperature and humidity have decided they both want to be on the higher end at the same time. These conditions have made us here at Creekmoor be on our toes. The grass has been spoiled by receiving timely rains and the root structures haven't had to reach and grow down into the soil. So now that the heat is on the turf is really having to work and stay cool thus providing us a challenge in keeping it moist and not over watering causing disease outbreaks. This time of year it is a very fine line and you really have to pay attention to the amount of water you are putting down or you could get yourself into some issues. We finally finished our grub application today, so if you haven't done so yet make sure to get it down on your lawns and watered in as soon as you can. My staff was able to get the fairways, greens, tees, step cut, and rough mowed today. The grass should start to really slow down it's growing pattern with the warmer temperatures over the next couple of days. I hope everyone has a great weekend and stay cool.

Wow What A Sunday Storm

2010-07-12T10:54:00.002-05:00

"Mother Nature" struck again on Sunday morning and throughout the day. We were directly in the path of a pretty intense rain storm that was comprised of three waves. The first wave dumped 1.10" of rain in 15 minutes and after that I knew we were in store for a heck of a day. We ended up getting around 3.5" total for the day. Needless to say the golf course is extremely wet and the bunkers suffered pretty extensive wash outs. We are going to be working on these bunkers today and hopefully will be able to get the front nine done or real close by the end of the day. We are unable to do any mowing and the rough has really surged over the last couple of days due to the rain and cooler temperatures. We will hopefully be able to start mowing later tomorrow or on Wednesday. The positive that came out of this all is that we didn't suffer any tree damage from the storms like a lot of folks did around us. The weather looks like it is going to start to warm up again and this is the perfect set up for disease and drought stress to occur in the turf. Weeks like this are what we work for all year. Hopefully the course can dry out before any damage occurs from the wet,hot,and humid conditions.

Watering Practices and Course Update

2010-07-09T10:43:00.005-05:00

I have been asked by several home owners over the last week or so how they should be watering their lawns. As the price of water is going up and the availability of water is going down I thought it might be a good idea to try and help everyone out a little bit with what I consider my own opinion the best watering practices. You have probably heard people say that deep and infrequent is the way to water. This is very true and really starts to show up this time of year. In my opinion homeowners should not be watering their yard anymore then three times a week during the extreme heat and then during the cooler periods to back that down to once or twice a week depending on weather conditions. The key is too run your sprinklers for longer periods of time less days during the week. I would suggest running your big rotor heads around 20-30 minutes each time and your mist heads around 10-15 minutes. The mist heads put down a lot more water at one time so it is important to back those down or you will be putting too much water down. You can then decide how many days to run your system depending on the weather. But like I said I would suggest to limit it too 2-3 days a week. This will help your turfgrass establish roots and will help it withstand the warmer temperatures along with helping you cut down on disease pressure and your water bill. One other way you can save water is to put your systems in rain shutdown when it rains. You don't know how many times I am driving around the golf course right after or during a rain and I see homeowners lawns still watering. This week has been a great week here at Creekmoor. We have been able to get a lot accomplished and got somewhat caught up after the heat. These rains we got were much needed and helped the golf course recover a little bit after the warm temperatures. Yesterday we verticutt the greens and today we did the tees. We are trying to help eliminate the puffiness and help improve our water infiltration rates along with helping the turf to breathe. We also were able to get back onto our normal mowing schedule somewhat. We also applied a fungicide to greens and tees today to help prevent disease from forming during the warmer stretch of weather that is ahead. After the little rains we had this week the turf may surge a little bit over the weekend so we will be busy next week getting caught back up. It looks like the temperatures are forecasted next week to once again start to rise into the mid to upper 90's. I am going to keep my fingers crossed that the humidity stays so that everything doesn't dry out as fast. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

My assistant Juan on the verticutter on #5 tees

#2 tee after verticutter went over it

Thatch accumulation on tees after we verticutt

Much Needed Rain

2010-07-06T08:15:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone had a good and safe Fourth of July holiday even though it was wet. The rain over the holiday was bad for the fireworks, but was much needed for the golf course. The turfgrass was starting to dry out pretty good and we were really having to work to keep moisture in the ground. This rain should help some of our stressed out areas tremendously. As I am writing this blog entry it is raining again. My crew is out on the golf course under cover waiting on the rain to subside so we can finish prepping the golf course for the KC Ladies Pub Links tournament. These rains over the last couple of days have been steady and slow for the most part which has been great. They haven't caused a lot of wash outs in the bunkers or along our cart paths. The good soaking rains are what you want to see. We finished aerifying the fairways on Friday. It was perfect timing to get them finished up ahead of the rain. We are planning to get back on our mowing schedule once the weather and ground dry out. It might be a challenge this week as the forecast is calling for rain chances most of the week. We will just have to wait and see what curve balls are thrown our way. Hopefully this week we will also be able to start spraying clover in the roughs and maybe even start our annual spraying in the native grass areas for broad leaf weeds. Hope everyone has a great week. I will keep you up to date as the week progresses.

A Break In The Weather

2010-06-30T09:25:00.002-05:00

What a great time for a break in the weather. This week has been a delight for us here at Creekmoor. The turf was really starting to show signs of heat stress of last weeks temperatures and heat index values over 100 degrees. We came through that stretch relatively well. We had a few areas where water ran and sat in the rough and step cut that really took it on the chin. My hope is that these areas will recover over time, however there are probably a few like on #10 that we may have to address with some sod in late August or early September when the temperatures are more conducive to sodding. We also have a few collars around the greens where water pooled that are showing signs of stress most notably #2 and #10. These two collars have started rebounding nicely and should continue especially with the cool night time temperatures these next couple of days. We have started fairway aerification and have been having great luck with the weather conditions and all. We have completed 1-5 on the front and 10-14 on the back. We will continue to get 3 or 4 done a day depending on play and weather and my goal is to finish either by this weekend or early part of next week after the holiday. I hope everyone has a very safe and good holiday with family and friends. Please remember to not light fireworks on the golf course property as the native grass areas are highly flammable and it leaves a mess for us to have to clean up ahead of play the following day.

Heat Is On

2010-06-25T15:07:00.003-05:00

The heat has come and has made quite an impression right out of the gate. After we went through the stretch of rain fall we had these temperatures are just what us Superintendents don't want to see. It is a recipe for disaster and can catch up to you if you aren't ready for it. The disease pressure has been extremely high and we have been very busy this week treating our tees, greens, green banks, and tee banks for disease and insect control. We unfortunately had some low areas that held water and developed disease that we have treated and am hoping will rebound over the next couple of weeks. We are looking to start fairway aerification on Monday and it should take us until Thursday or Friday to complete depending on weather and the amount of golfers. I would like to ask for everyone's cooperation with staying out of our native grass areas behind your houses. These areas are very sensitive areas and took my staff and I four years to establish. Please do not mow,weedeat, or create walk through areas in the grass to our cart paths. We have a no walking rule on the golf course due to liability reasons and would like to ask everyone's cooperation with this. When those native areas are mowed down it will really set the native grass back and even might kill it causing unwanted weeds to grow back. So please stay out of it and enjoy it's natural beauty. Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Disease area where water set after rain.

Low area where water stood after the rain storms and caused the grass it get infected with disease and scorched the grass with the warm temperatures

Sunny and Warmer Weather

2010-06-21T13:29:00.002-05:00

It has been a great relief over the last couple of days to have some much needed warmer and drier weather. The golf course is finally drying out and getting back to what it should be. We finally got all the bunkers put back together Sunday morning. It literally took my crew the entire week to get them back into playing shape. I have never seen anything like it before in all of my experiences. We also have been able to get a pretty good push on getting caught up with the mowing of the roughs. We should be over the entire golf course today for the first time this week. That is saying something, cause in the past couple of weeks we have been lucky to get it all mowed one time in the week. If the weather continues to cooperate we are hopefully going to start our fairway aerification. This is a pretty invasive process that is very important to keep our fairways in good shape. We will try and do 4-6 fairways a day and hopefully won't disrupt play very much if at all. My hope with the drier weather is to get started also on spraying the clover, nut sedge, and thistle around our property. With all the rains and wet weather these weeds have really taken off and started to grow at a rapid pace. I hope all the dads had a great Father's Day! I know I did!! Have a great week and I will give everyone an update later in the week.

Golf Course Update

2010-06-17T08:56:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to follow up and give everyone an update. Since my post on Monday we have been continuing to get hit with severe thunderstorms and high amounts of rain. We received another .5" of rain in 20 minutes on Wednesday and then last night received another 1.75". This brings the 10 day total to about 13.25" WOW!!! Needless to say the golf course is beyond wet and the bunkers are once again a mess. One good thing is we were able to get out yesterday afternoon and mow green banks and six holes worth of rough, which was marginal in itself. My hope is that the rain is finished and we can start to get caught up with the mowing of the roughs and fairways. The fairways and roughs are extremely tall and will take us a couple of mowings to get them back to where they need to be. We will continue to work on bunkers and get them done as fast as we can. I hope everyone is patient as we work on getting the golf course back into shape. On top of all of this Mother Nature is throwing in some 90+ degree days with heat indexes over 100 degrees. This will present a huge pressure of disease and stress on the turf as well. I will check back tomorrow and give everyone an update.

