By Rumbling Bald Golf Course Superintendent Lance Allen
The Bald Mountain associates and I have been busy in November and December, battling weather conditions to be as productive as possible and to take steps to improve the golf course.
November started out with aggressive aerification and heavy topdressing. We tried to tighten the spacing between the holes to allow more sand to enter and firm up the green surface. We would drag the greens and add more sand if needed, and spray multiple fertilizers, surfactants, and pesticides to keep the turf on the greens active and growing as much as possible despite falling soil temperatures.
After aerification, we switched our attention to fall pre-emergent. We apply fall pre-emergent to keep Poa annua from growing on the course. We use a combination of two or three chemicals to prevent resistance and rotate the chemistry year after year to stay ahead of this invasive weed. At Bald Mountain, this application is complicated by the fact that the putting surfaces are Dominant bentgrass. Most of the selective and pre-emergent herbicides that kill Poa will also kill the grass on the greens. Products can move off your target area in different ways, but the most common are foot traffic before the product dries, dew, or washing due to heavy rainfall after application. Therefore, the correct choice of chemistry is paramount when deciding what products to use where. We sprayed a combination of three herbicides on the tee complexes, fairways, and rough up to the slope around the greens, and marked this line. Then we came back and sprayed a different combination of chemicals on the collars and on the green slopes down to the marked line. I am happy with the results so far, and the golf course is clean and Poa-free.
As I have ridden around the course my first few months here, one thing stands out to me more than anything. That one thing is playability! The maintenance staff has cut and cleaned up large areas of brush and saplings on holes 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15. The most exciting thing that happened over fall break was the tree-removal project on #12 and #13. We removed or trimmed 40 trees bordering these holes to improve both playability and agronomic value. While they do have a place in golf, trees make the game harder, and #13 does not need anything else, making it harder to hit a shot or grow grass.
Plants need sunlight to photosynthesize. Without the sun, cell division slows, and turf cannot keep up with the traffic it endures from carts and golfers. There are plans to remove both fairway bunkers on #13 to enlarge the fairway, and we hope to strip and sod both the back and forward tees in the early spring. I appreciate management and the homeowner’s support for this project, and I look forward to future projects that improve the course.
