Winter Injury Update

          We have posted pictures of the Old Course Greens that were taken on Thursday April 16th on the Blog.  The covers were put back on the greens Saturday evening and we anticipated removing them today but the extreme  wind is going to prohibit that.  We are continuing to plug the worst areas and have added more manpower to this operation.  We were able to sod three of the worst areas last week on holes 10,11,14.  We are continuing to get recover from most of these areas but the weather this week is not going to be helpful.  This weeks high temperatures are in the 50's with lows in the 30's.  That is not weather conducive for growth.

        The covers will remain on most of this week to help raise soil temperatures.  We do anticipate performing a small tine aerification process this week.  This will take the place of the aerification that normally takes place the first Monday in June.  We have decided to go ahead with this now rather than inconveniencing the membership once the greens have recovered.

         The warmer temperatures last week allowed the greens to begin to grow.  This was the first week this year we have had temperatures that will promote growth.  We are hoping to see these temperatures return towards the end of the week.  We will be reevaluating  the greens later in the week to determine when we can open more holes for play.

        The Falls is continuing to be cleaned up from the Winter.  Maintenance on the Falls was extremely limited following Labor Day in an attempt to reduce expenses.  We also delayed the call back on our maintenance staff until the 13th of April which is two weeks later than normal for budget reasons.  The combination of these two factors have delayed the clean-up of the Falls.  The rough on the Falls is being mowed today which will help cleanup the remaining leaves and debris on the property.

We are hoping to see some better weather next week and thank you for your patience during this time.

Thank you,

Gregory Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

Blog Site: www.ccscrantongreen.blogspot.com

COURSE UPDATE

          The warm temperatures today is allowing us to get some much needed work done to prepare the course for Winter. We sprayed greens this morning and completed our Winter Topdressing Application this afternoon.  We are cutting some sod around the greens to try and divert water from running onto the putting surfaces during the Winter months.  We are installing 8" Sumps over the XGD Drainage pipe on the greens where water collects with hopes of being able to pump the water off the greens during a thaw.  This should keep water from sitting on the greens for any length of time.

        Our final mowing of the season took place over a month ago at 50% higher than our normal height of cut.  We increased the frequency and rate of a wetting agent that encourages water infiltration to aide in moving water through the green.  Please be assured we are doing everything that can possibly be done to promote good health of our putting surfaces for the Winter months.

       The forecast for later in the week is calling for a chance of significant snow.  Because of the potential storm we will be applying the covers on the Old Course greens tomorrow.  This will close the Old Course for the season but the Falls will be available, weather permitting.  I know there was a lot of discussion last Spring about the covers causing the damage to the greens.  Rest assured the covers played no role in the damage that we sustained on our greens.

Sumps were installed in the greens to help remove
water during the winter once the greens freeze.  We
will use electric pumps to remove water from greens.

Sod was stripped to help divert water from running onto the greens on #6, #10, and #18.

       The heavy sand topdressing helps to protect the crown of the plant and insulates the delicate Poa-Annua plants during the Winter Months.  Even with all these efforts we are putting into place we are still in the mercy of Mother Nature.  The best case scenario would for us to not to have to hear the words Polar Vortex the entire Winter.  We will be keeping a very close eye on the greens this Winter.  During periods of snow cover we will be monitoring the greens for any ice accumulation.  If the greens are snow covered and a thaw is expected we will begin removing snow off the greens.  This will keep the snow from melting on the greens and refreezing.

We will keep you posted of our precautionary maintenance practices throughout the Winter months.

Thank you and have a nice holiday,

Gregory Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

Tee Project

The tees will be sodded over the next two days. The contractor who is leveling the tees will be finished this morning. 20 pallets of sod arrived this morning and we expect another 20 tomorrow.

TEE WORK

          Today the Green Department began a Tee Leveling Project that we hope to complete by the end of next week.  We have identified several tee boxes throughout the property in need of leveling and we began the process of stripping the sod today.  A contractor will be in here next Tuesday for a few days to perform the actually leveling process but the Green Department will be performing most of the prep and sod work. These tees will be sodded with new sod and will be closed for a few weeks next Spring.

       We will also begin replacing the cart paths on holes 2 and 15 next week.  These paths have deteriorated in recent years and are in dire need of replacement.  We expect this work to begin on Monday.


