Sunset Country Club

This week at Sunset: 9-4-2017 Happy Labor Day, SCC! It’s the unofficial end of summer for most people as vacations wrap up. I thought I’d catch you up on the golf course on what we’ve been doing and what we’ve got coming up. As I do with every post, I’ll go ahead and briefly mention the weather and how it has affected us. Last month, we received less than 3 inches of rain for the month. It was certainly drier than July and June and so far four days into September we are close to an inch of rain already. The temperatures, primarily overnight temperatures, are starting to gradually fall. This has and will continue to slow the growth of our warm season turf as we get closer to fall. This week lows are expected to be in the low to mid 60’s. The daytime highs are looking to bounce around the mid to high 80’s. There is a cold front moving in that will be here by the end of the week. One thing we are keeping an eye on is Hurricane Irma, the latest update is tha

This week at Sunset: 8-14-2017 First, I’d like to wish all the parents a happy parents day as the first day of school in Colquitt County was today! My wife, Shannon, began her first day of teaching at Cox Elementary and so I'd like to wish all the teachers, parents, and kids a successful school year! The rain has continued to be off and on. We received about .75” last night and another .30” today is expected. Looks like the trend will continue most of this week with it tapering off in time for the weekend. We’ve welcomed the rain when it comes to healing our greens from the aerification and that’s been the biggest benefit. On the flip side, the rain has caused our rough to really grow at a rapid pace. All in all, the late afternoon and overnight showers that we have been receiving has kept the moisture where we want it on the greens and fairways. This summer has been a wet one and it’s looking like that will continue as we get closer to the fall season.

This week at Sunset: 8-7-2017 Well, it’s been a busy three weeks since my last update. In that time we had a successful Ramsey Pidcock, aerified our greens, and had close to 4” of rain. There was a cold front that brought in cooler overnight temperatures (low of 63 degrees on 8/1) and a few days of some soaking rain.  The rain was certainly welcomed with beating in the sand on our greens and also with some of the irrigation issues that we’ve been having. Speaking of irrigation, the new pump has been giving us issues with keeping a prime. So, Randy Knight and his guys addressed that issue and we are now able to prime the pump more efficiently. We are waiting on a part to be delivered so that it can be installed on the backup pump and once that is installed the pump should be near completion. We have begun to notice some leaks occur and blowouts on some of our old heads and pipes. That’s the unfortunate drawback when upgrading a pump. The pipes in the g

Fore The Golfer: Labor on a Golf Course Every Thursday I will provide a tip or turf minute from the USGA Green Section. Some of these videos will include their recommendations when it comes to the health of the golf course or some will be more of a lesson on some of the work that takes place on the golf course. This week will be a short video on how challenging the labor market is on golf course conditioning. We are lucky to have a hard working crew that takes pride in their work. With a small crew it is very vital that each person puts in 110% each day to provide the conditions that are expected daily. My goal since I've arrived is to have everyone trained on every piece of equipment we use and as of today we've met that goal with just about everyone. Again, I'm extremely grateful for the crew that we have. They make my job easier and certainly keep your golf course clean, consistent, and maintained. 

This week at Sunset: 7-17-2017 Sunrise @ Sunset CC This week at Sunset we’ve started off with continuing showers brought on by the heavy damp air. The temperatures have cooled off as a result, but expect it to warm up as we get closer to the weekend. For the month of July we haven’t received nearly the amount of rain we received last month. We’ve received 2.25” so far and last month at this time we were close to 6” of rain. Hopefully, we can finish out July somewhere between 4-5” of rain for the month. This week  we are addressing the over abundance of goosegrass/crowfootgrass and crabgrass around the golf course. These weeds have really blown up in the past few weeks from all the rain and favorable growing conditions. Because we didn’t really have a true winter this year this has equaled to a larger breakout of these summer annual weeds. I will reevaluate with our chemical reps on a suitable/preferred pre-emergent for goosegrass, crabgrass, and a

Thursday Turf Minute: Golf Course Equipment Maintenance Every Thursday I will provide a tip or turf minute from the USGA Green Section. Some of these videos will include their recommendations when it comes to the health of the golf course or some will be more of a lesson on some of the work that takes place on the golf course. This week will be a short video on equipment maintenance and how it is the most important aspect of any mower. FYI, our height of cut on our greens are .150". 

This week at Sunset: 7-10-2017 Well, this week we’ve started off with 1.5 inches of rain from last night’s storm. There are chances of afternoon pop-up storms this week and those will taper off by Thursday. Also, with the rain, the temperatures have cooled off, but expect for those to go up as the week progresses. All of this means that golf course should hold quite a bit of moisture that it has endured for the past several weeks. Also, it means that irrigation will be used less frequent. Speaking of irrigation, or as I like to call it irritation, there have been some electrical issues that we are addressing with one of our control boxes. In the mean time, we’ve been manually watering 7 of the back 9 greens. Also, we’re hoping the irrigation project with the new pump is done by the end of the week. Luckily, we haven’t needed a lot of irrigation, but as you all know and I’ve learned that can change fast with this golf course. We have been able to catch up quite a

Thursday Turf Minute: Golf Course Spray Applications Every Thursday I will provide a tip or turf minute from the USGA Green Section. Some of these videos will include their recommendations when it comes to the health of the golf course or some will be more of a lesson on some of the work that takes place on the golf course. This week will be a short video on spray applications and how technology plays a roll in this very important process.

This week at Sunset: 7-3-2017 Happy Independence Day from your golf course maintenance staff! Well, so far for July, we have started off drier than we did in June. We’re now getting more seasonable temperatures for this time of year and the threat of afternoon pop-ups are expected as we cruise on through this month. Last month, we totaled around 11” of rain and it is certainly evident of that throughout the course. We are still catching up on mowing the rough. Please bear with us as we have some more favorable days ahead for mowing and we will knock the bahia grass down as soon as possible. I have been talking with Jacobsen (our mower supplier) and I am hoping we get an extra rough mower this week to combat our course and to have it ready for the Ramsey Pidcock.  The greens are coming around nicely from the last verticut and topdressing. We have been able to verticut our greens 3 times in the last 2 months and we will probably do 1 more verticut in August and that

Thursday Turf Minute: Benefits of Sand Topdressing Every Thursday I will provide a tip or turf minute from the USGA Green Section. Some of these videos will include their recommendations when it comes to the health of the golf course or some will be more of a lesson on some of the work that takes place on the golf course. This week will be a short video on sand topdressing and why we do it and why it's important.

This Week at Sunset: 6-26-2017 #4 Green at sunset. It looks like we will finish June out with some drier weather this week. However, rain chances return Thursday evening with some scattered thunderstorms through the weekend and early next week. Last week, the golf course received just over 4 inches of rain including the ½ inch we received yesterday. The rain is always welcomed this time of year, but not that much in a short amount of time. Ideally, it’d be nice to have about a ½ inch every Monday and then around a ¼ inch every Friday. As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, the rain has created an abundance of growth throughout the golf course. It is a double-edged sword as it certainly brings more bermuda growth, but it also brings on the onslaught of unwanted grasses and weeds. In particular, the bahia grass has certainly shown its muscles and has really taken off. Also, the goosegrass(crowfoot) has really benefited from all the rain. We will have our deck mower out all