Wow What a Week of Rain

2010-06-14T12:18:00.007-05:00

Well we are up to 11.25" of rain over the last seven days. I can't remember a time I have ever seen this much moisture in such a short period of time. The golf course has reached it max and has taken it on the chin pretty darn hard. I have posted some photos below of some of the amount of water we were dealing with. We lost about a 40' portion of the rock wall by the black tee on #3. We are currently getting it looked at and getting a game plan to repair it. I am having trouble uploading my pictures from my camera so if I can get them off I will attach them to this post. We are currently out getting all the trash, debris, mud, silt cleaned up around the cart paths and in the bunkers. The golf course is closed today to allow us to have the opportunity to get this done. I will follow up this week with the updates and hopefully I can get my camera to cooperate.

Photo of Lake Creekmoor dam (courtesy of Sandy Dolence)

Photo of #2 fairway (courtesy of Sandy Dolence)

Photo of #8 (courtesy of Sandy Dolence)

Photo of the water running over on #3 Fairway (courtesy of Skip and Kathy Karl)

Another shot of #3 creek (courtesy of Skip and Kathy Karl)

(Courtesy of Skip and Kathy Karl)

Member/Member Weekend

2010-06-11T06:08:00.002-05:00

The weekend is here and man has it been a long and wet week here at Creekmoor. The rains that came on Tuesday night really messed things up. We received about 3.8" in about a four hour time frame. The creeks all were out of their banks and silt, trash, and limbs were deposited all around the golf course and cartpaths. My crew worked diligently to get the course in shape and ready for our two day Missouri Women Amateur event. Today we are starting to prep for our member/member event that is slated for Saturday and Sunday. We will be mowing fways, tees, greens, rough, and green/tee banks. I am also excited about using our brand new Salsco roller for the first time. I finally got it delivered this week just in time to hopefully help make the putting surfaces as true as possible. The sod that we put down last week has really started to take off and will continue to net down and hopefully by next week we will be able to mow it. The weather forecast for the rest of the weekend doesn't look real promising right now as they are calling for rain starting on Saturday evening and not stopping until sometime on Wednesday. Lets keep our fingers crossed that this doesn't happen as it could be a huge issue for the turf. High amounts of moisture and hot temperatures do not go together. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Warm and Dry Conditions Continue

2010-06-07T14:58:00.004-05:00

Temperatures continue to stay in the mid to upper 80's with a few 90+ degree days and the moisture has stayed away for the most part. The sod in the fairways on #13 and 14 was completed last Friday. We are still lacking a few pieces to finish up a few odds and ends areas in 15 and 17 and hope to have these completed by the end of the week. Hopefully we will be able to maintain our normal mowing schedule this week as there are no holidays or big outside events to conflict with it. We started solid tining on our greens this morning and will hopefully complete the rest of them by tomorrow afternoon. As I have said before this is an important agronomic practice that helps us keep the water infiltration rates up and the ability for the turf to breath easier on our greens under these times of high traffic and stress. Depending on the weather and the rain chances this week we might start our aerification process in the fairways. We will be able to get 4-6 holes done a day depending on play and this process will not interrupt play at all and the playing conditions on the fairways should not change that much at all if any. I will hopefully do a better job of posting more often this week as we finally have a normal week and the grass has started to slow down growing a little bit. I Hope everyone had a great weekend and stay tuned for upcoming details here at Creekmoor.

A Great Memorial Day Weekend

2010-06-01T06:31:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. We sure did here at Creekmoor as many of you and your guest were out enjoying the beautiful weather and playing golf. We have been busy just trying to stay up with all the mowing and clipping management after the wet weather we had a week ago. This weekend however went a long way in drying the course out and I even had to run my sprinklers in the rough last night for the second time all year! This week we are going to continue our normal mowing schedule just a day off since we had the holiday on Monday. We are also going to be getting the last of our zoysia sod and hopefully will be able to get the drain lines on #1 and #14 sodded along with some little areas here and there around the golf course in the fairways. This morning we are mowing rough, tees, fairways, approaches, and raking the bunkers. We are also applying a fungicide to our bentgrass tees to cure some "Dollar Spot" that popped up over the weekend. I am looking forward to speaking to our Tuesday night woman's league tonight and giving them a course update and answering any questions they might have. I enjoy getting these opportunities to share and explain what we do here in the maintenance department at Creekmoor. Enjoy your week and keep your fingers crossed for some nice weather as we have some chances of soggy weather later in the week.

Good Growing Weather

2010-05-26T08:55:00.002-05:00

We finally have some drier and warmer weather for a while. Course conditions have finally dried out for the most part and the fairways are starting to really enjoy this warmer weather. We are continuing to try and keep up with the rough as it is growing like gang busters after all the moisture and the warmer weather. The rough should get mowed this week three times and my hope is the clipping amounts will start to dwindle. I also think we got a grip on the zoysia patch that has been in the fairways. Between some chemical treatments and the warmer drier weather I think we have finally turned a corner and most of it should start to subside in the next week or so. I am still waiting on my sod provider to send me the last bit of our zoysia sod to finish up on the drain lines in #1 and #14 fairways. It may be next week before we are able to get any from the farm as they have been having a hard time drying out enough to where they can get the machines in the fields to harvest the sod. Today we are mowing the fairways and verticutting,mowing, and topdressing the greens. The verticutting on the greens cuts little grooves in the green as it removes thatch build up. This is important practice in greens management to help the greens from becoming puffy and sealing off not allowing any moisture to penetrate through to the surface causing the bentgrass to dry out. Sand topdressing helps smooth the greens out and also helps with the thatch accumulation as well. It looks like we are going to have a good weather week. Hope everyone is able to get out and enjoy it!!

Wet Conditions Continue

2010-05-21T06:28:00.003-05:00

The rain just keeps on falling! Since Monday we have received another 1.75" or rain fall. Needless to say course conditions are extremely wet as the moisture has nowhere to go due to the soil already being saturated. After this week that makes our rainfall over the last two weeks around 6.25"! My staff has been trying to mow when we can, but a majority of our time has been spent on fixing the bunkers. We were able to get the rough and fairways mowed one time this week. I am hoping it starts to dry up some this morning and maybe we will be able to get some mowers out later this morning or early afternoon. The good thing is it looks like the weather forecast is going to warm up and dry up now through next week. It will get really interesting if the temperatures sky rocket up to the upper 80's after we have been in a cool wet weather pattern. The humidity and disease pressure will become a huge issue along with the fact that the plant's roots are shallow right now as they have been getting all the moisture given to them and they haven't had to dig down and work for it. This could become an issue later in the year if our temperatures rise. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Update: As you may have suspected carts will be on paths today and possibly into the weekend. We will continue to monitor the situation.

Wet and Saturated

2010-05-17T06:38:00.003-05:00

The ground here at Creekmoor has been saturated and wet since last week and weather conditions continued on in to the weekend with another 1.25" of rain on Saturday. That brought our total rainfall for the week to a little over 5.5" of rain since last Tuesday. Course conditions are wet and the grass in the roughs are tall. Today we are scheduled to host the Hopehouse event with 180+ golfers. Golf carts will be on paths only as the fairways are saturated and are extremely wet. We are going to try and get most of the bunkers put back today along with some weed eating and trim mowing. Hopefully this week we will be able to dry out a little bit which will allow us to try and get back onto our normal mowing schedule. A couple people have asked me why the fairways have started to get a little bit of a purplish look to them over the last couple of days. This is due to the Zoysia grass shooting it's annual seedhead out. It always happens this time of year and it goes on for a couple of weeks. We are also seeing some success with our treatment on the zoysia patch in the fairways I talked about last week. Hopefully it continues to suppress the disease and the spots continue to recover. Sometimes if the weather is damp and cool the patches will fire back up. We will continue to monitor them through this weather pattern we are in as it is just about perfect for the zoysia patch to be active. I hope everyone had a great weekend. Cross your fingers that we get some warmer temperatures and some much needed sunshine!

Course Update

2010-05-13T06:22:00.002-05:00

The golf course is extremely saturated and wet after last nights rain of 2" and there is more rain in the forecast for today. As soon as the weather clears out of here today I will be assessing the damage and how wet the course is. This makes our total over the last three days at 3.5" or rainfall. The soil has now become saturated so anymore rain is going to runoff and cause some minor flooding in our creeks and streams. I will update everyone as soon as the weather moves out and I can assess the golf course.

Update: Due to wet conditions the golf course was closed today. We had a tremendous amount of standing water in fairways and creeks overflowing cart paths in certain areas. Our plan is to open for normal play tomorrow.

Cold and Wet In May??

2010-05-10T13:14:00.003-05:00

Zoysia patch on one of our fairways. This is a soil borne disease that is very active this time of the year. We will be out treating these spots as soon as the fairways dry out.

New sod on #9 fairway. Fairways are starting to green up, but the cooler weather over the last week or so has really slowed them down.

Is it October or May? Man what a weird and unusual weather pattern we have been in the last couple of days. We currently have received around .65" of rain with more coming this evening according to the forecast. Nonetheless my staff was able to get out this morning and get a few things done ahead of and during the rain. We were able to mow greens, tees, fairways, and some rough. Hopefully by the middle part of this week the ground will be dry enough that we can finish mowing out the entire golf course. Although the weather forecast doesn't look as promising we are in Kansas City and the weather can change at any time. On Friday we were able to get the zoysia sod completed on fairways #8 and #9. As soon as the ground dries up again we will move onto #14 fairway and sod the drain lines that we installed this winter and we will work on the drop area on #17. I hope everyone stayed dry today and keep an eye on the weather this evening as there is potential for some severe weather in our area.

