Our maintenance team began yesterday pressure washing and cleaning all of the wooden bridges located on property to give them a fresher appearance. This process will take a week or two to complete, as we are currently a little low on staff. Thank you for your patience if you happen to drive over wet areas or hear some noise from our pressure washing crew!

Before 

During 

After

There has been much speculation now that we have hit the coolest month (February) as to the health of the golf course and why some areas are discolored. As everyone knows we did not over-seed the golf course which gives us a strong agronomic advantage going into the Spring and Summer, as we do not deal with the "transition" of perennial ryegrass/poa trivialis dying out and bermuda grass growing back in. Bermuda grass, which is our main-stand of turf goes in a period of "dormancy" during the cooler months which allows the plant to store carbohydrates and survive during these cooler months, this is why the turf currently appears discolored. But not to worry, the golf course will quickly green-up when consistent warm weather moves in. A few benefits of not over-seeding are less irrigation (dryer and firmer conditions), better weed control, no-transition period which results in a stronger base turf which would be bermuda grass, and more rounds which are noted by our awesome golf professional staff:

Round counts at the Country Club of Orlando for Ocotober-Mid February are as follows:

'13-'14  = 8,596 total rounds

'14-'15 = 10,231 total rounds

The following article goes into much detail as to the advantages and disadvantages of over-seeding and why it can vary from golf course to golf course depending on the region of the golf club. 

http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci-0710-alternatives-overseeding.aspx

This morning 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

Our maintenance crew understands the importance of how the golf course is set up and maintained on a daily basis and one of our biggest emphasis' are locating and setting up "fair" pins. We use a system in which an electronic level is placed in three different angles around the cup before being cut a new pin, in which all of the slope percentages are under 2.5%.

We have been continuing our irrigation work around the tennis courts and have come across several problems we have been working on correcting. Our goal is to have the tennis court landscape up and running in the next several weeks to develop a sound maintenance program for the surround plants and turf. We appreciate your understanding if you discover areas where we are currently working!

One of our priorities as an agronomic team is to continue to improve and update the surrounding landscape around our entrance, clubhouse, swimming pool, tennis courts and halfway house. We have started to incorporate an agronomic program on the St. Augustine located around the entrance, clubhouse, swimming pool, tennis courts and halfway house which includes fertilizing, mowing, pre-emerging, post-emergent weed control, topdressing and irrigating. We have begun going through the irrigation in these areas starting with the clubhouse and around the clubhouse we have 4 out of 28 heads working properly. Needless to say we have a lot of catching up to do around these areas and if wet areas are noticed around these highly visible areas a lot of that is due to our agronomic team checking and repairing a very inefficient system.

We have had a few members ask about the current health of our greens. Our Tifdwarf greens are in good shape for this time of year, with the exception of areas that get constant shade. Due to Tifdwarf's open growth pattern they are appearing thin in areas but that has a lot to due with the growth pattern associated with this particular grass. Spike marks have been apparent, which is a normal occurrence on non-overseeded greens. It is important to try to avoid dragging feet while walking and putting on the greens and also pivoting while putting can be detrimental during this cooler time. Below I have compared pictures of, first, our Tifdwarf putting surface, compared with our Champion putting green which has a noticeably tighter putting surface. As stated before, both are healthy during this time of year, they just tend to have different growth patterns. Also, we have been topdressing these weaker area on the greens, where mainly shade is a contributing factor with sand to combat the areas becoming hosts to algae which disrupts runners and stolons from lateral growth. We are coming to the end of Winter and Spring, accompanied with warmer weather, will be here shortly in the next few weeks. 

Tifdwarf Putting Surface (Managed Identically to Champion) 

Champion Putting Surface (Managed Identically to Tifdwarf)