Welcome to my blog!
It is my intention to give the readers a better understanding of what we do to maintain The Farms Country Club's 18 hole championship golf course and grounds.


Monday, September 26, 2011

Aeration of Greens Complete!

We are puting the finishing touches on aerifying #17 green today. That is the last one! If the weather is good over the next week and a half, it will speed the healing process.

I found this terrific video by Pace Turf. It gives an excellent and detailed explanation of greens aerification including its benefits to both the turf and the golfers.

Please take the time to review it...

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Friday, September 23, 2011

Eighteen Greens Aerified & One to Go!

We took our shot this morning and it worked out. We beat the rain! We were able to aerify greens #10 & #11. We also got the initial topdressing down. We are now knee deep in heavy rain. One inch so far and it's only 1:45pm. The rain will help wash some of the sand in. Let's hope this stationary low moves out soon or we are in for days of unforcastable, periodic rain.

Only one green remains to be aerified... #17!

Stay tuned.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Weather Co-operates Enough to Complete Sixteen Greens!

We lucked out today and were able to finish sixteen of our nineteen greens. We will still do our normal light topdressing one week later to smooth out any bumps that remain. Aerification of the remaining greens... #10, #11 and #17 will take place as soon as the weather permits. The good news is, we will just make them temporaries for the time necessary to do the job. In the mean time, the course will be open as normal, unless weather dictates otherwise. Standard operating procedure!

Thank you for your patience!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Aerifying Greens Started Today!

The weather is co-operating so far today. Punching the cores is the easy part. Even with the early showers today, we will still accomplish all the core punching we had planned on.  Our long-term success relies more heavily on topdressing.
Successful topdressing of the holes is completely reliant upon dry weather. Filling of the holes is important for quick recovery and for agronomic reasons.
I will keep you updated!

Chris Berry punching holes on a 1.5" x 2" spacing

Marshall & Ryan doing the core harvesting


Sunday, September 11, 2011

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Thanks To The Maintenance Staff!

It's been an interesting year and the maintenance staff has not missed a beat! The "icing on the cake" is their performance this week dealing with Hurricane Irene. The course was closed Sunday during the weather event and Monday for cleanup. We opened for member play on Tuesday knowing those that played would still have to deal with chain saws, blowers, sweepers and more. Wednesday we hosted the delayed first round of the CSGA Mid-Am and we haven't looked back. We still have to accomplish a large amount of debris cleanup inside the woodlines, brush chipping and tree work that can't be safely accomplished "in-house". We will chisel away at it with our reduced staff. Remember, we have now said goodbye to summer staff (3 less employees).

The maintenance staff is mostly comprised of veterans. Yesterday we bought them a pizza lunch to express our thanks. Thanks go out to Sean for insisting on this!

Green and Gounds Chairman, Barry Burke, made it a point to attend and share his thanks with the staff. He really made them feel like they are appreciated! He shared stories of his experiences in his line of work and made them understand what it may feel like to think you go unnoticed until something goes wrong. He was incredibly motivational to say the least!

I and my staff are lucky to have an eleven year chairman who donates his time like this and really cares about the club and the people that make it run. We row the same boat!

Thanks for coming Barry!