Brutal summer conditions - Closed courses

[Mark_Fine]

Weather problems are causing major havoc with golf courses.  Lots of rain coupled with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees and humidity consistently above 80 or 90% is trouble for growing grass.  Supers know is disease running rampant in these conditions and they are skipping mowings, raising their cutting heights and increasing chemical usage to try to fight back.  It is survival mode for golf courses/turf and some are not surviving.  Who have you heard has either closed holes or even their entire 9 or 18 hole golf course?

Mark

[Joel_Stewart]

Sorry to hear this.  In Northern California it's amazingly cool.  San Francisco has been in the 50's and 60's for most of the last 2 months.  Even Sacramento has been in the 70's and 80's and Napa which has a huge grape crop has been in the 70's and 80's.  Both Napa and Sacramento are normally in the 90's and 100's.

[David_Tepper]

Just read today about rains & substantial flooding in Wisconsin. Hope you guys there are keeping your heads and your golf courses above water!

[Ian Andrew]

Mark,

The disease pressure in Southern Ontario is off the charts. We are now over a month of high night time temperatures, extremely high humidity and continuous thunderstorms.

Most of my friends have mentioned that they are seeing anthracnose, summer patch and pythium in their trouble areas. We have little hope in site due to the jet stream being stuck north of the Great Lakes. It keeps us very hot and draws the storms up the lakes and out over Southern Ontario continuously. This won’t end well if we don't get some breaks in the nightime tempratures.

[Dan Herrmann]

Mark - check out the Huntington Valley thread.  The Philly area is being assaulted by the weather - Tomorrow will be >100 with >110 heat index and dewpoints approaching 75.  Tonight's low will be around 80F

[Anthony_Nysse]

Those are South Florida temps. We've been anywhere between 88-90 degrees, humidity in the 50-60% range and very little rain. We picked up .5" from Bonnie today and only about 2" since May.

[Dan Herrmann]

Anthony - absolutely right about FL conditions here in PA.  I was talking with a colleague in JAX today, and Philly was warmer with higher dewpoints.  And it's not getting significantly better (especially with very warm (80F) overnight lows..

[JohnV]

Sorry to hear this.  In Northern California it's amazingly cool.  San Francisco has been in the 50's and 60's for most of the last 2 months.  Even Sacramento has been in the 70's and 80's and Napa which has a huge grape crop has been in the 70's and 80's.  Both Napa and Sacramento are normally in the 90's and 100's.

You obviously weren't in Stockton Sunday and Monday where it topped out at 100+.  But, you are right, the temps have been lower in general.

Summer has arrived here in Monterey as the fog has rolled in the last few days.

[Steve Kline]

I've been in Pinehurst all week and it's very hot (as it has been at home in Cincinnati) with afternoon thunderstorms (although none while I've been here). The PCC courses have been in poor shape (perhaps as bad I've ever seen them) - soft/slow greens, shaggy fairways, lots of crab grass (some sprigs even in the greens) that has necessitated swaths of turf being removed around some greens (most notably on course #4). However, I played Pine Needles as well this week and while the greens were a little slow and soft the rest of the course was in great shape and still pretty bouncy.

Pinehurst has been pretty empty and it's clear that the maintenance budget has taken a hit because of it. Seeing this makes me more skeptical of the work being done on #2. While the rework looks good visually, the course is still very green. Pine Needles was nowhere near as green. I hope Pinehurst gets this right but I don't have much confidence.

Keep in mind I'm a super's worst nightmare because I want firm and fast as well as smooth greens (don't need to be 10 or 11 on the stimp) but know nothing about attaining said conditions.

[Steve Okula]

Keep in mind I'm a super's worst nightmare because I want firm and fast as well as smooth greens (don't need to be 10 or 11 on the stimp) but know nothing about attaining said conditions.

Steve,

You are not a super's worst nightmare as you have two redeeming qualities not found in several of my prominent members;

1. You don't demand excessive greens speed.

     and more importantly,

2. You admit you don't know how to manage greens.

[Mark_Fine]

Just got back from Brookside CC in Pottstown.  Have to say the place looked outstanding!  Jeff Fanok and his team are doing a fantastic job getting through this overly challenging weather for maintaining grass. I am hearing conditions will be very difficult for the next few weeks but the fall should be a good time to get work done which is encouraging.   

[Mike H]

I have heard about may courses in the SW Ohio area having burnt out areas and some fairways being completely lost.  At my club the fairways are the worst I have seen them.  The super has no carts in the fairways as the fairways are right on the brink of being lost.

[Mark Chaplin]

Bob Lively the Superintendent at Fossmoor sent a message to members yesterday included in which is the following paragragh;

"This has been my most challenging year as a superintendent.  Having to deal with winter kill on greens to flooding, followed by heat and humidity".  

For all the advances in greenkeeping the elements still make the role difficult for the very best superintendents. I'm sure few members realise just how difficult it is to present a course in the best condition week in week out.

Flossmoor send excellent a regular reports to members and their communication strategy is second to none.

