Small Putter Repair

The last aerification cycle we harvested some of the plugs to replace some of our small putting green.  If you have been around the practice area lately you probably have noticed this area.  We currently have it roped off and it will not be usable until spring.

Thanks for your patience.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Justin Ruiz, CGCS, MG
justinr@indiansummergolf.com

Fall Aerification

The leaves are falling and the temperature is dropping.  I didn't think it was going to warm up today.

A couple weeks ago we aerified the greens with quad tines.  We typically do the quad tines in the fall and the larger, longer tines in the Spring.  I like to vary the depth and size each year.  This fall the project went well with very few hiccups.  We timed the weather nearly perfect as we had as much rain over the next few days as we did all summer.  The rain helped wash all the sand into the canopy.  Unfortunately the weather has been a little cooler than my liking.  It is making the healing process a little slower than normal although the greens are nearly 100% now.  We topdressed this week to help smooth out any left over bumps, but the greens have done fairly well given the cooler weather.

One week ago

Couple days ago

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Justin Ruiz, CGCS, MG

justinr@indiansummergolf.com

Practice Area Upgrade

If you have been to the practice area lately, you have probably noticed the chipping green has been renovated. For quite some time the chipping green has been lackluster to say the least. The green was not a good representation of the golf course.

A few weeks ago we stripped the old sod off of the chipping green and re-graded the sand underneath. We enlarged the green in hopes to make use of some of the area on the course if needed. We are also trying to create more of a variety of chip and pitch shots to practice.

This season we also tried to make the driving range a little more interesting with better targets. We mowed out several areas that were most likely previously used for target greens. We also added some flags at short intervals to hone in your wedges. I think this has worked since the amount of debris left on the range tee has increased quite a bit since we mowed out these areas.

Stay tuned for more improvements over the winter and next spring. We have a laundry list of things to do. Don't forget to talk up the club to your friends. It is a pretty exciting time to join the club.

Also, don't forget to fill out your survey. The survey is important to help get your opinion heard on what you like about the club and what we can do to make your membership more valuable.

If you have any question please contact me.

Justin Ruiz, CGCS, MG

justinr@indiansummergolf.com

 

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The Club Entrance

The club entrance has been an eye sore since I started in February of last year. Last year we tried to maintain the landscape to the best of our ability, but the landscape has been in disrepair for some time. The euonymus plants were thinned out from irrigation problems that needed to be fixed and weeds that had taken over the landscape.This year we tried our best to get the entrance of the club to pop. We want to be able to catch the attention of our members and their guests as they pull into the club. We did some changes to the islands going up to the club. Adding turf with a mix of flowers has gotten high praise from a lot of the members.

We have now started the main entrance to the club that has been such an eye sore. We have removed all the landscaping near the road and plan to replace this area with the same motif, turf and flowers. This will help increase the curb appeal of the club.

if you have any questions or concerns about the work happening at the entrance feel free to contact me,

Justin Ruiz, CGCS, MG

justinr@indiansummergolf.com

 

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Latest News

Recently I was interviewed by BASFTurf Talk on the challenges that I expect to face this summer and what I do to beat those challenges. If you would like to read the article please click the link.

Guest blogger superintendent Justin Ruiz

If you have any question please contact me,

Justin Ruiz, CGCS, MG

justinr@indiansummergolf.com

 

Posted with Blogsy

Bunkers

The bunkers begin to deteriorate at five years +/-. Drainage, definition and contamination are all part of the failure of sand bunkers. The recommended life span of a bunker is around  five years before renovation is needed.

Luckily Indian Summer has a good sandy loam sub-soil.  Little to no rocks are present for contamination. The problem I have observed is the lack of drainage.  With a little more investigation, I found that the depth of sand is quite a bit more than USGA's recomendation of 4" on the bottom and 2" on the sides.

Most bunkers do have dry wells installed to allow the water to drain out of the bunkers.  Over time, consistent rain has brought fines to the surface and has basically reduced drainage of the sand dramatically.  A thick layer of sand before it can get to an area that drains is also impeding the movement of water.



Another project that we are looking at this winter is to re-distribute the sand throughout the bunker to get closer to the USGA recommendations.  Some bunkers have more than enough sand while others might be shallow.  We can make use of the extra sand and spread that around to bunkers in need as we make our way through the course.