Busy Week

2010-05-07T07:26:00.002-05:00

Wow what a week it has been here at the Golf Club at Creekmoor. The weather has been great and the grass has been growing like a weed. Due to the beginning of the week being wet and our big outside event on Monday we got a little behind this week on mowing. We are currently trying to catch up and get all the loose grass clumps knocked down. Please be patient with us this next couple of weeks as the rough is going to be lush and thick until the cool temperatures and rain start to slow down. I have been asked by some what height we are mowing our rough at. It has always been at 3". We have never changed it. It is a matter of the grass right now being lush and moist and we are having the best cool season grass growing weather we can have. My staff also is continuing on the sodding project in the fairways over our drainage areas on #8 and #9. We finished #8 yesterday and should finish #9 today. The fairways have really started to green up nicely and are a lot further along this year at this time then they were last year at this time. The greens have really started to get a little more consistent roll to them as we have started to back off the fertilizer since aeration recovery is finished. They will continue to get a little firmer and faster as the wet weather subsides and starts to transition into a dryer pattern. Hopefully by the end of today the golf course rough will be mowed for the second time this week along with the fairways. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Wet Conditions Continue

2010-05-01T20:54:00.002-05:00

The golf course continues to stay wet after the last batch of rain on Friday that dumped another 1.25" of rain. My staff however was able to get the entire golf course mowed twice this week so hopefully we will continue to be able to keep the rough under control. Yesterday we were able to get the fairways fertilized for the first time in front of the rain so they should really start to take off and grow in the next week or so. We also applied a micro nutrient pack and growth regulator to our greens Friday morning. The greens have been growing at a very rapid pace as we were helping them heal after aeration. The growth regulator will help slow them down a little bit and help the pace of the greens get a little more consistent. If the weather cooperates we are planning on getting some more zoysia sod in on Tuesday and will continue to sod the drain lines in #8 and #9 fairways. Many of you that played on Friday or today probably noticed all the white bunker sand around the edges of the bunkers. This was caused by the high winds towards the end of the week. We will try and continue blowing the sand back into the bunkers as the sand dries out. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Wet and Soggy

2010-04-27T07:04:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last week. I was a lucky individual and got to go on a vacation to Captiva Island Florida for 5 days. It was a great time with my family as we were able to celebrate my parents 60th birthdays in a magnificent setting with our entire family. I guess however, I picked a great time to be gone as everyone here in Kansas City was blessed with over 3.75" of rain and cool weather. Needless to say the golf course was and is still extremely wet. The rough is growing at a tremendous pace and is going to be a challenge for the next week as we work on mowing it and mowing it again to knock down all the clumps and loose grass. The greens have all but healed up and should be back to normal playing conditions. We have a few greens number 13,14,and 18 that are just a little behind the others as you can still see a few aerification holes if you look closely. I anticipate these healing up and being like all the others by the end of this week with the growing weather that we have been having. Many of you if you have played this last week have noticed we are starting to sod some of the trench lines in the fairways and repair some of the winter kill areas from 2009 that we were unable to repair last year. We will continue with this as my sod provider can get us the sod. When it rains here it rains at the sod farm so we are having to wait for conditions to dry out so they can get equipment in the fields to cut. I am attacking the landing areas first and then will work my way through some of the other areas as our budget allows. I don't see much if any winter kill from this years winter which is a great thing. Most of what we are repairing is from the winter of 2009. I will try and get some pictures uploaded as soon as I get caught up from being gone so stat tuned!!

Cool and Dry

2010-04-19T12:29:00.002-05:00

The weather has been Awesome over the last week or so! Man what a great time to be out and about on the golf course. We have been extremely busy here as you can imagine. The weeds and grass are growing at an extremely fast and aggressive rate and have been keeping us on our toes. We are back on our normal mowing schedule and are trying to get the entire golf course mowed out twice a week. This can be a challenge depending on weather conditions and the amount of golf that is being played. I have had some questions already on how often I am mowing the roughs and at what height. I haven't changed our height of cut since we opened in 2007. We are currently at 3" and will stay there all season long. Every year at this time a lot of people think we change our height of cut. We stay at the same height, but the turf grass is just growing at a rapid pace and it is lush and juicy from all the nice weather. Think how much you are having to mow your own lawn right now! Please be patient through this time as it will pay off in the summer time having a good stand of roughs instead of having weak and thin roughs. As you may have noticed we were able to mow the fairways on Friday for the first time this season. It really cleaned them up and they have really started taking off. I would like to remind everyone to please enter the fairways at the green post and stay in the fairway the entire hole and then exit at the cart arrow and red post. This will help our roughs stay in top condition throughout the season. We will continue to work on spraying the clover and broad-leaves in the roughs and fairways. This is an ongoing process and we will continue to make it a priority. Hopefully the cool season grasses in the fairways and around the greens in the zoysia will start to die out over the next week or so. We sprayed them last week and it usually takes a couple of weeks of warm weather to really start to see the results. The greens continue to improve and heal from aeration each day. My hope is they will be back close to 100% by the end of the week. I hope everyone has a great week.

Nice Weather Continues

2010-04-13T11:32:00.001-05:00

I hope everyone has been enjoying this nice spring weather as much as I have. We have been extremely busy here at the Creekmoor Maintenance facility over the last week or so. Our greens continue to heal very nicely from the aeration. Putting conditions are still a little on the slow and bumpy end, but I feel they will continue to get better each and every day. Several people have asked me about when the carts are going to let out into the fairways. Hopefully if everything goes as planned we will release carts at the end of this week. My staff and I are trying to get our last application for cool season grass control done on the fairways and once we get this done we will release them. There have have been several questions on what the blue color is in the fairways. That is the non-selective chemical we are currently spraying to control weeds and cool season grass contamination in our fairways. It is a chemical that if tracked around can kill the bentgrass or fescue/bluegrass roughs. This is why we have to limit access to it until we get the fairways completed. I hope everyone has had the opportunity to treat their lawns with the Pre-emergent herbicide to prevent the crabgrass from germinating. I always use April 15th as the deadline as the soil temps and such start to increase after this date causing the crabgrass to start thinking about germinating. The crew will continue to work on edging of the bunkers and checking the sand depths in the bunkers as well. Hope everyone has a great week!

Sunshine

2010-04-09T16:02:00.002-05:00

After a cool, windy, and damp start to the week the weather has continued to improve as the week has gone by. We are in the midst of the best weather day of the year today with the highs in the low 70's and little to no wind. I hope everyone has been able to get out and enjoy it. The maintenance staff has had a very productive and tiring week this week. As I mentioned on Tuesday aeration went about as well as it could and one of the big reasons for that was the hard work of my entire staff. Those two days are long and intense and really take a lot of you. However my staff showed up the rest of the week and continued to work hard. We were able to get a few more holes completed on the edging of the bunkers. We have completed holes 13-18 and 8, 9 on the front nine. We were able to mow the greens today for the first time since aeration on Monday. They should continue to heal in this nice weather and will hopefully be back close to 100% in two weeks. Same with the tees. My staff was also able to mow the entire roughs on the golf course. This time of year the roughs get really lush and green and start to grow at a rapid pace. We will try and keep up with it as best we can. Please be patient with it as this

Aeration is Here Once Again

2010-04-06T08:55:00.002-05:00

Wow once spring decided it wanted to come it came in a hurry. We have been running around here with our heads cut off this last week. Between the warmer weather and the cleanup from the rains, and then top it off with aeration of our greens and tees we have been extremely busy. We were very lucky yesterday to dodge a huge bullet and miss most of the storms and rain that moved through the area. I know of golf courses just to the North of us a couple of miles that received over 1" of rain out of those storms. Here at Creekmoor we received .10" of rain or less and was able to continue our aeration process. Besides the wet conditions to start the day off yesterday everything went about as good as it could go. We were able to get all the greens completed yesterday and are currently working on our tees today hoping we beat the rain that is suppose to move in later this afternoon. I have been asked how long it will take the greens to be back in good playing shape. My answer is always as long as the weather cooperates they should be close to 100% in about two weeks. The warmer weather really triggered the roughs to grow and they have taken off like gang busters over the last couple of days. The crew is currently mowing the golf course and trying to stay on top of this through the wet season. We are starting to see a little green in our dormant zoysia fairways. I have been getting asked a lot about when carts are going to be let out on the fairways. We are waiting for the zoysia to really start growing and peaking out and then we will release the carts. We are monitoring this everyday and hope to have the carts in the fairways as soon as possible. Once we are finished with aeration we will continue to edge the bunkers, clean up the storm damage from the storm on Friday (limbs on #6 and #3), and will continue our normal maintenance practices.