[Anthony_Nysse]

For those that do not know, my father has been a Superintendent or a construction Superintendent for nearly 40 years. I still speak with him nearly everyday. I spoke with him this morning and he was squeeging the greens off. It had rained for 2 hours and the Club Championship was sent to tee off. This spring it was "when is it going to get warm" and now it's "does it ever not rain?" He was draggin hoses in May, and has hardly run the irrigation system since. They push sand up on the bunkers at least once a week becasue of tremendous rains. When asked, he said it's as difficult of a summer that he can remember, extremes from one end to the other. I don't envy the weather the northern Superintendents have been going through, BUT now, more than every, members and golfers need to understand the situation and lower their expectations for the longevity of the golf course.

[Mark Chaplin]

Tony - I mentioned in a previous post about the Open, the UK had a pretty cold winter and spring, in Deal there was barely any growth until the end of May. When it warmed up the rain disappeared and there has barely been any rain all summer putting real stress on the grass.

[CJ Carder]

As much as I used to give my course, the Golden Horseshoe, grief for shaggy course conditions and slow greens, I feel it now appropriate to give them a ton of credit.  We had our first day of the member-member today and it was 92 at tee time (8:30) and 104 when I got back into my car to leave.  Despite all that, while the greens were a touch slow (maybe rolling 7.5-8), I'm not sure I saw a brown spot all morning.  Just an overall great job.  I've heard of other courses in our area having real problems lately though no one has shut anything down.

[Dan Herrmann]

CJ - Brown is fine, and usually isn't that bad.  Wall-to-wall green isn't normally so good.    Keep in mind that I'm a definite 10-handicapper when it comes to turfgrass issues, and we all need to be especially supportive to supers.

[CJ Carder]

CJ - Brown is fine, and usually isn't that bad.  Wall-to-wall green isn't normally so good.    Keep in mind that I'm a definite 10-handicapper when it comes to turfgrass issues, and we all need to be especially supportive to supers.

Dan,

I don't disagree with you one bit in that there's nothing wrong with brown.  And don't get me wrong, the course wasn't lush green or Augusta green or anything like that.  I guess I should have made the comment that while a bit slower than normal, the greens looked very healthy despite the recent difficult weather.

CJ

[Stephen Britton]

From the Washington Post, posted at 5:30pm.

Thankfully the District's fourth 100-degree afternoon of 2010 has come to a close. All three area airports set record highs today as the mercury neared or surpassed triple digit levels across the region with heat indices up to 110. Here are the actuals:

Reagan National: 101
Dulles: 99
BWI: 100

If you thought it was bad here, it was worse to our southeast. Richmond and Norfolk hit 105, both records.

For those headed out tonight, while the lack of blistering sunshine takes an edge off the heat, keep in mind temperatures will remain at or above 90 through 10 or 11 p.m. Tomorrow, the heat repeats - though clouds in the mid-to-late afternoon probably reduce the prevalence of three-digit readings. We'll also have a chance of thunderstorms marking the passage of a cold front that provides some relief for early next week.

100-degree days: Having logged its fourth 100-degree day this year, DCA is now tied for #5 in recorded history for the number of such days in a summer. The years ahead of it are 1997, 1980, 1988, and 1930 with 5, 6, 7, and 11 100-degree days respectively. The 1971-2000 average for 100-degree days is 1.2 per year.

If DC gets a thunderstorm over the next 48 hrs, and bent grass gets too wet, things could get very ugly for a lot of courses...

[Pete Wendt]

Ian,

I need to have a little fun here.  My low temperature for tonight, (81), is one degree higher than Toronto's high temperature for tomorrow, (80).  Our high will be 104 tomorrow, down from 106 today!!  I have a hard time thinking any pythium will be brewing in Southern Ontario this week.  Now..I am no expert on Southern Ontario weather, but I did grow up in the Greater Toronto area and we spent plenty of summer nights drinking beer on patios outside.  You could not drag me in handcuffs to a patio in Richmond, VA tonight. 

Also Mark, really??  this sounds like a post for TMZ.

To all my Supe friends...August is coming.  I can tell you because I look at the calendar about every five minutes.   

Ian,  St. George's sure looks awesome.  What a place.  Every fan of GCA should take a swing accross Canada to see the great works of Stanley Thompson.


Doing my part to keep the manufacturers of 100 foot 3/4 inch hoses in business.

Pete

[Jaeger Kovich]

I heard a rumor today from across the street that Winged Foot has lost at least some of their greens.

[Bill Gayne]

CJ,

I'm not surprised to hear that the conditions at Golden Horseshoe are good. The springs that feed the ponds always provided plenty of water. How did you and your dad play? Willow Oaks is doing well. Watering has largely been reduced to greens and tees. The remainder of the course is mostly bermuda and in very good shape. We have a quarry on site that provides water for irrigation.

Bill

[Paul Stephenson]

We have had to re-sod one of our greens due to heat, humidity, and very poor air circulation around this particular green.  Temps on this green have topped out at 107 degrees at times this year, and there is what our super is calling a "black layer" in the soil that is suffocating the roots.

Some pics of core samples:


Bigger one:


We're hoping to be back on by Labour Day.

[mike_beene]

re the DC heat: i literally squeezed sweat out of my tie knot Thursday and Friday. the cliffs vineyards course just shut down until oct 1 due to heat damage

[Chip Gaskins]

i was supposed to play RTJ today....i passed.  it was 101 actual and 111 heat index.  it really is amazing what is going on.  nothing below 80 at night.  kudos to all supers that can keep anything alive in those conditions!