On The Course Next Week And Some LPGA Reminders

3 days in a row and no rain. The course is drying up nicely just in time for the Club Championship Weekend and the greens and fairways are firming up allowing for better ball roll and very quick putting surfaces.

We are now mowing the greens at a height not attainable 2 seasons ago. We are also rolling 5 times per week. This is all possible due to a variety of maintenance practices but one in particular has had the greatest effect. Consistent bi-weekly applications of light sand topdressing. We have been slightly off schedule due to the inclement weather and the major club events occurring at present. However, topdressing will be the theme on the course next week. Here is the schedule:

• Monday to Wednesday - fairways
• Tuesday - tees and and approaches (aprons)
• Wednesday - greens

All these applications will be light and should be of minimal nuisance. We will be applying a little more sand on the fairways than last month due to the dates of the LPGA event. In addition we will also be fertilizing all areas of the course by next Friday. Greens will be sprayed tomorrow. Tees and aprons sprayed early next week and the fairways / rough will see granular fertilizer after they have been topdressed. As usual growth regulator (Primo Maxx) will also be applied to greens, tees, approaches and fairways.

As you may have noticed we are also cleaning up some cartpath entrance / exits, adding more fine bark chips around the course and sodding some worn out patches next to greens. I'd love to work on some sorely needed drainage projects but that will have to wait until the fall. A busy week ahead.

Note: The LPGA has requested that no red, white or yellow line paint be applied anywhere on the course 30 days out from the tournament. Therefore we cannot paint the lateral hazard lines on the ponds or mark any ground under repair for the Club Championship.

LPGA REMINDERS

• Please stay off the grass surface at the driving range. Remind your guests too. Somebody has been using the grass instead of the mats. It's not hard to miss. Please help us out, as any divot pattern from now on will not recover by August 18th.
• Please stay off the course tee surfaces used for the LPGA. Again, the divots are giving it away. We don't want to use plastic mesh until Advance Week (August 12 - 16). Its easy to do. Just tee off from whatever markers you are using for that day no matter where they are placed. Back to normal on August 27th.
• The lower parking lot (and any other open space down there) has begun to receive infrastructure from Golf Canada. Parking is going to be difficult for the next 4 weeks.
• Course structure installation begins next week. 

One final note. I want to thank the Royal Mayfair Membership for your patience and understanding over the last few weeks. It's been difficult for everyone, members and all the staff included, with the course closures and multiple power cart restrictions. It has caused me a fair amount of stress. Never in my 22 years as a superintendent have I experienced so much rain in such a short time period. Your cooperation kept the course from being damaged beyond the drainage issues we had. I only hope we don't go through that again anytime soon. Lets hope for a dry August.

Wade

Storm Update

Many of you will have no idea what happened at the course last night. Aside from another storm bringing the standard heavy rains and hail we also were hit with extremely powerful, damaging winds. Very weird as it was almost 5? years to the day when the Edmonton river valley was hit with the "Push Wind" that caused severe damage to all the courses along the river.

Regardless of whatever the winds are called we have a long day or 2 ahead of us. Every hole has debris to remove from greens, tees, bunkers and fairways. Some are worse than others. The plan is to remove all debris with greens, tees and aprons being priority. The path from 8 green to 9 tee is impassable. Several trees from the City side fell south onto the course, crushing the fence and blocking access . In fact 2 members were lucky to escape injury as their power cart was hit by a falling tree. There are also other large trees that have fallen on holes 1, 3, 7, 9 and 18. ArborCare Tree Service  may have to take care of some of the work on Monday. One positive: There appears to be very few if any large branches broken and hanging from above.

Water removal from fairways and bunkers as well as bunker sand adjustment will be the final step of the cleanup procedure. The forecast is calling for heavy showers and/or rain tonight so until we know for sure I don't want to waste valuable time and labour.

Unfortunately being a weekend we have reduced staff numbers but we have managed to contact some of them that had it off to come in and help out. The Golf Shop/Member Services guys will also be helping out which will be much appreciated.