Sunny Days Ahead

2010-03-30T12:21:00.004-05:00

Finally some warm sunshine has set in around the golf course. Hopefully over the next couple of days we can start to dry out a little bit before our next storm hit us sometime in the early part of the weekend. My staff has been taking full advantage of the warmer drier weather. We have started to mow greens at least every other day and will increase as the turf starts to grow regularly. We also have started edging all the bunkers on the golf course. Over the winter the sand blows out of the bunkers and sits on the lips and the grass actually starts to grow out of these areas towards the center of the bunker. We then re-edge them and relocate our original edge and get them back to their original size. This is important to stay up on as the bunkers would continually shrink over the years and we would lose our bunker shapes. Also we have started to mow the rough and green banks for the first time today. As the course conditions continue to dry out we will continue to try and get all the rough cut. Just a reminder to everyone that greens and tee aerification is scheduled for April 5th and 6th, which is actually next week. The golf course will be closed on Monday and Tuesday to allow my staff to complete these tasks. I hope everyone can get out and enjoy the warm spring fresh air while it is here.

Soggy and Busy

2010-03-26T08:04:00.002-05:00

We have had a rather soggy and busy week this week. Mother nature has continued to bless us with some difficult conditions, but we are moving forward and dealing with it as much as possible. At the beginning of the week we had a tremendous amount of snow melt which resulted in tremendously wet and soggy conditions. We then had one day to dry out and then once again Mother Nature reared her ugly head again dropped about .75" of rain to continue the extremely soggy conditions. None the less we have been able to continue and get our work done. We were able to mow the greens on Thursday and are planning to mow them this morning as soon as the frost breaks. My staff also has started our annual spring edging of our bunkers. Over the winter the sand blows out of the bunkers and forms white eyebrows around our bunkers. This allows the grass to start to grow into the bunkers in these areas and actually moves the edges of the bunker. It is important for us to stay on top of this and get the bunkers re-edged before they get to far into the spring and really get to growing and shrinking the size of the bunkers. It looks like we are going to have some more rain on Saturday and then hopefully some warmer and drier conditions next week. I would like to ask you to help us out this spring with the divots in the fairways and tees. Due to the carts being on cart paths for the winter months until the zoysia greens back the sand bottles aren't readily available to use. I would like to ask you to try and remember to take the sand bottle with you out to the fairways when you are hitting your shots and fill in your divots. This will help the divots recover faster when the grass greens up in the next month or so. Also on the tee boxes we provide a box full of sand that you can use to fill in the divots. This will help us tremendously in continuing to provide championship playing conditions on a daily basis. Hope everyone has a great weekend. What a game for Kansas State on Thursday night. The most incredible game in my lifetime I have ever seen. Anyway congrats to my CATS and on they move to the Elite 8 on Saturday!!

Brief Winter Storm

2010-03-23T09:06:00.002-05:00

After getting blasted with about 8-10" of snow over the weekend temperatures are now in the 50's and 60's and the snow is melting away at a very fast clip. What a winter and weather pattern we are in. We were around 65 to 70 degrees on Friday afternoon around 3pm and by 5:30pm we were in the lower 40's to almost 30's prior to the winter storm that moved in. None the less it looks like temperatures are going to stay warmer here for a while and hopefully that was the last of the winter storm blast. My staff is continuing to work on some projects around the shop and the common areas around the golf course. We have been removing a couple of dead trees in the common areas and doing some reorganizing around the maintenance facility. We hope to have the Southern Hills fountain in the pond by the end of today. As soon as the snow melts off the cart paths and golf course and the ground dries out a little we will continue to work on getting the bunkers raked and edged and continue on our normal mowing schedules. Course conditions for the rest of this week and into the next are going to be very very sloppy. The ground is saturated and the moisture has nowhere to go which results in a lot of runoff and flooding conditions. We will be monitoring the creeks and surrounding areas as the week goes by due to the snow melting and a good chance of rain that is in the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday. I hope everyone had a great weekend. I had an exceptional one as my Kansas State Wildcats continued their winning ways and moved into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, while our brethren from Lawrence fell to the Northern Iowa Panthers in a shocking upset. I hope everyone has a good week. I will update the course conditions as we get further along in the week.

Winter Is On It's Way Again At Least For Two Days

2010-03-17T21:15:00.003-05:00

I hope everyone is going to be able to get out and enjoy the weather on Thursday and Friday because it looks like on Saturday and Sunday it is going to be a different story. What a swing we are going to be in for. The weather professionals are calling for the high to be in the mid 60's on Friday and then the highs on Saturday and Sunday are going to be in the low 30's with some sleet and snow. Man what a difference one day will make. Only in Kansas do we get these crazy temperature and weather swings. Anyway this week we have had a very productive and busy week. We were able to get out and get our pre-emergent application applied to our roughs on the golf course. The greens have started to green up and grow a little bit the last couple of days. We have been mowing them about every two days right now and we plan on increasing the mowing frequency as the greens start to grow at a more steady rate. We have mowed the tees twice this year, but they aren't growing as much as the greens at this time. This is due to the difference in the different bentgrass varieties on the greens and the tees. The bentgrass on the tees takes a little longer to get going as it needs warmer temperatures where as the bentgrass on the greens is a more cool season bentgrass so it doesn't require as high of temperatures to start growing. Unfortunately on Tuesday we had an irrigation leak on #8. We are in the process of repairing this and hope to have it done by tomorrow. We will be turning on the restrooms on the golf course at the beginning of next week. With the cold temperatures forecasted for this weekend we are hesitant to turn them on until the weather is going to be warmer due to the lack of insulation and heat. I would also like to ask all the home owners on the golf course to help me out and not dump anything (i.e. grass clippings, potting soil, etc.) into the native grass areas behind your house. This will keep the native grass from growing or eventually cause it to die and then this allows the weeds and other unwanted grasses to grow. I hope everyone has a good weekend. It is March Madness time so hopefully everyone will be able to watch the games if you are a sports fan. Oh by the way GO CATS!!

Work Work Work

2010-03-12T09:15:00.002-06:00

We have had a very busy and productive week this week with the warmer weather we have been blessed with. We received around 1.5" of rain over the last couple of days. Course conditions are very wet and soggy right now. My staff was able to complete our fairway application of pre-emergent and roundup just in time before the wet weather hit. Today we are hoping to finish cleaning out the bunkers and pushing the sand up and raking them after the rain. Earlier in the week we were able to mow the greens and tees for the first time this season. The mowing really cleaned them up and helped smooth them out after the long winter we have had. We also applied a little bit of fertilizer to the greens to help jump start them and get them greening up and growing. I have had several homeowners ask me recently about when they should be applying their pre-emergent application on their lawns. The answer depends on a lot of different variables like (what chemical you use, are you going to do any over seeding?, etc.). I would suggest to everyone to wait another week or two prior to applying your application. This will help extend your coverage longer into the summer when the threat of crabgrass is the greatest, and the temperatures will be more consistent and will be better growing weather. I hope everyone has a great weekend. If you are a college basketball fan like I am then you are in hog heaven this weekend. My Kansas State Wildcats are starting to hopefully play to their potential and will hopefully have a good Big 12 tournament and NCAA tournament. Go STATE!!!

Spring Is Here

2010-03-08T12:06:00.003-06:00

Irrigation head we added on #9 rough. This area wasn't irrigated very efficiently, so we added another head to help it out.

Hydrant we added to our shop area. This will help cut down on our water expense with washing equipment and filling up spray rigs. It is hooked up to our irrigation system which will pump our lake water at no cost to us.

Crew working on blowing the white sand back into the bunkers

Photo of sand piled up on edge of bunkers from the wind blowing it out over the winter months.

Wow what a weekend of weather we just had. Sun was shining and the golfers were out enjoying the golf course. Being the first weekend with warm weather really got everyone's attention and thus we had a good weekend of golf here at the golf club. With the warmer weather we started filling the irrigation system up today and should have it fully filled by the end of the day. The fairway spraying of our pre-emergent and roundup application is continuing as the weather permits. We were able to get the back nine completed last week and are currently working on the front nine today. During the the winter the sand in the bunkers gets really dry and tends to blow out of the bunker faces and piles up and forms eyebrows around the edges of the bunkers. This is an annual event and we have to go out and blow all the sand back into the bunkers. We have completed the front nine and are starting on the back nine today. As the warmer temperatures continue the grass will start to surge and start growing. We will probably start mowing the greens at some point this week depending on the rain and weather. It looks like it is going to be a rather wet week, so this may slow us down and delay us into next week. I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Warming Trend Is Finally Here

2010-03-03T07:49:00.002-06:00

Finally we are going to have some warmer weather here for the next week or so. The golf course is going to be open for play starting today. My staff has started to get very busy preparing for the weather to break and we have actually been able to work on some projects in this warmer weather stretch. We have started spraying our pre-emergent and Roundup application on our fairways. This will be an ongoing process over the next week or so. The application will help us prevent crabgrass from germinating this summer and the Roundup will help to control the poa annua and fescue in the fairways. My crew has also been busy with a couple of irrigation projects. We tapped into our irrigation system by #13 tee and put in a water hydrant in our shop compound. This will help us save money on buying city water for washing equipment and filling up the spray rigs. We have also added an irrigation head to an area on #9 rough that was having a hard time getting watered properly due to the wind and size of the area. The head will help us out tremendously in this area and help us to continue to provide quality playing conditions. The geese have really been a problem for us this winter unlike any winter I have seen. They have done some heavy damage on some of our greens and collars. We will be out as soon as the ground thaws and plugging some of these areas out and repairing them. Hopefully today I can get out and get some photos of the projects we have been working on and will post them here. I hope everyone gets out and enjoys the weather this week. I will hopefully see you all soon on the golf course.