Thank you,

Gregory Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

COURSE UPDATE

           With temperatures in the upper 70's earlier this week it has been a great opportunity for some Fall golf at The Country Club of Scranton.  It has also been a good opportunity for the Green Department to get some work completed on the property.  We are continuing to Verti-cut and Topdress fairways.  We have also been able to aerify and topdress approaches and tees.  On Monday, November 3rd we will begin aerifying and verticutting the Old Course Greens.  This will be an aggressive process and will also be very time consuming.  The Fall's Greens, which were aerated a few weeks ago are being mowed today and have healed well, considering they were aerified in early October, will be available.   We are going to make a push to complete everything next week due to the impending lay-off of 90% of the Green Department staff.  The Old Course will remain open next week but it may be necessary to close a hole temporarily to complete the required maintenance.

         Next week you may also see a paving contractor on property doing some much needed improvements to our cart paths.  We will be concentrating our work on #2 and #15.  We will also begin stripping some tees throughout the property so they can be leveled and planted with new sod.  This process will take about a week to complete.  We will be using the sod that we remove from the tees to sod several damaged areas on the Old Course Fairways.

       As you can see there is still a great deal of work to be completed before the onset of Winter.  We have raised the height of cut on our greens to its highest height in the past seven years to prepare the greens for Winter.  We have also increased our fertilizer applications to prepare the plant for the Winter months.  We are doing everything possible to prepare our putting surfaces for what could be another Winter with below average temperatures.

Thank you,

Gregory Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

Fairway Cultivation

 We are performing an aggressive verticut-cut process to the fairways.  Once they are cleaned up we will be applying approximately 300 ton of sand to the Old Course fairways.  

Naturalized Area Expanded around #8 Pines Tee

The area surrounding the tee complex on #8 Pines has been converted to Fescue Grasses.  This area has limited irrigation and the large area is very labor intensive to mow and maintain on a weekly basis.  The newly planted Fescue Grasses is the perfect grass due to the limited irrigation and will not require the weekly mowing that the area requires now.  This should have no impact on the playability of the hole.

COURSE UPDATE

COURSE UPDATE

            Aerification has been completed and the Golf Course is in recovery mode from the August Aerifiction.  Greens are on schedule with healing and we are going to being cutting them on a daily basis.  Following aerification we have to discontinue our normal mowing practices due to the amount of sand on the greens.  The sand topdressing will dull the mower blades therefore we decrease the frequency in which we cut them to try and salvage the mowers.   We also have to wait until the greens are dry to mow them because the wet sand will stick to the mowers and reels and will expedite the dulling of the mowers. 

            We realize that aerification is never a popular maintenance practice but it is a necessary one and there is never a good time to complete this task.  We currently aerify three times a year.  We punch very small holes in early June with bigger holes being utilized in August and November.  These practices are essential to the health and playability to our putting surfaces.  The August aerifiction is our most aggressive aerifiction due to the fact that everything is actively growing and will recover quickly.  We also have the full force of all of our summer staff to help with the process, which allows us to perform this process quickly and effectively. 

            Our plan the remainder of the week is to mow and roll the greens everyday through Sunday.   This should result in a significant improvement to greens over the next few days.   The process and mowing schedule used this year following aerification is the same that we have used in previous years.  Recovery for this process is essentially two weeks.  Now that we are beginning to get a better quality of cut on the greens we will see rapid improvement over the next few days.   

            Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time,

Gregory Boring,

Golf Course Superintendent

COURSE UPDATE

         The Green Department has been busy this week with the Memorial Tournament  behind us.  We have been constructing a 5000ft2 (approx size of #1 Green) Green's Nursery behind #8 Green that will be grassed early next week.  We will be utilizing the plugs we pull off the greens from the aerification process, so this nursery will be made up of the same grass we currently have on our greens.  We have also been repairing a few small irrigation leaks throughout the property.  We should have these repaired by the end of today.

         We will begin our Summer Aerification process on Sunday evening.  We will begin punching the Willow's Greens late Sunday afternoon.  For this reason the afternoon rotation for Sunday afternoon will remain the North Course from 11:00 through the remainder of the day.  Eighteen holes will be available all day.  We will begin aerifying and topdressing fairways on Monday.  This is our aggressive aerification of the year, when we punch the bigger holes.  The reason we do it in August is because the grass is actively growing and will recover much quicker than if we performed this in the Spring or Fall.

