Greens: Most of you have heard by now that we have purchased a fleet of walk mowers for the greens. As you have probably noticed, the quality of cut you achieve with walk mowers is far superior to tri-plex riding mowers. That said, for those of you who have played golf since Tuesday you have hopefully noticed the increasing quality and speed of the greens. Since coming out of over seeding, the quality of surface has been very good. Although a bit slow, they put well and the ball does not hop and holds a line. The height of cut at that time was .180. We have been slowly lowering height since that time and on Tuesday reached .140 and now have 4 days at that height which has really tightened the grass density and increased the speed. In the next few weeks we will reach our final destination height of .115. Our Golf Course Superintendent, James Stow and his Golf Course Maintenance Team have done a marvelous job this entire year. As you see them working on the course, pat them on the back for a job very well done. So you have a reference point, the numbers I previously mentioned are measurement in inches (example: .125 is 1/8 of an inch).
Fairways: The grass is growing and their is a bunch of it out there. A quick side note: all over seeded areas received 550 lbs of seed per acre. Excluding greens we over seeded just over 90 acres using 50,000 lbs of seed. Since over seed we have continued to mow fairways at .750 or 3/4 of an inch. The critical factor here is to mow the Rye grass at a height above the Bermuda grass growing underneath. With the recent cooler temperatures it has really started to slow the growth of the Bermuda and will go totally dormant with our first frost. Also, until this week we have mowed in only one direction. This practice causes the grass to lay over more than normal but pulls less on the newly germinated seed giving the root system a chance to take hold. All the above our sound agronomic practices. This week we are still mowing at .750 but put our first directional cut on the fairways and it really cleaned up the hitting surface. We will now begin our three week journey down to .450. Again, since coming out of over seed, playing conditions have been fantastic and a big hats off to James and his staff for the job they are doing. Last few things on the fairways: remember to fill your divots. With carts on paths it is sometimes hard to remember your sand bottle. On that note, we expect carts to be off paths around the 22nd of November.
Geese & Friends: As you can see, the geese and other varieties of water fowl have migrated back to the lovely Arizona Fall weather. Beginning Monday the 15th you will again see our representative from the USDA on property harvesting the birds to thin out our population. We have used many mechanical means to control birds and will continue to do so. Those practices in conjunction with our friends at the USDA are what allowed us to control this problem last year.
Remember: $5 burgers and pitchers every Saturday in the Grill. Our Member Business to Business "MB2B" Mixer on the 18th from 5 to 7 pm. Thanksgiving Brunch is filling fast...make reservations today! Lastly, be looking for details on our "Deck the Halls" Brunch on the 28th.
That's it for now. Hope to see you at the Club!
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