I'm sad to say that the course is closed again until we can make it playable.

All for now,
Wade

CN Canadian Women's Open/LPGA Agronomist Update

On Thursday I toured the course with John Miller, the LPGA agronomist. We looked at all areas of the course and then we spent some time afterwards discussing the preparations with my assistants, Eric and Dave. John was pleased with everything he saw and basically stated that we are in a very good position one month out from the event.  He gave us some guidelines for green speed, mowing heights for fairways, rough and collars. He really liked the bunkers and the sand quality and would only like to see less of lip on the backside of most bunkers which we plan on adjusting in the near future. We have completed a check list for the event with John so now we will enter a phase of final preparations and then a run through of our procedures leading up to advance week so that we are ready for tournament week.

Any changes we make will be minor. No additional widening or narrowing of fairways. No change in the type of collar cut we employ here and no changes to the step cut of rough. The secondary (main) rough will be cut and topped off at 3 inches. As to when that occurs depends on the weather. These days we could get to 3 inches by missing 1 or 2 mowing cycles. Translation: about 36 hours.

The one requirement from the LPGA is that we do not play from the tees that will be used for the tournament. I asked him about the time frame we decided upon (around 30 days) and he said that was correct and common at many professional events. In the interim we will try to average out the yardage from the blue tees by using both gold and white tee complexes. It will rarely be perfect and it won't satisfy everyone but it's the best we can do for the month of August. The par 3 tee complexes not being used will require the most attention and cooperation on your part so PLEASE stay off those and the other tees that are not in play. The Member Guest and Club Championship weekend are the only exceptions. I will set tees on some of the out of play complexes but they will not be near the supplied yardages I have been given by the LPGA.

One last reminder. Beginning next week the Golf Canada infrastructure will begin arriving on the property with a major push starting around the 31st  involving setup on the course. It promises to be very busy with contractors buzzing around everywhere so be prepared for some additional equipment and noise throughout the coming days leading up to the tournament.

I am now asking for those members that have inquired about volunteering for divot work on the fairways to contact me through my email or cell anytime. Several of you have approached me in the past but now it is time to get organized and discuss numbers and scheduling. Your help will be a much appreciated addition to our Turf Care team.

Wade Peckham

Audubon Certification Update

It has been awhile since I posted my initial blog entry discussing the Audubon program. I feel now is a good time to provide an update on our certification progress and some of the projects we have going on.

A couple of Scaups on 10 pond

I often find it difficult to describe in writing how we are progressing with this program. It would take me several pages to describe here in full what we need to accomplish and what has already been done. Instead, I have made a spreadsheet containing the various goals we need to accomplish if we want to become Audubon certified as a golf course. If you click this link, it will take you to the spreadsheet. Hopefully this document will provide insight into what this program practically means for this golf course and how far we have to go. If you have any questions about the program, either give me a call here at the office (433-9666) or send an email to Wade (wpeckham@mayfair.ca).

Here are a couple highlights of current and future projects:

-          Continued monitoring of on-course pheasants (yes, there is still a pheasant or two out there and they are doing very well)

-          Use of a trail cam on the course to catch close-up pictures of wildlife (see below)

-          Future expansion of our butterfly garden on #8 (more on this in another update)

-          Creation of a brochure to hand out at the CN LPGA Canadian Women’s Open advertising our environmental efforts

-     Create a display in the clubhouse to advertise our environmental program to the membership

-          Maureen and I will be writing an article for the Edmonton Horticultural Society about the unique horticultural challenges on a golf course. A link will be posted when it is published

-          More native and naturalized species of perennials, annuals, trees and shrubs will be used on the course

An up-close shot of a coyote taken by our trail cam

If you are interested in getting involved, then I encourage you to become a part of the Environmental Improvement Committee (formerly called the Resource Advisory Group). This group meets to discuss current environmental progress and how to improve upon our current plan. It has been a great help to me to get ideas from members who are concerned for the property beyond its use as a golf course. We share this land with a wide array of wildlife, and we continue to find new ways to respect that wildlife while providing quality turf and playing conditions.

