Turf Talk From The Supentendent
Dear Members,
April is going to be a historical month for Coharie CC. April 1st I will spray the front nine greens out to intentionally kill the grass. May 1st or thereabouts (depending on weather) Signet Golf Associates will begin stripping all the grass from the greens as well as top layers of soil. The next two-three weeks will be preparing the greens for planting a much-anticipated Ultradwarf putting green grass called TifEagle, it is low growing grass, which will provide years of enjoyment for the membership. There will be a lot of construction mobility on the front nine holes and ask you limit your travel as we will be working on ingresses and egresses as well as cart path work in several areas.
The golf course is waking up for the season the grass is starting to come out of dormancy. What this means for our greens is we have already begun the fungicide practices on the back nine greens as well as the fertilization program. Additionally, we are already at the height of cut we operated at last year and with the assistance of a newly purchased Prism gauge will be able to tell exactly what our actual height of cut is (.150) as opposed to the bench set height of cut (.170). These numbers are fictional, but they represent probable outcome or proximity to actual heights of cut. This will assist us in determining which bed knives to install on the mowing unit as well as future bench settings for heights of cut.
The new greens rolling schedule being on Saturday mornings is paying off, with the addition of daily mowings, I feel comfortable, putting will become more consistent across all eighteen holes. Please keep in mind that we still have two totally different nine greens, nine are U3 and nine are Tifdwarf, and each nine has different soil compositions as well.
April 1st, Simon, who has worked in maintenance for seven years through a lot of turmoil. He has endured six superintendents during that time span; however, he will be retiring from full time work, luckily, he will remain on the club staff with time split between the clubhouse and course work but at about twenty hours a week. If you see Simon on the course or in the club, please thank him for his dedicated years of service. A job well done Simon!! Thank you!
More to come in May…
Mike
