This week at Sunset: 2-13-2017







This past week I attended the 2017 Golf Industry Show in Orlando and spent most of my time in seminars and networking with some of the best and brightest minds in the golf industry.  I came away with a wealth of information that I plan to apply here at Sunset. A portion of that included how to reduce maintenance on some of our out-of-play areas and incorporate a more natural or “native” look. Also, more chemical products are continuing to be developed that cover a broad spectrum of diseases, but with fewer applications. A lot of farmers laugh at ‘us little turf guys,’ when it comes to pesticide/sprayer applications as we are still stuck in the 20th century in some areas. In agriculture, GPS has been around since the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s. On the turf side, GPS has only been used within the last 5 years. Anyway, it was nice to engage with a lot of my peers as well as the many sales reps and educators. I look to be more engaged in these types of events here in Georgia, but also in the Carolinas and wherever I can attend that will greatly improve our golf course at Sunset.

While I was gone, we had another storm that produced a tornado in the Moultrie area on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, a member of our crew and his family, Alfredo Gonzalez, had a couple trees that fell on his house. Luckily, they did not suffer any injuries, but are definitely counting their blessings after seeing how close those trees were. They are temporarily staying with friends in Tifton, and so if anyone in Moultrie, who knows of a house (preferably a 3 or 4 bedroom) available for rent, please contact me.

Last week, we did lower the height of cut on the fairways, tees, and approaches.
The main reason for this was to control the annual bluegrass (poa annua) from producing a mature seedhead. The consistent mowing that we will be doing during the week will keep those areas mainly in the approaches and collars in check. Today, I sprayed areas in the rough around the fairways, tees, and greens and so the poa annua and other winter weeds will soon checkout. Unfortunately, I’m not able to spray areas inside the overseeded areas as that would eliminate the ryegrass, too. However, as we get closer towards the end of the month and Pot ‘O Gold, I will apply a plant growth regulator that will suppress seedhead activity in the poa annua.

I do want to mention that on Monday, February 20th, we will have our spring fert./preemerge application on the golf course. A spreader truck from Graco Fertilizer will be applying the product. So, if you happen to be at the course, please be aware of this application.

We are less than a month away from the Pot ‘O Gold! Overall, the golf course is in great shape. The crew has really cleaned the place up after having three major storms last month. We will continue to concentrate on cleaning the golf course up as the tournament approaches. I will be making more fertilizer applications on the greens and hopefully Mother Nature will be more on our side as we transition to the growing season.


Thanks for following us this week as we strive to get better every day. As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions/comments that you may have by using this blog, Facebook page, or emailing me at davisjoey@hotmail.com. Thanks for reading!


See you on the course!

Joey Davis



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