Green’s Assessment by Billy Fuller - As a general statement, greens at the CCO are small on average and some are quite heavily contoured.  This was normal for grasses that were maintained at a speed of 9.0 to 9.5 on average, which is fairly typical for TifDwarf Bermudagrass greens.  As speeds increase many of the hole locations within some greens become very limited.  My definition of hole locations within a green is when no two locations are closer than fifteen feet.  We noted a number of greens today that had a maximum of three to four hole locations.  If an ultra dwarf bermudagrass such as Champion, TifGreen or Mini Verde were to be planted, it would be critical to soften the slopes and in some instances add square footage for adequate pin locations.  Regarding No-Till planting an ultra dwarf, in my opinion, your greens are not a candidate.  In order to be a candidate means your slope designs and pin locations must be proper for speeds of 10.5 or higher on a daily basis. Green’s Assessment by Josh Dunaway  - Due to the fact of having TifDwarf which is a very outdated form of Bermuda grass (began being installed in the 1950’s) green speeds above 10.5 are difficult to achieve without; 1) severely stressing the turf and 2) rigorous maintenance (i.e. double – cutting and rolling daily). It is also apparent that shade plays a big impact on several green complexes, as well. We measured and mapped our green's mix root-zone depth and they appear to be not uniform to United States Golf Association green building specifications. Our depths range from 10" to 24" which is unusually deep and inconsistent. The following website gives a complete description of the specifications of a USGA putting green.  http://www.usga.org/Content.aspx?id=26124

Billy Fuller Donald Ross work experience:

Alamance Country Club, Burlington, NC (see below);

Highlands Country Club, Highlands, NC (I have been working with this club since 1996, both consulting and design work); most recent work has included new 10th green complex, extension to #11 green, and new putting and chipping green complex;

Hinsdale Golf Club, Clarendon Hills, IL (western suburb of Chicago)…BFGD established a Restoration / Preservation Master Plan for this Donald Ross design in 2005-2006;

Augusta Country Club, Augusta, GA (While working at Augusta National I played most of my golf at Augusta C.C.  After leaving ANGC I worked with Cupp in a Ross renovation of Augusta C.C.)

Rosedale Golf Club in Toronto, Canada

East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta, GA (When Rees Jones was hired to restore the golf course, I was hired as consultant to watch over the project with the golf course superintendent)

Charlotte Country Club, Charlotte, NC (consultant)

Palm Beach Country Club, Palm Beach, FL (consultant)

Jekyll Island Golf Club, Georgia (consultant)

Benvenue Country Club, Rocky Mount, NC (consultant)

Hyde Park Golf & C.C., Cincinnati, OH (consultant)

Belle Meade, Nashville, TN (consultant)

Shelby Golf Course, Nashville, TN (First Tee program)

Pine Needles Golf Club, Southern Pines, NC (I was assistant golf course superintendent at Pine Needles in 1973.  I spent months studying Donald Ross’s history while living and working there, including Mid Pines and Pinehurst #2.  I lived in a garage apartment on #2 and spent many hours after work walking the course and studying archives.

Alamance C.C. was the last set of plans Donald Ross drew.  He died before the course was constructed.  A golf pro then took Ross’s plans, cleared the routing per his plan, then put his own strategy into the golf course.  The Club eventually discovered the plans and hired Cupp and I to put Ross’s strategy into the course.

Chicago, IL (While master planning and renovating Hinsdale Golf Club in Chicago ( Ross design), I had the good fortune of studying numerous Donald Ross courses, including Beverly Country Club, Evanston Golf Club, Old Elm Club and Oak Park Country Club)

I am a huge fan of Golden Era Period (late 1800’s to 1950).  I have worked on as many Seth Raynor courses as Donald Ross, and a few William “Billy” Bell and Perry Maxwell.  I have played Chicago Golf Club (C.B. MacDonald and Seth Raynor) several times as well as Shore Acres (Raynor).  I consulted extensively at Country Club of Charleston, SC (Seth Raynor) and Yeaman’s Hall Golf Club (Seth Raynor).

The key to any Golden Era designer is understanding his style.  They all had great strategic design and taught us modern designers how to design strong and proper strategy from tee to green.

Please join author Bradley S. Klein on Tuesday, April 28th at 6:00 p.m. in the Ballroom. Bradley Klein’s award winning book, “Discovering Donald Ross” describes a man’s career that lasted from the early 1900s to the late 1940s and no other golf course architect is credited with more fine layouts – or is more revered – than Donald J. Ross. This lecture is a wonderful way to uncover the life and work of a true artist. In the decade since the book’s publication, regards for Ross restoration and for the beauty and charm of classic-era golf course design have become central to the golf scene. Our very own Golf Course Architect, Billy Fuller, will also be present to begin a discussion on the golf course master planning process. RSVP to 407-849-0990. This lecture is complimentary. Bradley Klein will have books available for purchase and/or signing.

Members, we have been continuing to clean, detail and shine up the golf course. The weather has been great recently and we are continuing to fine tune our practices to continue to improve the golf course day by day.

Bunkers edged, depths measured and relocated. We will be re-sodding all of the bunker edges and digging out the pulled sand from the sand-pro edges this summer with Celebration Bermuda. 

We will continue to monthly or as needed edge the coquina cart paths with the sod cutter to refine the detail of the paths. 

We are very fortunate, as a club, to be able to do a "dry-cut" on Mondays when we are closed. We have slowed our reel mowers down to 5mph and have increased the clip frequency which will in turn make the turf denser. 

I'm sure many of you have yearly seen the weak areas due to consistent winter shade on green's #11 and #12. This past Monday we sod cut these areas and put down Tif-Grande which is the same turf located around the Clock Green. This Tif-Grande will be mowed at a height in between our approach height and our green's height. Although no Bermuda grass is shade tolerant, Tif-Grande is considered to be more shade tolerant than other cultivars.

After stripping these areas on #11 and #12 a very thick sod layer was revealed which in turn we aerified twice with 5/8" tines before laying the new Tif-Grande sod. 

After aerifying, the Tif-Grande was layed and once established will be rolled multiple times and eventually cut with a walk-mower at the height of .300.

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This past Monday we applied our first mole cricket application of Talstar and Merit wall to wall which will cover our first cricket mole cricket hatching. In June we will be applying Talstar and Lamda -Cy and then in August we will be applying Talstar and Dursban for our third and final application. Next year we will applying Topchoice and each year we will continue to rotate between different chemicals and routes of control. 

We decided to go a different route with this pine straw application in all the beds for the upcoming 1911 Tournament. We decided to go with a company to bring in and spread 1,500 bails which turned out to be a great operation and the company was able to finish the whole golf course in a day.