Tree Finally Arrived For #6

2010-02-25T15:10:00.009-06:00

Today was the day we finally were able to transplant the new tree to #6. The weather cooperated and we took advantage of it. The tree is roughly 7" around and about 30' tall and is cross between a silver maple and red maple. The spade used to move it was 90" across and weighed roughly 54,000 lbs empty before it was loaded with the tree. It was a big chore, but with the help of Will Manda from Rosehill, Eric from Instant Shade, and my staff we were able to complete the work without any major problems.

Spade truck has arrived!!

Picture of the crew working hard moving the plywood.

Picture of the 90" spade that was used.

Hole is dug and ready for the tree.

Tree in transit to it's new home.

Tree has arrived at the hole!

Moments before spade is removed from the tree.

Tree is finally in the ground!!

Icy and Cold

2010-02-23T09:44:00.002-06:00

High temperatures continue to hover around the upper 20's to low 30's and now we are blessed to have a sheet of ice and a little snow on top. Man what a winter it has turned out to be. All the experts are saying we are going to set records for the number of inches of snowfall and the number of snow events we have had. Needless to say my staff has been relegated back to the shop for the last couple of days. Everyone is getting a little bit of "Cabin Fever" and are ready for the spring time to be here. It looks like depending on who you listen to that we might get some temperatures in the upper 30's or low 40's by the weekend. However as I was watching the weather last night they think we might have a chance of a late week storm or it might wait and get here around the beginning of next week. So if we do get a break it is looking like it is going to be a short one. We are still holding out hope that with the cold temperatures we will be able to get the new tree installed on #6. We have to wait on the ground to freeze or dry out and all the snow and ice to be gone to allow the spade truck to come onto the golf course. Unfortunately we have had the ground frozen, but it has been covered in snow or ice. I will keep everyone up to date when the time comes.

Winter Continues

2010-02-19T14:33:00.002-06:00

Just when I thought we might be getting a little break from winter, another storm front moves in. As I am sitting here writing this I have heard a couple of rumbles of thunder. Who would have thought it would be 30 degrees snowing and thundering. It sounds and looks like even "Mother Nature" might be a little confused on what to do. My staff was able to get out on the golf course yesterday and enjoy the 45 degree weather. We removed some more underbrush on #12 and removed some old piles of white sand that were stashed around on the golf course from my staff removing it out of the bunkers in the spring. We are also continuing to work on our goose control. The coyotes have been moved around into different locations in an attempt to continue to make the geese feel uneasy and not want to be in those areas. We have some areas that we have had to go to using rope to deter the geese from being there. Geese will not walk under any type of rope or fishing line, so we use that to our advantage in some isolated areas. I hope everyone has had a great week. Stay safe and warm and hopefully spring is just around the corner.

Back From Sunny San Diego

2010-02-15T20:48:00.004-06:00

I was fortunate to spend the last 12 days in sunny California. Four days in Palm Springs and six days in San Diego at the annual GCSAA Golf Industry Show. My golf game in Palm Springs had a little bit to be desired, but I had a great time meeting some new superintendents from around the world. In San Diego I took part in some educational seminars and was able to walk the trade show and see the latest and greatest that our vendors had to offer. This is such a great and rewarding time for us superintendents as it is a way to learn from some of the best education seminars in the world, networking opportunities that are unmatched in any industry, and be able to stay up on all the latest trends in golf course management. My staff has been rather slow as the weather has continued to be snowy and cold. We have continued to work on some painting and cleaning around the shop. We will continue to work on repainting our utility carts and re-staining our bird houses. I have started to make preparations for the planting of our new tree on #6. Hopefully as soon as the weather cooperates and the ground conditions are either dry or frozen we can proceed. I hope everyone had a great week. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Ground Hog Day!!

2010-02-02T08:11:00.003-06:00

Well everyone has probably heard by now that the ground hog saw his shadow, which means we are suppose to be in store for six more weeks of winter. Whether you believe in this or not is up to you. However six more weeks of this winter is going to test my patience with all the snow we have had and some of the extreme cold temperatures. This week is looking like a pretty decent week weather wise. Who would have ever thought I would be saying that with high 30's and low 40's as highs? Unfortunately this is where we are at now, but I will take weather like this any day over the extreme cold. My staff has been staying busy the last couple of days working on the drainage on #14 fairway, repairing goose damage on greens, and installing rock along cart paths as weather permits. The drainage on #14 is going to be a big addition for the playing conditions on this hole. The right side of the fairway has always held water and moisture and we had to replace sod here last year and had poor playing conditions during the wet periods. Installing these lines are going to improve the drainage on this fairway tremendously and will improve playing conditions drastically. Most of our holes we have been able to keep the geese at bay with our cardboard coyote cutouts. However the geese over on #7 must be a little smarter then the ones everywhere else. We are going to try some other deterrents on #7 green and tee and see if we can keep them at bay. We are going to be out repairing some more areas on the green this morning, but hopefully we will get them under control. As weather has permitted we have continued to install the rock along the cart paths in the high traffic areas. Unfortunately when the ground starts to thaw out we have to stop working on this cause it just becomes a muddy mess. I will be taking a 10 day hiatus here starting on Thursday. I am going to be heading out to Sunny San Diego and Palm Springs California for our annual GCSAA education conference and our golf championship. I hope everyone has a great week and I will be in touch when I return on February 13th.

Busy Week

2010-01-29T09:28:00.002-06:00

The last couple of days we have been very busy working on various projects around the golf course. We have continued to install rock along cart path edges that continually get rutted out from the cart tires. My staff started to work on #10 tees and #11 tee areas. These areas are in need due to the cart traffic going to the cart barn and the volume of traffic that occurs around the tee complexes. We also broke ground on some drainage complexes on #14 fairway. This fairway has been a constant headache when it comes to wet conditions. Last spring we replaced a significant amount of zoysia sod in this fairway due to the amount of moisture that was sitting on it in the low areas. These drainage complexes will substantially help move the moisture out of the fairway and keep the turf in better shape coming out of winter. It looks like we are going to go into another deep freeze here for the next two to three days and then possibly start to warm up again next week. I have been asked by some how the golf course is holding up this winter. Besides a little bit of damage from the Voles the golf course is doing great. The blanket of snow we had a a true blessing as it acted as a warming blanket to the zoysia and kept the bitter cold from damaging it. We all need to keep our fingers crossed going forward. We still aren't in the clear yet as weather conditions could still potentially be damaging well into the month of April if we get one of those late freezes. I hope everyone has a great weekend. It is a big weekend for me as I will be partaking in the Sunflower Showdown between KU vs KSU. Saturday can't come soon enough. GO CATS!!

Colder Weather Returns

2010-01-26T07:57:00.002-06:00

The warming trend is over for a few days and looks like we are going to return to the freezer for a few days. We were able to have around 50 golfers this past weekend which was a pleasant surprise. However temperatures this week will be in the lower 20's for most of the week so our play is going to be very minimal at best. My staff was able to get the cleanup work on the left of #1 completed on Friday. The warmer conditions over the last couple of days allowed the greens to thaw out completely so we were able to change hole locations yesterday and get them set in place for the next round of cold conditions. We have been noticing several areas where we had Vole damage done while the golf course was snow covered. These little rodents look like mice and cut runs in the top surface of the turf. There really isn't any good way of treating for these guys unless you do some significant trapping. They look bad right now, but more times then not they will grow out of it and recover on there own when the grass get actively growing again. You will see some significant damage on the left of #11 fairway and around the green on #12. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Golf Course Update

2010-01-22T12:27:00.004-06:00

With the warmer weather this last week most of the snow has melted or will be melted soon. We finally opened for play this afternoon. Course conditions are very sloppy and damp, but most of if not all the snow is gone. Due to the warmer conditions the greens have thawed completely allowing us to repair the goose damage on #2,#7, and #13 greens. My staff also has been busy the last couple of days doing some tree work on the left side of #1, and we started removing the dead tree on the left side of #6. Since the conditions are so damp I have decided to wait until it dries up a little bit before we knock down the second part of the tree on #6. I have attached some pictures below showing our progress. We were also able to get out and repair the bridge between #7 and #8. Hopefully we have made the transition to the cart path a little smoother. I know it isn't perfect, but it was the most economical way to repair this area going forward. Hope everyone has a great weekend. It looks like we are suppose to receive some more rain. Keep your fingers crossed that we don't get a significant amount of rain. The ground is so saturated that it won't take much to cause some isolated flooding.

Picture of #1 and all the underbrush we have knocked down and cleaned up.

My staff working on #1 clearing the underbrush.

Picture of dead tree on #6 before we knocked half of it down.

Tree on #6 after it was knocked down.

