Another Atmospheric River

 All of us in the golf world, both players and operators watch weather fairly closely as the sport we all are a part of is played outdoors and thus impacted by weather. As such, I'm sure for most of you it comes as no surprise  that we are in for another Atmospheric River starting Wednesday 11/20/24. Dr. Daniel Swain, a weather forecaster from UCLA states.....

"The upcoming atmospheric river event will be a very long duration event for portions of Northern California north of the SF Bay Area... This combination of long duration and strong intensity will yield an overall rain event that will be, in many ways, more impressive than the sum of it's parts." (Weather West - November 18 2024)

Radar imagery from the Weather Channel 11/20/24 12:00 PM.

10 day forecast from Wednesday 11/20/24

What Does This Mean for The Golf Course?

Of course it means the golf course will be wet and we will be cart path only until the course dry's out. Additionally we will potentially need to call for some F9 & B9 alternating closures as the course dry's out to make pigment applications to our hybrid bermuda fairways to help them with winter color. These scheduled applications cannot be done in the rain or when it is too wet to get application equipment onto the course without causing damage and to  it needs to dry before golf activity. 

What Have We Done to Prepare for this Storm? 

We were mowing rough today right up to the start of rainfall. Additionally we make sure all of our drainage inlets are trimmed and clean to facilitate quick movement of rain water off of the golf course. We also made a big push to finish the entrance way landscaping and irrigation work that we were in process  with as  this type of rainfall will make open ground a real mess and delay progress once the storms subside. Below are some pictures of this progress. 

Finishing up second pass on rough mowing this week on Wednesday 11/20/24 just as the rain started falling

We also finished new planting on the  parking lot mound in the entrance way ahead of the storm on Wednesday 11/20/24. 

We also added plants to the left hand bank as you enter the club. We completed renewing the irrigation of this area two weeks back. 

The renewing of the irrigation on this parking lot bank was just getting started on Monday 11/18/24. We of course were looking at the forecast and pushing to get the work completed prior to the storms so we could plant and bark which is precisely what we did. It literally started raining on us when we were raking out the last of the bark. 

2024 Fall Projects

We have been making steady progress with projects that are part of our Granite Bay Golf Course Master Plan after overseeding tees and select areas of the surrounds and collars in late September. Despite having numerous club events and a busy tournament calendar, the cooler weather and shorter days of fall slow the growth of the Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda Fairways and reduce the need for irrigation and associated management opening up windows to advance on our plan. The progress we have made the past five weeks has been good considering great fall golfing weather and the need to prepare and maintain the golf course daily. Below are some pictures of the progress.

Overseeding with ryegrass in the collars was successful. This might be a temporary fix as ryegrass is very susceptible to our summer conditions, but ryegrass can take a low height of cut better than the tall fescue collars originally installed in 2021, and that we seeded the ryegrass into.

First fall project we did after overseeding was to replace the walk-on sod to the upper PG

The second project we did was to fix the perennially bad area behind #7 green. This area has always been bad, exacerbated by tree roots, inadequate irrigation infrastructure and a drainage water pattern that washed walnut shells and dirt onto the turf of upper left chipping area. It took us three weeks to dig drainage, pour curb and gutter, install irrigation, condition the soil and re-sod and add and pack DG for cart parking.

Behind #7 green on the left-hand side where we removed some walnut shells and added turf. 

Drainage was a big problem in this area and there wasn't any drainage infrastructure nearby to tap into, so we had to tap into some below the chipping area.

Here is the curb and gutter with associated drainage inlet that was installed to control traffic and catch water that comes through this area during rain events.

After #7 we started working on The Clubs entrance way landscaping which could take us the month of November and is part of our Master Plan. The first area we addressed was repairing the irrigation on the barren bank to the right of the #8 tee along the driveway. This area was originally irrigated with drip irrigation which we long ago identified as inoperable for any length of time at GBGC because the of the dirty water we pump out of our pond between #1 & #9 clogging drip filters and emitters. Replacing this system with overhead water will allow the lavender that is already there to thrive as well as new plants we plan to add in the very near future.

We have already cleared the way for new irrigation and planting on the next parking lot mound as you drive into The Club. 

More to come on this, but the work we will be doing this year is just part of the plans we have for the entrance way, parking lot and clubhouse landscape and is largely focused this year on repairing irrigation infrastructure.  Without proper irrigation in the west, you can't sustain turf or plants and is a major theme of our plans.

