Healing up Nicely

We are healing up quick from the aerification,  Greens are rolling smooth and have gained some speed.  We have placed a new walk bridge on 17,  We moved the bridge back to about 75 yards back from the green.  Each year we struggle  with the front of the green due to foot traffic.  If we put through 15,000 rounds a year that one spot on the green gets walked on 30,000 times.  Imagine what your lawn would look like if 30,000 people walked through it in the same spot.

We are going to fix the Irrigation Leak in #1 fairway this week, we started the long, long, long, task of bush hogging native. We are going to start playing with painting fairways this week as well.

As you can tell just cause the grass slows down we don't!

Have a great week, Kevin

Punching Greens!

We are scheduled to start to start punching greens THIS Sunday Afternoon, all day Monday and Tues.  The course will re-open on Wednesday Morning!  If you want to get out Monday morning to play 9 holes the back will be open for play until 11:00 call the pro shop, Kevin

Green!

We are greening up with the rain we are finally getting.  Fairway mowers and rough mowers are out for the first time in months!  We have seed the areas on greens that struggled this summer in the heat and have great germination and should be back completely playable in a couple weeks!  Thanks for a great summer and I think we are all happy to see rain and Fall show up!.  Enjoy your day! Kevin

Greens Recovery Plans

Along with most courses in the area we have taken a hit over the last two weeks to our greens and course.  In the last 30 days we have gotten .90 inches of rain here on the property.  It has been a crazy hot and dry summer over all.  Less than 4 inches of rain over the last 60 days!  I was watching storms lately and wondering why we seem to have what we call the "New Kent Bubble" over us all the time.  What I have noticed by watching the radar like a hawk is that Royal New Kent sits between two rivers, If the storm come from the Richmond area it seems to split right before the New Kent County line and follow both rivers leaving us high and dry!

We are going to start the healing process with a brushing of the greens to remove some excess thatch.  Followed by a good shot fertilizer. We will also start a frequent very light topdressing schedule. in the next couple weeks we we start a light schedule of verti-cutting greens as well.  Then we will seed areas that need it.  Patience is the key to it all!  

The rest of the course is just SUPER dry buy should bounce back as soon as we start getting some good rain.  In the mean time enjoy hitting long drives of a lifetime!  Kevin

AERIFICATION

We are scheduled to punch greens this week but with the high temps we are definitely not going to do it Monday and will be day to day this week depending on weather conditions.  Call the pro shop for day to day schedule.  Kevin

Will It Ever Stop?

As you have felt we have been experiencing some extreme HEAT!   For myself it has been ruff thinking thinking that it is only July!  When you have heat in August you can almost feel and see a light at the end of the tunnel.  We are handling the heat OK,  We have been pulling hose and hand watering greens from 6:00 am till 6-8 pm to keep them at surface temperatures below 99 degrees.  We measure a few things every day in different ways.  We use laser guns to see the surface temps.  We use soil moisture meters to keep the soil at 12-18%.  We are pulling small cores out of the greens to see how the soil is holding water.  This week we used Cross Tines and punched greens to help get old moist water out of the soil and new water in.  We used a cross tine to get the results of the half inch tine but only get the hole of a quarter inch tine.

Cart Path Only

I know the words Cart Path Only are the three most feared and foul words in all of golf.  The turf health has improved in some of the fairway that have been roped off since winter.  The bottom of five fairway, top of eight fairway and hole eleven has improved tremendously.  We have been opening the holes on super busy days and big outings to help with the speed of play.  We are going to open theses hole this week for all play due to extreme heat.  We still ask you follow the cart path signs when to exit fairways!  We will continue to open and close the fairways as needed.  For all of you that have been patient while we improve the playing surfaces, THANK YOU!!!