Melting Snow and Fog

2010-01-18T12:24:00.006-06:00

Over the last couple of days temperatures have continued to rise a little bit. This has caused course conditions to be very wet and slushy. There has been a good amount of snow melt happen over the last couple of days, however we have a long ways to go until it is gone. We were able to get out and take some updated photos of the course and the greens. I have uploaded some of those photos below. We will continue to monitor the course conditions as the week goes by. I know several people will be itching to get out on the golf course if the weather permits it and if the snow melts. It is a tough decision for superintendents this time of year due to the wet conditions and the foot prints that happen on the greens when the greens are in the freeze thaw stages. The foot prints will occur and then when the temperatures drop to freezing the greens will re-freeze and make the putting greens bumpy and uneven. All golf course superintendents would rather air on the safe side and try and hold play off as long as possible. However we know the economic situation a lot of facilities are in this winter with the weather we have been having and they need the rounds of golf. It is an extremely hard decision for everyone involved rather to put the putting green quality in jeopardy or play it safe and have upset golfers. So please be patient as we wait for the snow to melt and for the golf course to drain off. Please if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me t.bohn@creekmoorpoa.com.

Photo of goose damage on #7 green. We will be filling these areas with green sand while the ground is frozen. Once the ground is unfrozen we will repair these areas with new plugs from our bentgrass nursery on site.

Picture of #7 green with a lot of snow remaining on the putting surface and a good picture of just how wet the greens are right now with all the snow melt and warmer conditions.

Snow is melting slowly as the fog has slowed the process down not allowing any sunlight to come through.

The dense fog on #9

Snow Melt

2010-01-14T10:18:00.002-06:00

Weather conditions have continued to rise and the amount of snow on the ground has started to decrease or melt. It is a welcome site as we are now starting to see some turf grass in some of the higher areas around the golf course. My staff has been out the last couple of days trying to clean off some of the cart paths to allow us access to the golf course. Some of the cart path areas were drifted as high as three to four feet. We have started making our way over to #6 today in an attempt to at least get the cart path clear to haul the dead tree out of there when we cut it down. We will have to wait now for the ground to freeze so that the tree doesn't cause any damage to the turf areas around it. We will continue to monitor the conditions and I will keep everyone informed. With all the snow melt that is going to happen some of our creek areas are going to be rising at a rapid rate. Please be patient with some of these areas behind your homes as it will take a little while for the lake to drain down and allow the overflow water to get out. Also I hope everyone will join me in continuing to pray for the victims in the Haiti earthquake. Please feel free to send me a message with any questions or concerns. t.bohn@creekmoorpoa.com

Finally Some Warmer Temps

2010-01-11T13:56:00.003-06:00

Finally we are going to be able to enjoy some above freezing temperatures. I have been able to talk to a lot of old timers in this area lately and none of them can really say they have seen anything like this before in the way of temperatures and snowfall. Hopefully these upcoming warmer days will start the thawing out and melting process of all the snow. However most of the weather people are calling for another major snow storm for our area sometime in the month of February. We will have to wait and see if this happens and if it lives up to what they are calling for. Here at the maintenance facility things have been a little quiet for the last couple of days. We have been continuing working inside on projects (painting, sharpening, grinding, cleaning, etc.). We are all looking for a chance to get outside hopefully sometime soon, as you tend to get a little stir crazy being inside for long periods of time. Hopefully this week will free up the cart paths and allow us to get out and remove the tree on #6 that I have been talking about for the past couple of weeks. The only draw back now may be the wet conditions of the ground and the damage the tree could make falling onto the turf. We will have to asses the situation if we get the chance and see how wet it is. If we can get it done early enough in the morning while the ground is still frozen from overnight temps I feel we should have a reasonable chance at taking it down. Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

More Snow

2010-01-07T09:49:00.005-06:00

What a winter it has been. I can't remember a time in my life that I have seen this much snow on the ground in this area at one time. We were close to about 20" of snow from our last couple of storms and then last night received another 6-8" depending on where you are located in the area. Needless to say driving is treacherous right now and temperatures are bone chilling with wind chills in the -25 degree area. Everyone please be safe and try and stay warm. I have attached a few photos of the golf course that were taken prior to this last snow storm.

Continued Deep Freeze

2010-01-05T08:04:00.002-06:00

Wow what a week it has been. I can't ever remember a time period where it has been this cold for this long and we have had this much snow on the ground at one time. Since Christmas Eve we have received 18" of snow and the temperatures have stayed cold which has not allowed the snow to go anywhere. On top of all of this we are suppose to get another winter storm with about 2"-5" of snow on Wednesday and Thursday and then temperatures are really going to fall with highs around 0 and lows in the -15 range. The good part of all of this is the fact that the turf is under a snow blanket which will help keep it insulated during the extreme cold temperatures. We have been continuing to work on projects inside the shop and getting our planning done for 2010. I hope everyone had a good safe and warm weekend and a Happy New Year. If I can get out on the golf course I will try and take some photos of the golf course. I love how it looks with the thick snow blanket covering it.

Ringing In The New Year

2009-12-31T10:04:00.002-06:00

As you can imagine it has been a cold and dreary week here at Creekmoor. We have been under snow and ice for at least 7 days and the temperature has been cold and windy. My staff has been confined to working on inside projects in our maintenance facility and everyone is getting a little antsy to get outside again. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the weather is going to allow that any time soon. Nonetheless we will continue to get our inside projects completed (tee markers, equipment rebuilds, painting, and cleaning). We weren't able to get equipment out to go to #6 to work on the tree. My hope is that next week sometime the cart paths will melt off and allow us to get equipment out. Right now they are iced over with snow drifts at least 3 to 4 feet in some spots. I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year. My staff and I have been truly blessed this year here at Creekmoor and are looking forward to a prosperous 2010!

Snowy Conditions

2009-12-28T10:11:00.004-06:00

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas with family and friends. Over the Christmas holiday we were blessed with some significant snow fall. By all accounts around Creekmoor it seems we received anywhere from 4" to 8" of snow depending on where you were on the property. The worst part of the storm was the high winds that caused some severe drifting and extremely cold wind chill temperatures. The last couple of days we have been shoveling, plowing, and removing the snow and ice around the clubhouse area and our maintenance facility. I have uploaded a couple of pictures that were taken in our maintenance facility parking lot this morning. I hope over the next couple of days that the snow will start to melt a little bit which will hopefully allow us to get over the #6 to remove the big dead tree on the right side of the hole. If we can't get out we will continue to work on inside projects(redoing tee markers, painting trailers, rebuilding reel mowers, and some deep cleaning and reorganizing). I can't believe it is the last week of 2009! Where did it go? Hope everyone stays warm and has a great week.

.

Christmas Time Is Here

2009-12-24T06:55:00.002-06:00

To quote one of my favorite Christmas carols "It is the most wonderful time of the year". I absolutely love Christmas time and the opportunity you get to spend time with family and loved ones. Here at Creekmoor we have been staying rather busy with some warmer weather. This week we were able to get the drainage on #8 fairway completed just in time before this wet winter storm hits. We were also able to mow the greens and clean them up a little bit on Tuesday. Also we finally got all 18 greens with two cups on them. I would like to still encourage everyone if you play to move the flag stick to the other hole after you complete the hole. This will help move the play around and not wear out one area of the green. The weather over the holiday is somewhat of a mystery. All the weathermen thought they new exactly what was going to happen over the last couple of days. We are suppose to get a substantial amount of rain (i.e. .5- 1") and then it is going to turn into snow overnight and into tomorrow (2-4"). A fun little fact that the last time we had a white Christmas was 1969, so it has been an awful long time here in KC. The Creekmoor maintenance staff would like to wish each and everyone of you a very Merry Christmas. I hope everyone stays safe if you are traveling and look forward to seeing you all again real soon.

Two Cups on Greens

2009-12-21T07:29:00.003-06:00

I have been getting several questions about the greens having multiple cups cut in them. I go to this practice this time of year due to the ground freezing and continual play. If I was to leave a single cup on the greens the areas around the cups would get worn out and start to show signs of stress. By putting two cups in the golfers can rotate the flag between the two cups helping to spread out foot traffic and wear and tear. The greens that we have yet to change are showing this now as we have been having some nicer days allowing there to be some golf played. We are in the process of trying to get two cups in every green. However we have been having a hard time doing this as the ground ended up freezing earlier then I anticipated and has delayed this process. I hope to try and have them all done by the end of this week. We also have been working on the drain complex on #8 fairway. I hope to have this completed by mid-week. This should help us out tremendously in being able to control the moisture and water run off in this area. I hope everyone had a great weekend. It is going to be a short work week this week with the Christmas holiday. I hope everyone has a very safe and Merry Christmas. If you are traveling make sure and check the weather status before you go. It looks like we are going to have a pretty significant winter storm front coming in over the next couple of days causing some major travel headaches.

A Little Balmy

2009-12-17T06:48:00.002-06:00

I hope everyone has had a great week. The week started off in the deep freeze and has since bounced back and warmed up on Wednesday and should continue into today. I know my staff is appreciating it tremendously as we are continuing to work on some of our projects. We have continued to install drainage in the fairway on #8. The crew has completed half of it and will continue to work on it today and tomorrow with the hopes of completing it on Friday. We are also continuing to work on the rock work along the cart paths in the high traffic areas. I am hoping that we will be able to mow the greens today at some point. We will have to wait on the ground to thaw out a little bit before we can do this. It is not preferred to mow the bentgrass when the ground is frozen as the mower tends to cause some damage and doesn't seem to mow as even and at the high quality we look for. Also we will hopefully be installing the rest of the two cups on each green so that we can rotate play around the green during the winter months while the greens are frozen. This practice keeps us from wearing out one area of the green and also provides a variety of hole locations for the golfers. During the freezing cold mornings and days we have been able to work on a variety of projects inside the shop. We have been redoing our tee markers, enter/exit stakes, and ball washers. We also have been continuing our annual equipment rebuilds on our reel mowers and trailers. I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and I look forward to seeing you all real soon.

