Wildflower Driving Range is now open for 2014

 Although it may not feel like April, more like late October, the driving range is open for business at Wildflower.  We will be opening the driving range every day this week, weather permitting in the morning, to let all golfers come out and try out their new Christmas presents that they opened up this last Christmas. 

      We are also working on blowing last season's heavy topdressing off the greens to expose the turf underneath and let it absorb some much-needed sunshine.

 Last winter was cold, but the topdressing we put down early November acted as a blanket to add some wind and cold weather protection for our bentgrass greens.  You can see some of the darker green stripes are actually where there was a heavier concentration of topdressing that warmed up the turf this spring and promoted green-up.

Here is a better picture of those green stripes after the sand has been removed to expose the turf underneath.

After we blow off most of the topdressing, we will use our pull-behind greens brush to work the remaining sand into the green and roll several times to smooth out the greens and get them ready for their first mowing of the season.  This is a time that has been on my mind for a long time, since last year when we put the course to bed.  All winter, I was wondering how this year's preparations will work and come out of the winter months.  We are seeing a lot less fungal activity than we did last year due to a more comprehensive fungicide application last fall.  Although the Poa annua suffered a little more than last year, it gives me a good idea of where to focus our attention on reducing the Poa on our greens.
       When I was the superintendent in Page, Arizona, we managed Poa greens because it was a favorable climate (just because it was so easy to grow) for that grass and was very prolific.  The cost of a renovation to all 20 greens was out of the question, and the amount of bentgrass that we were able to germinate to compete would take decades to out-compete the Poa.
      We will be taking a more proactive approach to eliminating the Poa here at Wildflower due to the limited amounts that we have on some of our greens.  There is a lot of Poa presence in some of the collars around Wildflower, so we will have to take a different approach to getting rid of this plant.  There are many different management stances on eliminating Poa, ranging from complete removal, to a slow and steady transition back to pure bentgrass. We will be taking the slow and steady approach simply because some grass is better than no grass, and I definitely do not want to see pockets of bare soil on the greens.
    One thing that I would really like to see is the construction of a nursery on the Wildflower property.  This would allow us to take from an out of play area to re-sod damaged areas or areas that we would like to see a dense stand of turf.  We will be assessing our situation later this year to decide where would be the perfect spot for a nursery.

Check back later this week and I'll post more pictures from the course