Welcome to June at the Orchards! I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone for being a member and for your support so far this year. The golf course is improving by the week, and with summer fast approaching we anticipate conditions getting even better. Our greens maintenance staff is now complete- please take a minute to wave or say hello when you see them working hard out on the course.
It’s been considerably drier this season than I can remember, but temperatures overall have been moderate. These aren’t the most ideal conditions for growth and recovery of turf, but I do like being on the drier side of things. We won’t look a gift horse in the mouth, so I’ll take the cooler temperatures thus far into June. A dry and firm golf course is a healthier one, so overall I’m happy with conditions as they stand.
Greens 11, 13, 15, and 17 have recently been verticut, seeded, and topdressed. The reason for this is to give them one last push towards becoming as healthy and playable as the rest of the greens. They’ve come a long way since the course opened, and I do believe they’re about to “turn the corner”. With warming temperatures and good spring rain, it won’t be long before they’re completely grown in.
Greens 3,7, & 8 are doing well- the seams are hardly even noticeable any more. They will continue to need a lot of TLC throughout the season, so please be patient while we take them slowly at times. It’s nice to see them adapting as well as they have, but my enthusiasm is tempered because our vision for them is long term health and success, not short term “wow”.
In the coming days we will be solid tine aerifying the rest of the greens on the course (as well as a possible light verticut). A verticut will help promote the lateral growth of bentgrass and fill in any weaker areas that exist out there. The solid tine aerification will serve to alleviate any areas of compaction or other stress on the greens. The benefit of both practices is that they minimally affect conditions but pay huge dividends. We will also begin to tackle other projects which involve areas of the course other than greens, tees, and fairways. We look forward to your input as we get into little projects all over the course.
All fairways and approaches have been fertilized, and there is already a noticeable improvement in green-up and growth. The practice tee is looking better all the time, and in a few short weeks we will be hitting golf balls from the new sod. There is still some work to be done on the tee, such as topdressing, filling low areas, aerifying, and fertilizing so please bear with us as we continue to improve the tee. In addition to the new surface, we also have the benefit of new limited flight practice balls. The immediate benefit of these balls is that we can now use the whole tee surface and you can use any club in your bag, whereas in the past we had to limit the use of certain clubs or move the hitting area back. In the long run, the new tee coupled with the advancements in limited flight balls will allow you to get the most use out of our new practice tee.
As we get more towards the summer months I would like to remind everyone to please keep carts to authorized areas only. Please refrain from driving near greens and tees, in natural/ fescue areas, or in areas that are excessively wet or roped off. The turf and soil will thank all of us for being as gentle as we can.
Thank you and we look forward to seeing everyone on the course.
Matt Streeter (Superintendent)
Andrew Charbonneau (Assistant Superintendent)