A new Addition to help encourage cart path only request

Don't eat the Black Berries

Please do not eat the Black Berries on the back 9!!  We have started Spraying the native with a Very Strong Herbicide.    Thanks, Kevin

New Sod Area

We have Sodded the big irrigation repair hole on 13 fairway today.  Please use Ground Under Repair If your ball comes to rest on the sod.  Thanks, Kevin

Healing Fast

The Greens have healed quickly over the last week.  We are 99% healed and the greens are growing like crazy.  The growth of the turf is causing the greens to be bumpy a little slower than normal.  We are combating the growth with a Growth Regulator (Primo).  We are also going to double Cut and Roll Greens in the morning (Thursday) to get the greens rolling much better or the weekend.  Thanks for your patience. Kevin

Aerification

The necessary evil is done and healing well.  We put on an application of fertilizer this morning to finish the heal up.  The greens are about 50% healed and will be healed by next weekend for a great roll once again.  The turf is going gang busters right now, we are all on mowers trying to keep the playing surfaces in top play-ability.

Cart path blocks

We have Started to install cart path block at tees and greens to help protect the new sod where there is no curb. I never have been to able to figure out why it is so hard to park all four wheels on the path at tees and greens!  I find myself doing the same thing sometimes. SMH  (Shake My Head)  Kevin

Good week of GREEN

With temperatures over 80 degrees over the last 7 days we have exploded in color.  We started mowing on a schedule this week.  It's nice to see green!  We are working on a few things as well.  We are sodding area around tees and greens to do away with exposed dirt areas due to foot traffic and soil compaction.  We are also spraying native grass areas that we have bush hogged to knock back weeds and briers.  Some areas will be sprayed out completely while others will be only sprayed  36 feet off the edge of the ruff.  Cleaning the ruff  is a project that we are 100% committed to but will take a couple years to get fully accomplished.  With the sod fields coming out of dormancy slowly as well we are still a couple weeks out on the sodding of 6 fairway.   Kevin

Back to Brown!

We were well on our way to turning green until last weekend hit us with a cold hard frost.  The paint was working perfect warming up the soil and turning us green week ahead of schedule.  In step MOTHER NATURE!  The weather out look does look good for the next week to warm us back up.  there is a good side to the frost as well.  We now have extra time ti button up some things/projects around the course.  I hope your plants/flowers did not get smacked by the frost as well.  Kevin

#6 Fairway update.

The massive sink hole in #6 fairway has been repaired.  We Still need to do final grade and sod the fairway.  We are going to wait a couple weeks to sod waiting on the sod fields to harvest green sod and increase our success rate.  The white tee on #7 will be sodded at the same time. We have started to reapir the drain in the approach on 14 fairway.  Sometimes it's fustrating dealing with this massive property and the mind of Mike Strantz.  This what we thought was going to be a easy fix once we found out the end of the pipe was 3 feet deep in silt seems to be a major repair.  The pipe over the last 15 years has comletely filled with silt.  We are now in the process of finding the most inexspenceive but long term repair. We are starting green up and and making the first cuts in fairways, tees, collars, and approaches as well.  Hope you are getting a chance to come out and enjoy this wonderful weather.  Kevin

Painting

We Will Start the process of painting the fairways at all three clubs this week.  This usually takes about 9-10 days to spray all the fairways at all three clubs. (+/-138 acres).  There might be a cart restriction on freshly painted fairways. Please keep a look out for Fairway Closed Signs!

Greens are rolling smooth and have a great pace to them.  We stimped them at 11 yesterday afternoon.

Hole 6 will be played as a par 3 for the next couple weeks while we repair the drainage sink hole in the middle of the fairway.  The guys fixing the drain are not golfers and have been asked to be considerate of golfers but I cannot tell you they are going to stop working.

We have started our spring Irrigation Audit.  Each spring we go through our entire Irrigation System to make sure everything is working and working properly.  If you see water on, it will not be on long we just need to make sure that the correct water comes on and the head is spinning properly. Then comes the fun part of repairing the problems.

The course is very wet and will be cart path only for a few days.  Call the pro shop to get cart path rule for the day!

Aerafication is coming soon we will post these date on the Blogs in the near future!

If your a DYI person, now is the time to get your Pre-Emergent down.  If your looking for a great green up for your yard but don't want the labor of mowing yet, Ironite is a great product to get that accomplished.  You can get Ironite at Lowes, Home Depot, or Southern States.  It's not that expensive. $8-10 bucks per bag!

Have a great week, Kevin

This Week

We are starting the process of spraying Pre-Emergent this week and as soon as we finish with that we are going to start Painting Fairways.  Kevin

Projects this week!

