Golf Course Trades Article

Just wanted to share with everyone the most recent publishing of an article I wrote for Golf Course Trades Magazine.  You can view the article by clicking on this link. Golf Course Trades

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March Greens Committee Report

Monthly Greens Committee Report

Presented to The Rim Greens Committee

By

Golf Course Superintendent

Justin C. Ruiz, CGCS

March, 2010

Course Condition

Spring is upon us and we are experiencing some warmer weather after a long winter. The course is now starting to kick dormancy along with the surrounding plant life. Allergy season is on its way.

Projects Completed

We rented a tractor attachment to mow down the native grasses. The machine did make some noticeable markings in the native areas. I had received some comments and concerns about these areas and we are making efforts to smooth these areas out. We will make efforts for the next mowing practice to be less noticeable.

Picking Annual Bluegrass (Poa) out of the greens was also completed one time over. We will stay on this project all season. Removing anything we see as we go through our mowing practices.

#8 has a new bridge for our walking members. With the heavy rains the wash had grown a little larger and the walking members had to jump from a rock to the other side of the shore. Dan made use of the old fence materials on hand to construct a nice looking bridge.

Projects in Process

The bunkers have gone through a lot during the winter storms. We have had multiple wash outs that we have been able to quickly fix but now we are taking our time making sure proper depth is achieved. The USGA recommends 2” on the faces and 4” at the bottom of the bunkers. We make sure the sand is pushed back onto the sides and the recommended measurements are achieved. We also do our best to remove as many rocks as possible and fix the liner as we get to each bunker. These have both been chronic problems that we have dealt with in our bunkers.

Pressure check on our sprinkler heads. Our new intern is picking up where we left off last fall checking sprinkler pressures. This will help the heads apply water more accurately. After these adjustments we will start auditing selected areas. We will do the auditing that was taught to me at the National Conference and Show.

Tee Aerification is currently in process but will be finished Tuesday March, 30th. All 18 holes will be completed and topdressed with sand.

Projects Planned

We have purchased some Barley straw bails for the lakes. It has been proven that when barley straw is placed in the lake it will suppress new algae growth but it will not remove existing algae.

Spray applications are scheduled for Cutworm activity. Yes, it is that time of year and we have begun catching Cutworms in our pitfall traps. They have started around the perimeter of the golf course.

Integrated Pest Management

We have begun our Degree Day counting. If you are interested in our process, please click here. We are also checking soil temperatures for a root infecting disease called Summer Patch. The disease colonizes the plant roots in the spring, but actual symptoms do not appear until the weather conditions get hot and then the disease is very hard to combat since it has had all spring to get established.

Aerification Notice read more

Greens Aerification April 12th.

Fairway Aerification April 26th.

Side Notes

We have been lucky to be invited by Audubon Lifestyles to be a pilot golf course to begin the Sustainable Golf Facility Program. Audubon has asked us to be the first course in Arizona to be enrolled in their program.

I have also been invited to help give advice on our National Associations Drive to Sustainability campaign to change the industry’s approach on golf course management. Along with this program our course is also enrolled in the Environmental Management Systems program that closely resembles the Audubon program. Since the course was originally pursuing the Audubon signature program during construction we have many valuable records that will make these processes much easier to complete.

We have also increased our crew to eleven members. That increase includes an intern Brett Swain from Pennsylvania, who recently graduated from Rutgers, and an Assistant Superintendent Andrew from Washington, who was our intern last year. He graduated from Walla Walla Community College with a turf degree.

If you have any questions, please contact me or Dan.

Justin Ruiz, CGCS                                             Dan Devere, CGCS

justinr@therimgolfclub.org                                  ddevere@chaparralpines.org