Frosty Frosty Frosty

2009-12-11T10:11:00.005-06:00

The last couple of days has been nothing short of cold and frigid. The ground has been full of snow and frost the entire week. It has been somewhat a shock to my system, as I wasn't ready for it to go from 50's & 60's over Thanksgiving weekend to 10's & 20's for highs this last week. Needless to say our opportunities to get out on the golf course this week has been rather limited due to freezing temperatures and the snow fall that is on the ground. However we were able to get the drainage complex in #1 fairway completed on Thursday. We are looking to go to #8 hopefully sometime next week if the weather cooperates and install another drainage complex. My staff also had the opportunity to do a major cleaning of the shop. We pulled everything out and completely cleaned and reorganized it to make it more efficient and presentable. Also we have been working on redoing our bird houses, enter/exit stakes, and ball washers. It looks like the weather is going to rebound a little bit over the weekend. Hopefully the temperatures will rise enough to allow the snow to melt so that some of the die hard golfers can get out and play. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

First Winter Storm

2009-12-08T06:49:00.004-06:00

It looks like we are going to have our first winter storm for the year. Depending on how the storm moves we could get anywhere from 2-11" of snow. The weathermen at this time are unsure of how the front is going to move across the state. It sounds like we should be on the southern edge and hopefully won't get the brunt of the storm, but we have a 100% chance of getting rain or snow. We have been continuing our work on drainage projects. My staff has moved over to #1 fairway and are in the process of installing the drain complex in the enter area of the fairway. As long as the temperatures and windchill hold steady above single digits we will continue to work on the drainage and rocking of the cartpaths. If temperatures and windchill's are in the single digits we will be working on some inside projects. We will be refinishing our bird houses, Enter/Exit stakes, and tee markers. We are also going to be continuing our rebuilding of our reel mower equipment and all other equipment needs. I hope everyone had a great weekend and stays warm over the next couple of days.

Colder Weather Continues

2009-12-04T12:39:00.002-06:00

Temperatures have continued to stay cold and windy. It sounds like we are going to have a pretty good chance of seeing some snow by the end of the weekend or the beginning of the week. We were able to get the drainage complex completed on #9 fairway this week. This will be a huge advantage for us as we move in to periods of wet and cold weather. The drains should go a long way in helping us eliminate some of the winter kill that occurred in this area last year. We are continuing to work on installing the rock along the cart path areas. We have finished #11 and are now working on the area next to #10 green. This is a heavy traffic area and the rocks will hopefully provide a spot for the golf carts to scoot over and park and let other traffic get by them easier while the golfers are putting on the green. I hope everyone has a warm and enjoyable weekend.

Winter Is Finally Here

2009-12-02T13:32:00.005-06:00

Well it looks like temperatures have started to turn colder and possibly our first chance of snow is in the very near future. As the weather people around this area typically try and be the first ones to predict snow, I will believe it when I see it. My staff has continued to stay very busy working on projects and doing some occasional mowing. Warmer temperatures over the holiday week and weekend continued to make the bentgrass on the greens and tees continue to grow, thus we have been doing our every other day mowing on these surfaces. It looks like the temperatures are really going to dip over the next couple of days which will cause the cool season grasses to really start to slow up and almost stop growing. We also started on one of our major drainage projects in #9 fairway. I have enclosed a photo of the project below. This is our worst area for standing water and was the area we lost most of our zoysia in a year ago due to the excessive amounts of moisture and cold temperatures. We will hopefully complete this project this week and will look to get started on hole #8 as soon as possible. I also have uploaded a picture of our cart path project we have been doing since last year. I used a lot of the native stones that are here on site and have installed them along the edges of the cart paths to help with rutting and excessive traffic. It went over very well and I have received several compliments on it. We are continuing to do this in some of the high traffic areas again this year. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Is Here

2009-11-25T08:57:00.003-06:00

Man where has the time gone? It seems just like yesterday that we were full blown mowing the golf course and applying our spring fertilizers. The weather this week allowed us to get all the rough, green banks, and tees mowed on their regular schedules. The greens have gotten a little bit of a surge of growth in them this past week with the warmer conditions. We are back to mowing the them every other day right now. This is going to be a rather short work week for my staff with the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. We will however be back at it on Friday and continue our normal week. I hope to begin some of our drainage projects as soon as I receive all the materials I need. My supplier has been a little backed up and it has taken a little bit to get them to me. It looks like the weather is suppose to rebound a little bit over the weekend and give us some decent golfing weather. I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend.

A Little Bit of A Warmer Trend

2009-11-23T13:02:00.002-06:00

We have continued to be blessed with pleasantly warmer weather over the weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed participating in the annual Creekmoor "Beat The Staff (Turkeys)" event. I am very sorry for not being able to participate this year. I had a scheduling conflict along with a little back injury that I have been battling the last couple of weeks. It sounds like the Creekmoor staff was upgraded without me and shot a great score of 61. Congratulations to the teams that were able to shoot better then 61 and won a free Thanksgiving turkey. This week will be a rather shorter work week for the maintenance staff with the Thanksgiving holiday. We will hopefully get our weekly mowing completed weather permitting, and continue to work on some rock work around the cart paths. My staff will also be working on finishing up the weed eating of the bunker edges, curbs, and tee signs as well. These warmer temperatures have kept the cool season grass on the roughs, tees, and greens growing at a fairly decent clip. We will continue to mow and maintain these areas as long as they are actively growing. The fairway spraying has been going rather well, but has been a slow process due to the timely rains and windy conditions. Fairways that are left to spray are #4-7 and all the other par 3's. We will hopefully complete these this week if the weather permits otherwise we will hopefully finish them the following week. Thanks again for all the great comments about the golf course over the last couple of weeks. Your kind comments go along way!

Weekly Friday Update

2009-11-20T09:32:00.002-06:00

Temperatures over the last couple of days have rebounded a little bit. Instead of highs in the 40's we have and are forecast to have highs in the upper 50's. Course conditions have continued to stay wet. We have been able to get the green banks mowed, but have been unable to get the rough mowed. Fortunately the turf's growth has slowed down considerably with the cooler temps. We were able however to get our winter fertilizer down on our roughs and tees. Today we are finishing up working on the bunkers and spraying the front nine fairways for cool season grass that has encroached the zoysia grass. Since the growth of the bentgrass on the greens has slowed down considerably we are mowing them on average of 2 to 3 times a week. When we don't mow we are either letting the greens go or putting the roller on them. We don't roll them everyday due to the compaction issues we would face with continued traffic from the roller. However rolling them once or twice a week is very beneficial and keeps our greens in championship shape during the winter months. I hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoys the warmer weather. It looks like the weather is going to be great for the annual "Beat The Turkeys" tournament. Hopefully everyone can play well and win a Turkey!

Front Still Hanging Around

2009-11-18T09:58:00.002-06:00

We are continuing to feel the effects of the storm front that rolled in at the beginning of the week. Temperatures are continuing to hover around the 40 degree mark for highs and lows are getting down into the low to mid 30's. The cooler temperatures have really slowed down the growth in the bentgrass and the roughs. On top of the cool temps we received a significant amount of rain as well. Course conditions are very wet which has caused us some significant challenges in getting some of our work done. We have been unable to get any spraying or fertilizing done with the current course conditions. My hope is too try and get the spraying and fertilization done or started by Thursday. Today we are out cleaning up the bunkers and getting them back into playing condition after the rains. We are also working on some weedeating around the bunkers and tee boxes.

Cold and Wet

2009-11-16T12:16:00.004-06:00

Here are some updated pictures of the creek project on #10. We were able to get this completed just in time before the latest storm hit. We received about 1.25" of rain over night and into this morning. Weather conditions have really changed over the last couple of days. Last week we were all wearing shorts and enjoying the warm temperatures, today we are grabbing the heaviest rain proof coat we can as it is cold and wet. We had a good week last week with the great weather. We were able to get our normal mowing done as well as getting some much needed fertilization and spraying done. We fertilized the greens and started putting down our winterizer application on our rough. Hopefully the weather cooperates this week and allows us to complete this. We are also hopefully going to be starting on installing some drainage in fairways if conditions dry out. My staff will also be working on putting some more rock in areas along cartpaths where the cart traffic has caused some rutting. I hope everyone had a great week and weekend.

A Great Weather Weekend

2009-11-09T22:19:00.002-06:00

I hope everyone had an opportunity to get outside and enjoy the weather over the weekend. Who would have thought that the weather in the beginning of November was better then the weather the entire month of October. What a year it has been. The nice weather today allowed us to have a very productive day. We were able to apply a light topdressing to the greens to continue to help the playing surfaces stay firm and smooth. This is an ongoing practice we do about once every month depending on the play and the weather. We also applied a micro nutrient package along with a fertilizer to the greens. It is important to keep the fertility level up on the greens this time a year as it is when the turf grows it's roots for the next year. The entire rough, tees, and green banks were mowed as well. We have continued to work on the rock work on the creek bank on #10. We are anticipating to finish it up in the next day or two. My goal is to finish up the fairway spraying by the end of the week. As long as the weather stays warm and the wind stays calm we should be able to get this done without any problem.

