A nice rainfall blessed Niakwa last week on Thursday. While it wasn’t as much as we could use it was a beneficial ½” that took some stresses off the turf for the weekend. For maintenance day this week, the Turfcare team focused on greens. We resumed with light topdressing followed by a roll to set the sand into the canopy. For the next few days, we will battle this sand and some quality of cut issues but things should be in a good spot come Thursday to resume with fresh reel cuts. This week we will be applying fungicide to Fairways and tee’s. We have some dollar spot disease that is beginning to kill back turf throughout the property. With the tee sheet busy and a corporate event on Monday, we will split the application over two days focusing on the front nine and then the back nine. This spray will leave a green residue on the turf that will transfer to shoes and equipment until dry.
Greens:
- With no club events this week, we will focus on some details on greens. Some plugging of imperfections removing moss and old plugs will take place.
- We will fill the greens up with heavy water on Monday night. The ground conditions are very dry even with the ½” of rain last week. At about the 5-inch layer, the greens are very dry and in need of deep watering. This will create softer conditions for a couple days and slow down ball roll a bit.
Audubon:
- Thank you to Karen Yamada and the resource advisory group for organizing a thistle removal day this past Monday. A great deal of thistle was removed from the clubhouse areas. A big thank you to the members that participated and made a significant difference in these areas.
Etiquette:
- We continue to find bunkers and ball marks in unacceptable states in the morning. We do not have the ability to rake bunkers every day. Evening golfers must also practice proper etiquette to ensure that all members the following day have acceptable conditions. This is expected from all members and guests and we will continue to talk with people on the course as we see violations of these basic course etiquette rules.