          It will take us approximately three to four days to complete the process.  During this time some holes may be closed to allow us to complete this process as quickly as possible so we can begin the recovery process.  We should also expect much slower green speeds during the next ten days due to the reduction in the frequency of mowing and the amount of sand that will be applied to the greens.  This will be our last aerifiction to the greens until early November.

We realize that aerification is never a popular procedure but it is a necessary one to promote strong healthy turf.  We thank you for your cooperation next week and hope to return the golf course to normal conditions as quickly as possible.

Thank you,
Greg Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

COURSE UPDATE

          The Greens continue to get better by the day.  We have been very conservative with all the greens this week due to the heat we are currently experiencing.  We will drop the height slightly on the last four greens to open this Friday.  This process will continue based on the weather until all the greens are the same height.  Dropping these greens too quickly could delay the complete recovery of the greens or worse cause them to decline.  This has already happen to several courses in the Northeast that pushed their greens to quickly.
       
         We are currently working on a regressing project around #17 tee complex.  This are will be completed tomorrow afternoon.  Many of you may have noticed some miscellaneous seeding around the cart paths.  This is damage due to carts pulling off the paths around greens and tees.  We ask that we keep all four wheels on the paths around the greens and tee boxes.  This will help many of these areas to grow in and look more aesthetically pleasing.  We are continue to make improvements to the golf course by sodding some areas in the fairways and should have most of that completed by the end of the week.

Thank you,

Greg Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

USGA Article on Soft Spikes

USGA: Northeast

Getting Better Every Day

After one of the worst winters many of us have ever seen the greens are nearly recovered from the unprecedented winter injury that occurred this year.  Even though a few greens have a few thin areas and four greens are a little slower than the rest of them, the golf course is starting to take shape.  Here is a look back at the strides we have taken in the past 3 months.

10 Green April 15

10 Green May 10

10 Green June 26

18 Green April 15

18 Green May 15

18 Green June 26

COURSE UPDATE

          The hard work that has been done the last couple of months has finally begun to pay off.  This week with the help of some rain from Mother Nature we have seen a drastic improvement in the damaged greens.  

          It is my pleasure to report that we will be opening the remaining four greens next Friday, June 20th.  We will begin mowing them with more frequency next week but they will be noticeably slower than the greens that have been open and we've been utilizing in the daily rotation.  We will have to be cautious with all the young seedlings on these greens but things should begin to get back to normal very soon.  

        Once again, we appreciate and thank you for your patience during much of this Spring with the many inconveniences.  The Green Department has been extremely busy to try and expedite the recovery process.  I would also like to thank my staff for their dedication, hard work, and tireless hours to help with the recovery process.  

Thank you, 

Gregory Boring

#8 Pines

Hydroseeding the lake bank along #8 tee.  

COURSE UPDATE

         A lot has been done on the golf course since the last update.  As mentioned a few weeks ago we elected to aerify the Old Course Greens several weeks ago and skipped the scheduled aerification on the Old Course yesterday.  We did aerify the Falls Greens as well as the putting green.  We also performed a procedure on the Old Course Greens that injected compressed air into the soil of the Old Course Greens and will help water to move laterally in the soil and help find the existing drainage in the greens.  This is intended to allow our greens to drain more effectively during the summer months.  This will not aid in drainage while the soil is frozen during the Winter.  .

        We have continued the seeding process on many of the greens.  We are continuing  to seed greens weekly and fertilized twice per week.  Greens on holes #9,#10,#14, and #18 are being aerated and topdressed today to prepare them for opening.  We don't have a date at this time of when they will be open for play but it should be soon.  The sod is rooting well on #14 and #10 and we have continued to roll the areas to allow for a smooth playing surface.  A little rain this week should only expedite the recovery process.

        We will be fertilizing fairways, tees, and approaches next week.  This is about two weeks behind schedule due to our cooler than average spring.  We have also been replacing a substantial amount of plant material around the clubhouse grounds that did not make it through the rough winter.

