Some excessive heat and wind to start September had the course very dry and in need of rainfall.  Monday night and into Tuesday we received this rainfall totalling just shy of ¾”.  The rain unfortunately did have a negative impact on course conditioning on Tuesday morning.  This with the loss of the maintenance day on Monday to the long weekend will have the Turfcare team behind in most mowing detail across the property this week.  Strong winds have begun to blow leaves off trees.  The trees are slowly beginning to turn for the fall.  We will continue to blow the property daily and when we can mulch leaves to keep the course as playable and presentable as possible through the fall.  Please be patient as we work to get back on top of all items this week for some great fall golf ahead!

With the arrival of September at the end of this week it is unfortunately time to say goodbye to the majority of the Turfcare team as they return to studies.  We would like to thank these team members for their hard work and dedication to Niakwa this season. Their efforts assisted in providing the members a great 100^th year on the golf course.

With the reduction in team members and a property that is still in full swing, there will be challenges in keeping up with all the details.  There will be a reduction in mowing frequencies, weeding, trimming, and bunker raking.  With this reduction and to keep the property up to standards now would be a great time to get full cooperation from all membership and guests with basic game of golf etiquette items.  We continued throughout the season to have bunkers not raked, ball marks not repaired and divots not filled.  The Turfcare team will no longer have the resources to care for some of these items daily and it is your responsibility to ensure the course is left in the same if not better condition than when you went out to play. If you are playing in the evening please rake your bunkers as we will not be capable of raking bunkers Monday to Friday in the morning as has been the case all summer.  Your cooperation with this will ensure that we finish the 100^th year in great condition for all members and guests to enjoy. 

Wind was the story last week heading into the first two rounds of Club Championships.  The course handled the excessive winds well.  We do have some debris lingering in areas of tree lines and rough.  As we resume with rough mowing this week these things should tidy up with the cut.

As we are nearing the end of August we will be making a small mowing height adjustment to the newest of the clubs greens being 4, 7, 9 and 10.  These new greens just recently celebrated their one year anniversary since opening last year.  We need to keep in mind the youthfulness of these greens.  We have been happy with their performance this season keeping pace to date with the well-established greens on course. Over the past few weeks we have noticed some stresses on these greens that we are not experiencing on the established bent greens.  With this in mind we will be making the necessary adjustment to ensure a healthy fall and to assist in setting these greens up for a happy winter and successful future.  The adjustment will be minor and with proper water management performance may still be similar to the other greens on course.  Thank you for your understanding and cooperation as we continue to establish these greens for a bright future.

Congratulations to all members who participated in Club Championships this past week.  We hope you had a great weekend of competition and golf!

This past Monday, August 14^th the Turfcare team resumed with a light topdressing program.  Typically on the week of a major club event we would shy away from sand and focus on sharp cuts all week to ensure green speeds.  With the continued moisture events we needed to make this application to aid in providing smooth greens which brings speed and plant health especially the newest of the club’s greens.  We will battle some poor cuts to start the week but the plan will be to swap out reels on Thursday to begin to achieve some good cuts ahead of this weekend’s club championships.  We are hopeful for a week of sunshine to firm surfaces up and we would like to wish all members participating in the club championship this weekend the best of luck!

Greens over the past week and continuing into this week are performing a little below what we would like.  We completed an essential day of cultural and fertility practices to the greens on July 31^st.  This program provided the greens with air, sand, and fertility to set the stage for the months of August and September.  Unfortunately following this we received a heavy thunderstorm with 1.5 inches of driving rain.  This essentially washed away all the sand applied and saturated the greens. With the long weekend this week, the window we require to improve performance was not there.  We have not watered greens overnight since the thunderstorm a week ago.  We are hopeful the forecast this week does not deliver too much rainfall to aid in drying out the surfaces and giving us control of the moisture which has an impact on ball roll.  With the fertility application, we have seen an increase in growth which is also slowing up greens.  We are also hopeful that the time required to spray greens this week is available around rainfall to regulate the growth.  This is unfortunately the second time this summer we have lost the benefits of the greens programs to heavy thunderstorms followed by a long weekend. Without the time to reapply sand which aids in smoothness, speed, and firmness we are at the mercy of the elements until the next window of time is available and greens simply will not be at the peak of their performance unless we get cooperation from Mother Nature.