Has the Superintendent Gone KooKoo?

If you have seen the all of the bird houses on the course, you may certainly think I have gone Koo Koo. I have mentioned the bluebird houses already and now we have two larger boxes on the course. The largest box is for the American Barn Owl and the other is for North America's smallest hawk, the Kestrel. We have placed 8 American Barn Owl boxes on the course and another 6 kestrel boxes on the course.

Foreground: Kestrel box

Background: Barn Owl box

Close up of Barn Owl box

Both the Barn Owls and Kestrels are to help with our small rodent population. Particularly the moles, voles, gophers, and field mice. Last year was a year like no other for those particular rodents and I am doing everything I can to help control them this year. This 'organic' method of control has gained popularity in the wine country to help protect the vineyards from these harmful critters. For them it makes money on both sides of the budget; it is a cheap effective way of controlling pests and helps make them organic which attracts a lot of revenue.

We should start to see the Barn Owls to move into their boxes in the next month. The question has been asked by many, "how will they know to come?". One member suggested a mass email and after a good laugh I explained to them what Lee Pauser had told me. The birds are always looking for a cavity. That cavity could be in an old tree or it could be something artificial like our boxes. The cavity provides protection from other predators. Will there be 100% occupancy; I doubt it, but over time maybe we will gain a reputation of being a bird retreat.

Topdressing and Getting the Sand In

While I have written about topdressing the greens in the past, I thought I would re-iterate why we topdress greens, but also talk about how we work the sand in to the green.

For me, I have two goals in mind when I topdress. The first is to make the greens smoother. We have an incredible amount of foot traffic on our greens and by no coincidence, a lot of ball marks. Both foot traffic and ball marks leave indentations in the surface and the sand helps smooth them out. The second reason is to dilute our thatch layer to keep the greens firm and draining. Thatch is the layer of dead and decaying organic matter below the surface. Too much thatch and the greens get soft. If you get the thatch level right, the greens will be much firmer. A great example of this is any portion of a green that has bunker sand splashed on it all the time. I was walking across 5 canyon green the other day in the front and I thought I was walking on the cart path.

So knowing the benefits of topdressing you are probably asking yourself how the sand gets in the thatch. I have tried probably 10 different methods of working the sand in and this year I may have come across the best way. We allow the sand to dry as much as possible before play gets there and we then pass a brush over the green (picture right). The brush has an electric motor that allows the operator to raise and lower the brushes on demand. Immediately following the brush we

pass our vibrating rollers over the green. This further pushes the sand down to the base of the plant. Come nightime, we will turn the green sprinklers on for approximately 40 minutes to further push the sand down.

The end result is hardly noticeable to most golfers and provides a great putting surface to play on.

Coyote Brush

Does this picture look familiar? If you have been to the golf course lately, it should. This is another cart of coyote brush we are removing from the golf course.

Coyote brush is a woody plant that spreads like wildfire throughout the course. We are starting to clean it up now because I feel it provides a much cleaner look. Overtime, coyote brush tends to blow up from the inside and just looks messy.

One of our teaching pros, Justin Lippold, asked me why we are doing it and mentioned to me that some areas don't look good because it makes the course look younger. He is absolutely right. There are a couple of areas that we cleared out that didn't end up looking good at all. Particularly the left side of 1 lake and the left side of 3 lake tee complex. Everything we try to do on the golf course is with vision towards the future. Sometimes you see something that you think will look great removed, but once removed it doesn't work. Those are chances you take and luckily I have a management group that believes in me and allows me to take chances. The particular areas I mentioned will have coyote bushes back in a matter of no time.

I posted it a while ago, but when we cleared out 1 lake green and 2 lake green, I saw for the first time what the architects and owners envisioned. That is the real answer to Justin's question as to why we do it. Since then I continually try to bring back the allure that brought our owners here in the first place.

Bluebirds

Driving through the Mountain course, you may have noticed that we have some new bird boxes hanging in some of our trees. Those bird boxes are a new addition this year and they are to house bluebirds. Everything you want to know about bluebirds can be found at this website. The specific benefit for our golf course is that they eat the beetles that eventually molt into grubs that we have on the golf course.

Grubs make our life in maintenance very difficult. In the summertime, they chew the roots off of the grass plant making it very difficult to keep alive. More often than not, the grass succumbs to grubs. If the grass survives the summer, it will only be destroyed in the fall when the raccoons, skunks, and wild pigs come out to eat.

Our bluebird boxes are an environmental approach to ailing our grub problems. Is it the be all, end all; absolutely not. Is it another tool that could help us; absolutely!

Thank you to PJ Kaner, Superintendent at Santa Teresa Golf Club for introducing me to Lee Pauser. Mr. Pauser is a bird enthusiast who is helping with the bluebirds and another interesting project that will be blogged about at another time. Thanks Lee!