Club Championship Weekend Recap, Week of July 25th, Drought Continues

Club Championship weekend featured hot and humid conditions. Temperatures topped out at 99 degrees on Sunday with a stiff wind. The high temperatures and humidity made greens management a little tricky, but speeds were flirting with 12 feet on all three days. The agronomy team was happy with how the greens performed especially with the humidity. A strong indication of all the work to the upper two inches of the profile is starting to pay dividends.

Congratulations to Steve Dale on capturing the men's championship and Cheryl Murtagh on capturing the ladies championship. Other winners included Stephen McGee (blue tee), Jim Kelley (white tee), Ben Mcgregor (purple tee), and Maryann Davis (orange tee).

Greens still featuring a vigorous root system

Greens were vented this week with a solid tine. This was done to help with water infiltration and gas exchange in the soil. Generally we would have used the small coring tines (emperor tines). The coring tines cause more disruption and abrasion to the canopy that increases water use so we decided against using them at this time. Also, a lot of the agronomy team is busy hand watering and we didn't want to take them off for plug cleanup. As soon as conditions allow we will go back to using the small coring tines.

Assistant Kevin Bird applying wetting agent

As always we are applying wetting agents to turf to maximize the precious water resource we have. Always important, but even more so in drought conditions.

The dry conditions have also added a lot of extra maintenance to our plant material. Flowers are a bit smaller then usual due to the drought, but are starting to fill in nicely. Our rough mower John Chadwick hasn't mowed rough in probably over three weeks now and is spending a good deal of time embracing his new role of taking care of the beds. The beds do look nice!

Irrigation tech Marcelo added another quick coupler to the system to aid in water management. This was added to a crucial area for water on the 12th fairway. We plan to add another coupler to the lower fairway in the coming days.

This map from July 28th shows that Ipswich is in the highest drought region of all of New England and conditions have worsened over the past week. We have currently turned off all rough irrigation except in crucial areas, running fairways at a 15 to 20 percent reduction, limited daytime watering to hand watering and emergency purposes only, and all projects or cultural practices that require additional water have been suspended until conditions approve. Our main priority are greens, tees, and approaches. These areas are still being irrigated normally. The drought has added countless hours and a good deal of stress to the entire agronomy team. I would like to thank all of my team that drags hose and the countless hours they have put in during some very unpleasant temperatures.

Below are some pictures highlighting the drought conditions and low water levels in the ponds: