Update cart paths

 Friday the first round of concrete was poured -  Here are few pictures from #2 

Cart Path repair.

Great News……

 This week we started on some cart path repair/replacement.  We have begun the process on #2 so please be careful around the construction areas.  

Course and Drought updates

 As we continue our battle with high temps and low rainfall we are seeing the turf turning off color and thinning in some areas.  In the past we have talked about the irrigation system is not a replacement for rainfall.  It is used to supplement lack of rain for short periods of time.    I have a few pictures of where the rock saw cut a trench for the irrigation lines and then back filled with soil.  During drought you can definitely see the benefits of the soil replaced lines compared to the rocky soils that are on the golf course. 

 Here are a couple of examples of this:  

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We have added wetting agents, hand watering and extra watering to these areas. I was also curious to look at some of the weather data from the course to help with some perspective on the current situation. Last March we got a new weather station that records and keeps daily weather data.  I decided to look into this to compare last May through July to compare it to this year. I looked at daily temperature average ( daily highs and lows averaged together) and rainfall amounts over the 3 months. Here is what the weather station had:

Rainfall….

2021.                          2022

May. 7.1”.                    2.66”

June. 3.89”.                  1.31”

July. 4.2”.                     .26”

Average monthly temperatures 

2021.                    2022

May. 72.1.            79.7

June. 80.1.             84.7

July. 80.6.             87.3

The GCM staff continues to work hard though this unprecedented weather time. They also want to thank the members that have continued to encourage them for their work through the heat of the summer.  

Closed Monday

 The guys were busy today.  We vertical mowed, mowed, and topdressed greens followed by dragging in the sand. We are seeing good benefits from the vertical mowing and multiple topdressings.  The greens will continue to improve as we continue these procedures. We also sprayed our first round of fall pre-emerge today. As many of you guys see we have multiple dry areas- we continue spraying wetting agents and trying to hand water many of these areas. As we all know we need lots of rain and some days under 100 degrees.  Until then we will continue to battle the ongoing drought conditions.  If we can ALL reduce the traffic on some of the driest areas this should help reduce any future problems with the turf. 

Here are a few pictures from today’s work:

Drought article

 Here is a good article about golf and drought put out by the USGA.  

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/articles/2021/06/drought-and-golf-5-things-every-golfer-should-know.html 

(Might have to copy and paste link in new browser window)

We are continuing to fight this drought and lack of rain. 

The GCM Staff

Tee Markers.

 Come out and see our new Hills Country Club tee markers. Looking good…..

Maintenance Monday

 Live Oak had a productive day on the greens. Able to vertical mow, mow, and topdress all the greens. Here are a few pics from the process.  

We are planning on repeating the process this coming Monday.