Updated Photos of Bridge Project and Creek Project

2009-11-04T15:05:00.006-06:00

Warmer Weather is Here For The Week

2009-11-03T07:48:00.002-06:00

I hope everyone had a good and safe Halloween. I know my household did very well and we are now stocked up with candy for the rest of the year! It looks like the weather is going to be very cooperative and on the warmer side for the rest of the week. This is a very welcome site to us all as the cool weather had sort of put a damper on the spirits around the golf course. We have started spraying the fairways on the back nine again for cool season grass control. This process will continue for several days as the temperatures and wind conditions cooperate. Winter cart rules have been implemented and took effect on November 2nd. This practice is done to protect the dormant zoysia from excessive wear and tear from cart traffic during it's dormancy. I know this is an inconvenience for everyone, but I feel that this is one of the most important practices we do. It is not a guarantee that we won't have any zoysia damage this spring from winter kill, but I feel it helps to cut down on the amount substantially. A perfect example of this was last year we spent around $4-5000 dollars on zoysia sod and there were some facilities that didn't restrict carts or can't restrict carts due to limitations on cart-paths that spent well over $30,000 to 40,000 on zoysia sod. Granted it was a bad year for winter kill on the zoysia last year, but I feel we were very fortunate after hearing about other facilities. Another project we are going to be working on is stacking rock along the creek bank by #10 green. The water flowing through the creeks after rains has started to erode the bank and could cause us some long term problems if we left it unattended. I hope everyone can get out and enjoy the weather this week. Go Cats!!!

Rain Again!!

2009-10-30T07:08:00.003-05:00

The rain just keeps on a coming! We received about 1.8" of rain on Thursday. Course conditions are very wet and carts will be on paths until conditions dry out. Today we will be starting on repairing the bunkers and getting them put back into playing shape. We are also going to be mowing greens as well. The bridge crossings were completed prior to the storm and really seemed to hold up well with all the water flowing through the creeks. This is a tremendous improvement over what we have been dealing with when it comes to the erosion factor around each bridge. Hopefully this will help extend the life time of the bridges and will keep them sturdy for a long time. I hope everyone has a great and safe Haloween!

Busy Busy Busy

2009-10-27T07:37:00.002-05:00

Course conditions here at Creekmoor continue to stay wet. We received about 2.75" of rain since last Thursday. The course is going to take some time to dry out as temperatures are going to be good, but the ground is so saturated that the water has no where to go right now. It looks like we have more chances as the week goes on for more rain, so we will have to continue to monitor the situation. As the weather is changing some people probably assume that my staff and I get the opportunity to relax and slow down. Actually it is the direct opposite. We get the opportunity to start working on some of our bigger projects of the year without having a lot of golf balls flying on the golf course. We have been working on repairing a couple of our underneath sides of our bridge crossings due to high water flow and some erosion issues. The creeks have been washing out the back fill around the bridges which could lead to some serious problems down the road allowing the brides and cart paths to settle. We have made a tremendous amount of progress and should be finishing up on these in the next day or two. As soon as conditions start to dry out a little we will start some drainage work in the fairways. I would like to get some of these areas done as soon as I can so that the water doesn't sit there and freeze and cause winter dessication to the dormant zoysia grass. My staff has also been working on keeping up with the on-course mowing as the course conditions allow. We have also been spot spraying broad-leaf weeds in the rough and fairways and cool season grass in our fairways. Not only is my staff great at growing grass, but we can do some handy man work as well. We have been having some issues with water leaking into one of the turrets on the North end entrance area and causing us some issues on our entrance fountain. The issue has been corrected as we were able to re-shingle the roof and correct the problem. Speaking of the fountain it was drained and winterized yesterday to get it ready for the winter months ahead. I hope everyone had a great weekend. If you have any questions feel free to contact me at any time.

Wet and Chilly

2009-10-23T08:00:00.003-05:00

Once again the weather has switched and made conditions wet and cool. We received about 1.75" on Wednesday and Thursday. Course conditions are very wet and the temperatures aren't going to warm up much today. However I think temperatures over the weekend are suppose to be reasonable and the highs should be in the mid to upper 50's or low 60's. However the mornings are going to be in the low 30's, so it will have to warm up a bunch throughout the day. Despite the weather we have had a great and productive week. We have made a lot of headway on the bridge repairs on #8 and #12 by stacking rock in the eroded areas and then capping them with concrete. This should go a long way in helping to control the erosion in these areas due to the amount of water that flows through these areas. Luckily we were able to get the golf course completely mowed out prior to the rain and damp conditions that we have currently. Today we are mowing greens and cleaning up and raking the bunkers after the storm. My staff seems to be on the minds from the flu as we are finally at full strength today for the first time this week. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Projects and Flu Season

2009-10-21T07:48:00.003-05:00

Well the weather finally gave us some sunshine and warmer conditions for a few days. I hope everyone was able to get out and enjoy it while it was here. It looks like cooler conditions are going to be moving back in over the next couple of days along with some rain showers. This week we have been able to get the golf course mowed out (rough and green banks)on schedule. We are currently mowing greens and tees about every other day right now due to the growing pattern of the turf. Along with our normal golf course maintenance we are working on some projects around the golf course. One of those is spraying fairways for cool season grass control and broad leaf weeds. We are also working on repairing some of our bridge crossings due to some of the creek banks washing out from all the rain fall. We are rebuilding these areas and stacking rock and concrete around them to help control the erosion. Another project we are working on is trimming around irrigation heads and valves. The grass starts to grow up around the heads and valves and makes it hard to see the yardages on the heads and impedes us from seeing them when we start to shut the system down for the winter later in the year. The flu bug has started to hit my staff over the last couple of days. We have been averaging at least one to two guys being sick from work this week. I hope everyone has been able to stay healthy and have had a great week.

Course Update

2009-10-15T06:48:00.003-05:00

Conditions here at Creekmoor continue to be damp and wet. We received .6" of rain on Tuesday night, and then received another .25" of rain last night. Needless to say course conditions are very wet. Carts will once again be on cart paths today and hopefully the golf course will start to dry out in the next day or so. We are going to be spiking the greens this morning in front of the mowers. This process is necessary due to the fact that we have received so much moisture over the last couple of days and the greens need to dry out a bit. The spiking will help speed this process up while helping the green take in some oxygen which will continue to help the greens be at their top form. Bunker work is also going to be a high priority today after the series of rain the last couple of days. My staff also is working on a few projects around the golf course. We are currently working on some cleanup work in the creek beds on #4 and #8. We are just cleaning out some of the brush and undergrowth that has built up over this season. Another project we are working on is repairing the bridge on #12. With all the rain we have been having the water in the creek has started to erode the soil underneath the bridge on #12 and could cause us some real issues if we left it unattended. Our goal is to refill the area with some topsoil and then stack rock around it to try and hold off the erosion from happening. We have had good luck with this process on another one of our bridges so hopefully it works this time as well. The rough has really slowed down on it's growth over the last couple of days due to the cooler temperatures. We mowed all the rough, green banks, and tee banks on Monday and Tuesday and I don't feel like we will have to mow again this week due to the lack of growth we are getting right now. If temperatures turn around we may have to go back to our typical mowing schedules. Hope everyone has had a great week.

Continued Cool and Damp Conditions

2009-10-12T14:28:00.003-05:00

Cool and damp seems to be the weather of choice for good "Ol' Mother Nature"! Temperatures have stayed below normal over the weekend and it doesn't look like they are going to come back up until the end of the week. The golf course is trying to dry out, but with the slow mist all day today and the little shower we got overnight it has not allowed it to do it very good. Course conditions continue to be very damp. Most of the major weather services are calling for a 40-70% chance of rain Tuesday and Tuesday night, so the drying out process is probably going to take a little bit longer. Today we were able to get most of the rough and green banks mowed. The turf has really started to slow down its growing pattern. However if the temperatures rebound again soon it will start to grow again as long as the soil temperatures stay above the 50-60 degree mark on a consistent basis. As soon as dryer weather moves in we are going to be starting on spraying some broad leaf weeds (mainly clover) in the dormant zoysia along with some of the cool season grasses that have germinated this fall while the temperatures are still somewhat on the warmer side. I hope you all had a great weekend. I hope to see you all or talk with you soon.

Cool and Damp

2009-10-09T07:04:00.002-05:00

The weather has once again provided us here at Creekmoor a bit of a challenge. We received a little over 3.25" which started yesterday morning and finally stopped sometime overnight. Course conditions are going to be extremely wet. Today my staff is going to start working on repairing the bunkers and trying to mow the greens and tees depending on how soft they are. Carts obviously are going to be restricted to cart paths only as we wait for the conditions to firm up and dry out. We where able to get the roughs mowed earlier in the week prior to the storm moving in. My hope is that with the cooler temperatures that the roughs have slowed down and won't be out of control by the time the course conditions are dry enough for us to mow. I hope everyone has a good and warm weekend. It looks like the temperatures are really going to dip down over the weekend. Stay warm and we will see you all soon.