Touch-up Paint

We have learned that you will get the best results in painting your equipment during the winter refurbishment period when you buy your paint products directly from your manufacturer. 

And the added cost is well worth it!  

 

Fall Clearing

This is the fourth hole and we have cleared the willows around the pond edge 

to open up the line of sight to the green.

Same thing here on the third hole.

 

Bittersweet Tee Markers and Data Signs

The Bittersweet color motif is based on a tangerine orange, apricot yellow, and a lime green scheme. 

Our new tee data signs and tee markers are designed using these colors. 

Our tee markers are painted to match the color motif of our club founders.

The tee data signs have been cut to match the tee marker shapes. 

The wood that we used for this came from a special order at Menards for 8" by 8" pine on 8 foot lengths. 

 

Poa annua and bentgrass turf nursery

In 2022 we spread the plugs from the aerification of greens on our nursery. 

This will give us a sod source in case we ever have winter-kill of poa annua on our greens.

The turf nursery started out as an abandoned sand plot near the 15th tee.

After we striped the sod we spread a layer of root zone sand and leveled the area out with a box float.

We then I seeded using a drop spreader three directions. 

Note the blackened sand. This is from 1.5 lbs of nitrogen per thousand square feet from Milorganite. 

I like to load of sand with a liberal amount of slow release organic nitrogen when I seed directly into it. 

I have found that this is a good way to grow in bent-grass from seed.

The seed was then dimpled in with a Toro Sand Pro. This assures good soil to seed contact. 

We then fired  up the sprinklers and irrigated three times a day to maintain moisture for germination

Here you can see the first mowing. The Poa annua plugs are in the foreground 

and forming a nice sod along with the seeded area in the back ground.

 

 

Aerification 2023

Here you can see that we have applied the sand prior to aerification with .60 inch solid tines.

The brushing of the sand in the morning does not provide a perfect looking playing surface, 

but the ball roll is remarkably good. 

 

Aerification Verification

The method that we are using to measure and quantify consistency of ball roll on our greens was conceived and designed by one of our Bittersweet members Ken Krozel.

 
Here we see Ken watching the ball roll toward the target plate. 

The photo doesn't show this clearly, but the plate is etched with a zero in the center, and with plus inches to the right of zero and minus inches to the left of zero. 

 

Here you can see that the ball is rolled from a fixed point on Ken's ramp toward the plate. 

The ball is rolled 20 times and Ken records the strike point at which each ball roll touches the plate. 

This gives Ken a quantifiable reading on ball roll consistency. 

 Ken also films the roll of each ball in slow motion to evaluate smoothness of roll.

This evaluation was performed prior to aerification and four days after we aerified greens to evaluate how our method of greens aerification effects ball roll consistency. 

Our process of greens aerification is to aerify on the first week of August accordingly:

1. One week prior to the aerification the greens are sprayed with Daconil Ultrex 4.25 oz. + Thiram 4.25 oz. + Aneuw 4 oz./acre + .10 lbs N from Urea. 
2. Waupaca Fines Free sand topdressing is first applied at 15 tons per acre in front of the aerifier.
3. A walking behind aerifier is then operated over the top of the sand using .60 inch solid tines on a 2 x 2 inch pattern at two inches depth. 
4. A sweep and fill brush is then used to brush the sand into the holes in three directions.
5. A Smithco roller was then used to roll the green one time. 
6. In the afternoon hours a cocoa mat drag brush is then used to brush the green two more directions.
7. A half inch of irrigation water is applied to the greens overnight with a Pervade wetting agent Tablet placed in the wet well of the pump house.

The results of the evaluation demonstrate that our method produced greens which were 93% as consistent as the greens prior to aerification.

We feel that the success of our results were owed to the timing of the aerification during the first week of August when greens typically heal fastest owing to the peak soil temperatures of this period.