         The twenty-three greens that are open continue to get better every day.  The frequent mowing is resulting in increased smoothness and increased ball roll.  We have continue to mow the greens much higher than we normally do to continue to allow the thin areas to fill in.  We verticut and top dressed the greens yesterday that will aide in providing a smoother, more consistent putting surface.  The Poa-Annua  seedheads continue to flower on the greens.  This is also causing some bumpiness that we typically have to manage every years in late May and early June.  Poa-Annua usually produces a seedhead for about two weeks that causes the greens to have a white haze look to them and causes the greens to become bumpy during this time period.

       With any luck this week we will get a couple timely rain events that will help speed up the recovery process.  The new seed has really started to germinate in the last two weeks and some natural rainfall will only help this process.  We will continue to keep you posted.

Thank you,

Gregory Boring

Improvement Continues

APRIL 21, 2014

MAY 19, 2014

COURSE UPDATE

          The Green Department has been diligently working to expedite the recovery process of the greens.  We continue to see progress with the greens even with the recent colder nighttime temperatures.  The greens have been covered the last three nights due to these colder temperatures.  

          We have completed plugging the putting green and are allowing those plugs to root properly before opening up the putting green.  We anticipate having the putting green open for the weekend.  The sod on #10 and #14 has begun to root and we have started the mowing and toprdressing procedure on these greens to help smooth the sod and prepare it for putting quality.  Friday we will be changing the rotation to the Old Course but will keep four greens closed.  The rotation will consist of playing holes 1-8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 then 1, 2, 8, and 9 on the Falls.  We will keep you posted on when the final four greens will open.  Greens on holes 9, 10, 14, and 18 continue to lag behind the others.   

          Even with opening more greens we will continue to treat several greens a little different.  Several of the greens that have opened still have a few thin areas that need to be grown-in.  We are treating these greens a little different than the Falls Greens.  They are fertilized more and are mowed with a different mower at a different height of cut.  This results in the green being considerably slower than the Falls.  We have kept the heights up on the Falls greens to try and match the speed but the heavy amounts of fertilizer given to Old Course greens are causing them to grow at a much faster rate.  Mowing the Old Course greens lower and reducing the amount of fertilizer that is being applied to them will only slow down the recovery process.  Our goal is to get them healthy and 100% covered with grass.   We will continue to need warmer air temperatures to help increase our soil temperatures for this to happen.   

        I will be addressing the Membership tomorrow at the May Membership Meeting.  I hope to answer many of the question that you may have.  

Thank you, 

Gregory Boring

Very Wet Conditions

The standing water on #18 Green yesterday is in the exact
area where ice damage was sustained.   

The Golf Course received over 2.25" of rain yesterday.  We will be able to mow greens today but expect soft and very slow conditions.

Course Update

         The recent warm up has been a welcomed change for the Green Department.  We have continued to seed the damaged greens once a week and continue to see steady progress.  We are going to open up three more holes this Friday that will give us an18 hole rotation.  We will be opening #6, #7, and #12.  Terry will be sending out an email about the order in which the holes will be played.  There are still a few thin areas on these greens so please avoid these areas while you are walking on and off these greens.

         Most of the greens are making steady progress.  Greens on holes 9, 10, 14,18 and the putting green have continued to lag behind the others and will take some more time until they are ready to be opened.  We will continue to keep you updated with their status.  Due to the fact that #14 green was lagging behind we made a decision to sod the two severe areas on #14 and had some additional sod we used on #10.  This is very unique sod that is made of Poa Annua which is the same grass we have on our greens.  This sod was in very high demand this Spring due to the widespread damage and we were able to get 2000 square feet to use on our most damaged areas.  This was the last of the sod this farm had available.  This sod was laid last night and it will take time to smooth the sod and develop roots to allow foot traffic on the green.

        We continue to remove plugs from #4 Falls green and they are currently being used to repair damage on the putting green.  Once the putting green is completed we will be sodding the right side of #4 Falls with sod from #2 Falls fairway.  The driving range tee is finally beginning to grow and we will be opening up the grass part of the tee on Friday of this week.

       The Green Department and I would like to thank the membership for their patience during this difficult situation.  Things are moving in the right direction and more holes will be opening up soon.  One of my main goals was to have at least 18 holes open and we will accomplish this on Friday.  We continue to seed and nurse the remaining greens back to health and will only be a matter of time before we have all 27 holes open.

Thank you,

Gregory Boring

HAVE WE MADE ANY PROGRESS?