Wait a Minute!

     If you have spent any amount of time outside during the "winter" months thus far, you have probably noticed that the temperatures have been abnormally warm.  This is great news.  Sort of.  One problem with the warmer temperatures is that the bermuda grass on the golf courses is being tricked into thinking that it is time for spring green up.  Well, the time to break dormancy hasn't come just yet.  Below is a picture that was taken in the dormant rough beside of a tee on # 2 at the Founders Club.

      As you can see here, there is a lot of green grass showing in the dormant rough.  When bermuda grass greens up prematurely, there can be a negative implications on the turf when it tries to break dormancy in the spring.  When there is an early green up, the grass plants use stored carbohydrates as energy to grow.  Therefore, when it is the appropriate time for growth in the spring, the plants have used up most of their energy for the early green up.  

     

Flooding at The Clubs at St. James

Last night, The Clubs at St. James received approximately 7 inches of rain during a 6 hour span.  As you can imagine the courses are extremely wet and impassible in spots.  Virtually every bunker on all of the courses was washed out and will require a lot of repair. We will be working diligently in the next couple of days to get the courses back into optimum playing shape.  We appreciate your patience during this time.  Below is a picture from #2 at the Founders Club.

It's a Plane?

     Last month the golf maintenance team on the Members, Founders, and Players Clubs at St. James continued a tee leveling project that began last summer.  Several tees were leveled using a Turf Planer.  Basically, the Turf Planer runs over the entire surface of the tee and shaves down areas that are higher than the other portions of the tee, leaving a more level tee surface.  The picture below shows what the tees at Cate 2 looked like immediately after being planed.

The next picture is of the same tee 2 weeks later.

As of now the tees are closed to being fully healed after regular fertilizing and topdressing.