Not all brown is the same

Many of you may be wondering what the heck happened to the golf course? I have used the line 10 days ago we were perfect. A golfer came up to me yesterday and said I have been away for 10 days what happened? The easy answer is Summer. It stopped raining and became really hot. Monday 7/20 it was 90 degrees and humid as heck with not a breadth of air. We took a few lumps on fairways. They are maintained with very little inputs and we can only counter all the stress they are under. We have insects out there chewing away at the roots, fungal pathogens wreaking havoc, heat stress, drought stress, traffic stress. When the level reaches it's peak some grass chooses to go dormant or check out. I have explained how cooling the grass off in the afternoons adds to our salinity problem and is not all that effective where the coverage is bad. We have had good luck by reducing this practice. We needed more than luck on Monday. Since that day we have been very dry and this is starting to show itself all over. We have also had an outbreak of a fungus called dollar spot named for the silver dollar sized spots it leaves behind. A few spots are no big deal but when they coalesce and are right next to each other it can be devastating. The old bunkers on #3 have reappeared and the bug spray areas are increasing every day as well. So as the title says not all brown grass is created equal. The following pictures might tell the story better:

dollar spot

dollar spot

fairy ring fungus

bug spray damage

old bunkers #3 fwy

To add insult to injury we had a hydraulic leak on the greens roller this week also. The damage was really not that bad considering and it was only a few greens. In a previous post I said it was a mistake to say how great the course was in this forum and just like that the shoe dropped. We will continue as always to fight the battles and the good news is that the course is still playing really well albeit that it is visually very different. Not to worry it will rain eventually and it will also cool down. When those two things happen we will bounce right back and be where we were before.

hydraulic leak