If you have any questions about the bunkers or any comments about the course please contact me,

Justin Ruiz, CGCS, MG
justinr@indiansummergolf.com

US Open Pictures Courtesy of John Kaminski

Big thanks goes to John Kaminski, PhD. for the inside look at the maintenance practices at the 2011 US Open.  Pretty great photos. you can follow him on twitter, @johnkaminski and read his turf diseases blog at www.turfdiseases.blogspot.com.

Topdressing Greens

Topdressing the greens is an important and necessary practice on a golf course. The frequent incorporation of sand ensures that the putting surface remains true and healthy. Sand continually applied to the green also keeps thatch manageable.

If you have any questions about topdressing or any other questions regarding maintenance feel free to contact me.

Justin Ruiz, CGCS
justinr@indiansummergolf.com

Mowing the Greens

Mowing the greens is an important practice that takes place on a daily basis.  We mow greens regularly to ensure consistent ball roll and to improve density of the turf stand.  We combine this practice with rolling to increase ball roll and in most cases protect plant health.  Rolling and mowing at a higher height can make our jobs easier without compromising plant health.

Full Speed Ahead!

The weather has not given us much remorse this past week.  Rain has been a loyal companion as we forge ahead into the start of the season.  The Men's opening dinner went well with great comments and a warm welcoming.  I mentioned a couple things that we would be working on over the next couple weeks to prepare the course for spring.

Trimming the underbrush and limbing up some low hanging branches is an ongoing process.  These areas that we can clean up help us in a few different ways.  The obvious is being able to better find and play your ball.  The not so obvious that we benefit from is allowing sprinklers to operate without obstruction, mowers to be able to travel without interuption and better air movement and sunlight to increase the health of the turf.  We like projects that increase playabilty and help us out at the same time.

Bunkers work has also become a priority coming into the season.  We have some bunker sand stock piled out near #5.  We use this sand to top off bunkers with subsoil showing, or sand that is too shallow.  The bunkers that have sand added to them will be a little more fluffy than the others until the sand settles.

Along with these small projects, we are keeping a constant eye on the greens to make sure nothing out of the ordinary pops up.  Dan found some Pink Snow Mold (Microdochium Patch) on #8 green.  As I stated on the turf page of our members website, I look at problems and try to understand them fully to hopefully be able to come up with a sound solution.  Since we sprayed a fungicide 21 days ago and it should have lasted 28 days, I asked the question, "Why?"

When we spray greens we split the course into two tanks, since one tank is not enough volume to cover all the greens.  8 green just happens to be the last green on a tank.  My inner turf nerd tells me that we need to investigate how our spray rig works toward the end of a tank.  Did we get good coverage?



If you have any questions about turf disease, bunkers or thinning and trimming, please feel free to send me a message or contact my office.

Justin Ruiz, CGCS
justinr@indiansummergolf.com
360.459.2707

Winter Turf, Welcome to The Northwest

I was excited to come back to the Northwest.  I grew up in Eugene, Oregon and I am honored to graduate from Tom Cook's program at Oregon State (Go Beavs!).  When I went through school we talked a little about pythium root rot, but it was never explained as an issue.  It wasn't until recently that cool weather pythium has hit the mainstream media in the Northwest.

I spent time researching this disease in anticipation of starting at Indian Summer.  There is not much information on the subject and it is still fairly controversial on why it has become a problem just recently.  Our local universities are scrambling to get research done and hopefully answer some unanswered questions.



I have been a very logical, science oriented individual when it comes to turfgrass management.  Most turfgrass issues can be explained with basic science and turf physiology.  Anticipating issues becomes easier once you know how things interact with the plant and soil.

For the longest time root rot pythium was hardly a problem.  Now it has become fairly devastating to turf during the most difficult time of the year for recovery.  Less sun and cooler weather slows turf growth down to a crawl.  This makes recovery difficult, and the plant's ability to respond and defend itself against any infection.  I am sure you have seen this with unrepaired ballmarks.  During the cooler part of the year it is imparitive that we do the best we can to repair the greens quickly and properly to give the greens the best chance to be healthy come spring.  You would be suprised at how disease will target a ballmark that was neglected.



If you have any questions about pythium or ballmark repair please contact me.

Justin Ruiz, CGCS
justinr@indiansummergolf.com