Tuesday, March 26, 2013

San Jose Snow Storm


With everybody talking/ whining about all the late season snow in the Midwest  I figured we get ourselves equipped here at Cinnabar Hills Golf Club with 4 brand new snow shovels just in case.  Not really, but what I have learned from the great Mid Westerner's is that a snow shovel is the best thing around to push aeration cores.  I got the recommendation off of a post on Turfnet and the guys couldn't be happier with the purchase.  The cleanup is better and faster than the Par Aide core pusher at about a third of the price.



So if we ever do get a snow storm here in San Jose or the ice age comes upon us, we will be ready for it.  Until then, we'll just keep aerating!


Friday, March 22, 2013

Stoloniferous Dude

As I stated last week, I chose to do something different with the tees we rebuilt on 3 Lake, 9 Mountain and 5 Canyon last week.  Instead of using ryegrass like we typically have, we installed Tifway 2 bermuda overseeded with ryegrass.  When we rebuild the range tee, I have in mind to use this grass, but before I go and install 20,000 sq ft of sod, I want to give it a trial run on the golf course.

Overseeded bermuda on the right with ryegrass on the left

In theory, the divots should fill in faster in the summer months because bermuda grass grows very aggresively with both stolons and rhizomes (above and below ground roots respectively).  The water requirement will be much less as well which is always a plus.  We should lose some color in the winter months, but from what I understand, Tifway 2 tolerates cold weather better than most bermuda grasses.

It will be an interesting experiment to see how it reacts at Cinnabar Hills and who knows, maybe there can be some other uses on the golf course as well.


Aggressive rooting with Tifway 2 bermuda

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Springing Into Action


I know the first day of spring isn't until the 20th of March, but I am tired of waiting and the maintenance staff and I are out with guns blazing this week.  We started Monday with the bunkers on the left side of 9 Mountain green.  As all of the bunker projects seem to go, we remove the sand and sod, update the drainage, modify the contours of the bunker if needed and then replace everything


We also started removing sod from 5 Canyon Cinnabar tee and 9 Mountain Cinnabar tee in order to level them back out.  We will be doing something different with the tees this year, but you will have to tune back in for that information on another post.

If that wasn't enough, we have also topdressed and sprayed wetting agents on all of the greens.  I hope everybody enjoys the weekend... Oops, it's only Tuesday!      

Deal being made between our GM and Assistant on 9 Mountain tee
5 Canyon tee