David Smith

2nd Assistant Superintendent

Royal Mayfair Golf Club

Course Condition Update

We have now been through our third consecutive thunderstorm since the lashing we took late Monday afternoon. The constant pumping of water, bunker adjustment, etc. is starting to take a toll on the staff as well as the course itself. Our mowing schedules for the fairways and rough have been ripped up for now. We need to reduce the impact that heavier equipment has on saturated turf. Its easier to cut long grass and deal with the clippings over repairing damage caused by the temptation to run a mower through low, wet areas.

As expected power carts will not be permitted on the course for the enitre day. I know many of you would be careful but it is difficult to avoid so many areas that are saturated but not as obvious as standing water would be.

In addition to more rain last night and this morning we also had a pretty good hail storm too. The hail was about half the size of a golf ball and caused some damage to the greens. Not severe but enough that putting would be affected. If they weren't softened up by all the rain I think they would've been okay. We made the decision early this morning to lightly topdress, vent (small solid tine aerate), brush, roll and then a very short irrigation to wash down the sand. The same procedure we carry out with our monthly venbing program. They may be cut today but that will be decided upon later. Hence the course closure until 10. That gives us enough time to finsh the procedure ahead of daily play, assuming we have no equipment issues.

My apologies for the inconvenience but nature has forced our hand as it so often does.

Regards,
Wade

6 Green, Pond Algae and LPGA Notes

6 Green

As advertised we have replaced the bentgrass sod on the right side of the 6th green. Recall if you will that we had winter kill in 2012 and rather than nurse it back to health we made the decsion to use extra bentgrass sod from the 10th tee construction. In retrospect the quick fix was probably the wrong choice of the 2 options. I think we pushed it too hard and rushed it into play before it was ready for our lower mowing height. Later in the summer we raised the mowing height to help it recover. It was doing okay until early this season when the Take-all patch disease outbreak set it back again. Could we have nursed it back? Probably but it would've taken all summer. One other glaring issue. It stands out like a sore thumb next to the rest of the green which is a bentgrass/poa mix. So we decided to resod it. Different game plan this time. Unfortunately our new nursery which we built from our aeration cores and overseeded with bentgrass will not be ready for sod removal until later this summer. It would have been the perfect match. However my wife's course has a nursery that is very similar to our greens. I know she has maintained it far better than any sod farm and she graciously gave us enough to redo the 6th green. The preparation of the surface was very thorough and it will not be rushed into play until it is ready. Yes it will be okay by the CN Women's Open. Hopefully in regular play far sooner than that.



Pond On 10

The algae growing around the perimeter of the lake will need additional solutions beside applying a control product (which we will be doing next week). It needs to be sprayed on the surface over the weed growth. We will likely use our large sprayer with the hose and spray gun as it can reach out up to 30 feet from the shore. This is just a band aid approach for now. I have been talking to a company (Ackenberry Trout Farm) about an aerification system that will "turn over" the water from the bottom of the lake and also add additonal oxygen to the water. We'll install it this summer but it will really take effect next spring. So for the remainder 2013 we will be removing what we can mechanically and applying control products. I don't imagine we'll have complete success because the process to improve the "health" of a large pond is a long one. We seem to have a handle on the pond at 18 as it is smaller with more aerators. The product we are using there to help with weed growth is more suited to a pond of that size (read that as $$).



LPGA Notes

A reminder that we will be moving off the range tee on July 15th so that we can have it fully recovered by August 17th. In addition to the range we will also be keeping daily play away from all tee surfaces that will be used during the tournament. I've detailed those locations in a previous blog. You may have noticed the upper parking lines have been repainted. We didn't do the lower lot as it will be used to stage much of the infrastructure for Golf Canada and the lines would get worn out far quicker than normal. The lower lot will be repainted after the event has packed up and moved on.


All for now,
Wade