We have started the repair on #6 Fairway Drain.  The tees have been set up as a par 3 about 110 yards.  The other repair is the drain on #14 fairway on the other side of the mounds.  Both of these project should be completed by the end of the week and believe me we are just as happy as you to see them fixed.  If you see Joe Sanders out and about, make sure you tell him thanks for the time, equipment, and help with both repairs!  I hope you get a chance to play golf in this BEAUTIFUL weather this week.  Kevin

Big Plate - Little Time -Great Staff

We are just a couple weeks away from cranking up all cylinders for a GREAT golf season. We have a huge plate of work to do before then but with my staff we can do it.  We have just a few holes to finish edging the cart paths.  We are gearing up to paint the fairways, pre-emerge for crab and goose grass, finish prepping equipment, a few bunkers to repair, and more.  I'm looking forward to keeping up the pace on improving the conditions at RNK.  We are on the right track and we have no plans on stopping the train!  Kevin

Cleaned up and open

We are all cleaned up and open from the storms that passed through this week.  We will be on Cart Path Only today and Saturday, call the proshop for Sundays cart path rules.  Kevin

5000!!

We have hit the 5000 visit mark on the RNK Turf Talk Blog in just two years!!!!!! 

 I hope you all enjoy it it!  Kevin

Snow Again!!!

We did get a small amount of snow last night! Hopefully it will melt this afternoon.  Call Pro-Shop for more details and weekend play!  Kevin

Still Cart Path Only!

Still Cart Path Only and with rain coming it looks like we will be that way through the weekend.  Sorry!  Kevin

OPEN MONDAY!!!!

We are open and Cart Path Only TODAY!!! We still have a couple greens that need to finish melting but should finish melting today!  Kevin

Still Closed

We will still be closed Saturday January 30th

Lets Hear It!

One of the main reasons this blog exists is for you the members can get needed information and ask question about the property.  Good or bad comments are helpful.  We use praise to keep us feeling good about the work we do and criticism to keep us humble and our strive for excellence ongoing.  Please keep your concerns professional!  Kevin

Projects Ongoing

It's a balancing act to get all the normal day to day work done, plus fix and repair immediate repairs, and then tackle projects.  It frustrates me as much as the golfer look at a repair or project not finished.  We are on a full scale of attack to knock out as much as this as weather allows this winter.  The last two winters have been a waste with the terrible weather.  Here are the project we plan on attacking and the status of the projects.

- The bunker on 10 is finished and playable.  We do have a ground under repair spot we need to sod in the spring.

- Irrigation and drainage in 13 fairway.  After an irrigation leak lead to a major drainage problem we are planning on heading to dig a huge hole in 13 fairway.

- 7 white tee was a two for one deal. The tee top suffered major turf loss last year from winter kill.  Our idea was to take the good sod from what was left and use it to build the bunker face for number four.  After cutting the sod out we realized the sod was too sandy and would not stay together to handle for the move to 4.  We did have enough hold together to use the sod on 18 white tee.  Sodding dormant turf is 50/50 it lives or dies.  Sometimes in some places I will risk the effort.  I did not feel like risking the effort and the funds.  We want to make that tee a solid Zoyzia Tee.  The Zoyzia  will take the traffic, the beating, and the risk for future winter kill better rather than putting the 419 Bermuda back.  We plan on sodding the tee as soon as the sod fields turn green in the spring.

- The hole that never stops growing in number six fairway is on the list to get repaired soon.  Once again one of out gracious members is coming to the rescue again and going to allow us to borrow the machines necessary to make the repair.

- Drains are getting worse!  Not sure the plan of attack yet but one we finish the hole on 13 and six We plan on putting all hands on deck to knock out as many drains as we can till the grass turns green again.

*** Disclaimer-   All work is based on weather and Mother Nature.  

Kevin

Bunker is IN PLAY!!!!!!

The fairway bunker on number 10 is back in play after a two year (work on when you can) project.  It is a playable bunker, not a waste bunker!  Please keep your carts out of the bunker. The sod around the bunker edge is Ground Under Repair where marked.   Thanks Kevin