It's hard not to notice the browned out patches in certain areas of our fairways- I myself find it hard to look away. You may notice that all of these areas coincide with wet spots listed in our numerous emails about cart traffic sent out over the last week. Though they may look dry, these spots are actually the calling cards of standing water.
Areas of standing water on a saturated course are to be expected, but it's what happened next that did this turf in. You may have noticed that even on the days that we received rain, the highs were still in the 80's if not 90's. According to the Chicago Sun-Times article I recommended to you earlier, 30 out of the 31 days of July hit a minimum high of 80 degrees. Which means that all of the standing water on the course was, throughout the day, heated to like temperatures. The next time you come across one of these areas, please take a close look. What you are seeing is what happens when turf is almost literally boiled.
Though the conditions for such an event are generally rare, I think we can all agree that this has been a rare month.
See you on the course!
Elliott Dowling
