Notes for the week of July 18th.

As I'm sure many of you have noticed, the forecast for this week is one of intense day and nighttime heat.  Conditions like these are already stressful for turfgrass, but a full week of these conditions can be disastrous if not prepared for correctly.  As such, we will be altering our usually routine in an effort to keep up with what mother nature has decided to throw at us.

What follows is a list of the things we will be temporarily adjusting to aid the turf in getting through the this week of sweltering heat:

• We will be reducing the frequency of greens rolling.  Rolling is a practice that has had a large hand in the greens speeds we've grown accustom to this year.  Changing how often we roll will grant us decreased turf stress at the cost of reduced speed.
• We will be deploying ropes to better control traffic throughout the week.  When turf is stressed, cart traffic can be a death sentence.
• We will be altering our normal water schedules.  This may include applying light applications through the day, so you may see heads running on the course.
• You may notice an increase in dry spots around the course this week. Many of these will be strategic choices where we've chosen to risk drought to avoid excessive moisture that will encourage disease pathogens.
• Though we have maintained our normal application schedule, the perfect conditions for certain disease appearance may lead to sightings of us doing spot applications.

We appreciate your understanding as we do our best to bring the turf some relief this week.  While we can all find ways to beat the heat, remember that the course gets no such luxury.

See you on the course!
Elliott Dowling