This week at Sunset: 4-24-2017

The work on our new pumphouse continues. We are hoping that the work will be completed this week. The next part of upgrading our irrigation will be to address a number of heads and valves throughout the golf course. Last month, Matt and Josh (ABAC turf students) went throughout the course and did an irrigation audit. Now, we will move forward with replacing and fixing what they discovered and our irrigation should be a lot more efficient.

The big project this week will be to address the weak areas on some of our greens. I know in the past blogs I’ve mentioned that we would apply additional fertilizer to these areas. Well, we decided to go ahead and replace the really bad areas and continue to grow in with the additional fertilizer. We have prepped areas on #3, 5, and 9 greens to be replaced with new Tifeagle sod tomorrow.  The rest of the week we will replace areas on the back nine. We will continue to spray all of these areas with ample amount of nutrients so that we can blend these areas in with the rest of the green. We will do a verticut mow on all areas not sodded to increase stolon activity and we will begin a normal topdressing schedule. Please be diligent with us as we work to get these areas fixed and patched up. Some pin placements on these greens will be affected as we grow the sod in, particularly on #3. As always, we appreciate you working with us as we complete this task.

As a reminder, please remember to keep golf carts behind the white lines that you see throughout the golf course. We do not need any traffic inside those white lines or around the greens. With the Bermuda grass in its most vulnerable stage with the transition in full swing it is important to keep traffic away from highly sensitive areas- greens complexes, tops of teeboxes, and other weak areas throughout the course. Help us out by keeping your golf cart behind the white lines and off the green complexes and near the tops of tees. Those of you who use pullcarts are fine to cross the line as pullcarts are lighter and less aggressive. However, make sure not to pull your carts across the green. Again, I want to thank everyone for helping us keep your golf course healthy and in shape.

Finally, I spoke of our ABAC students earlier, but I thought I’d mention that they are wrapping up their time with us as they finish out their semesters. They will be starting up their summer internships in May and will return to us in the fall. Josh Tucker will be completing his internship at the prestigious Pine Valley Golf Club in New Jersey and Matt Sims will be down in Naples, Florida working at the Bonita Bay Club on 5 courses designed by Arthur Hills and Tom Fazio. I do plan to bring on one or two more guys to fill their spots through the summer and then bring them back onboard at Sunset when they return to ABAC for the fall semester. I certainly appreciate their hard work and look forward to having them back in August.

Thank you 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