Overseeding Tees and Shady Surrounds

On Monday September 23, 2024 and throughout this week we will be overseeding the Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda tees and the winter shady putting surface surrounds of #'s 2,3,6,13,14 & 16. The hybrid bermuda tee tops need to be overseeded with ryegrass so we have green and  durable  tee surfaces to play off of this coming winter as the hybrid bermuda slows down and stops growing. 

The hybrid bermuda in the above mentioned shady putting surface surrounds stops growing as well. But the added factor of winter shade with the sun traveling lower in the northeastern horizon behind trees, causes this hybrid bermuda in these selected green surrounds to go completely dormant and can be soft and remain wet when it starts to rain. 

The Santa Anna Hybrid bermuda fairways and putting surface surrounds in the full sun will be treated with pigment and iron as we have done in past seasons which has been successful in keeping them green. For those who are interested, enjoy the below pictures of the process.

Step #1 - Scarify. Scarifying thins out the dense bermuda stand creating avenues for seed and sand to infiltrate, stay moist and germinate.

Step #2 - Cleanup. All of those bermuda sprigs and debris that were removed during the scarification process need to be removed before seeding. We use a variety of blowers and sweepers to complete this process. Here we are using the large tow behind turbine blower to pileup sprigs and debris.

Smaller tee levels that are difficult to get to with sweepers and tow behind blowers are cleaned up with backpack blowers, rakes & shovels.

Where possible we use the big mechanical sweeper  to remove the debris.

Step #3 - Mow. After the cleanup we mow / scalp the surface preparing the surface for overseeding and golf play on Tuesday 9/24/24.

Step #5 - Spread Seed. This brings us to the main event, overseeding with cool season ryegrass seed. Because the heat tolerant warm season  Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda that compose the base of our tees  start's to slow down as we transition to the cooler part of the year, we overseed these tees with cool season ryegrass seed. This gives the tees full grass coverage all winter. We'll mow this ryegrass a little higher all winter then we mow the Hybrid Bermuda in the summer so when the bermuda wakes up and starts to grow again in 2025 and we lower the cut to accommodate the bermuda's  growth preferences, the ryegrass will transition out as it can't compete with the aggressive Hybrid Bermuda. 

Maybe a little hard to see but this represents about 400 lb.'s per acre of ryegrass seed.

Step #6 - Add sand topdressing. The amount of topdressing we add in this process is just enough to cover the seed and protect it from the elements while it germinates

Step #6 - Water in in the seed and sand. We use irrigation to push the seed and sand into the thinned bermuda canopy where it will stay moist while germinating.

Above represents the  finished product you will be playing on for about a week ahead of ryegrass germination. 

Pigmenting Fairways and Sunny Green Surrounds

This picture of #9 was taken last year on Thursday 1/11/23. This is the color of our non-overseeded fairways by just treating them with pigment and iron. The color is pretty good and we plan starting the same process later in October to keep them green all winter. Playability on the dormant Hybrid bermuda is good as long as we dont get a super wet winter.

 

Here we are applying the pigment / iron mix to the fairways. Turfgrass pigment is different then paint which is widely used in desert golf courses. Pigment works differently by helping plants that still have some chlorophyll, or green color within the tissue maintain it and stay green. Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda is known for holding onto its color longer into the season and coming out of dormancy sooner than other varieties of hybrid bermuda. This is why the pigment works especially well on the Santa Anna in our opinion.  

July 2024 - The Hottest July on Record

Multiple news outlets have been reporting that July of 2024 was the hottest July on record in California and  the Western US. Some relief is in sight according to CA's new go to climatologist Dr. Daniel Swain who predicts  more moderate temps and some moonsonal thunderstorms in the near future. 

 Any of us who have been around Granite Bay know how hard summers historically can be on this golf  course, and we have just experienced the hottest July in the courses existence. Currently the course is not without summer issues, particularly in the cool season rough but if we were to honestly compare this summer so far to prior summer's which were not as harsh, the course has held up better. 

This is primarily due to converting the fairways from a mix of cool season grasses to warm season Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda, but also the introduction  Turf Type Tall Fescue to the rough and continued work on irrigation coverage. The work of improving irrigation coverage along with continued interseeding  of tall fescue into our rough will continue which logically bodes well for the future.

Above is weather data generated by our on course weather station. The average high temperature for the 31 days of July 2024 was 101.57 degrees almost 9 degrees warmer then the historical average highs for July in Granite Bay. I like to look at the number of  recorded days above 100 degree's as a  matrix for determining the the severity of the summer. Summer of 2024 has had 28 days over 100 degrees through July compared to 11 days in 2023, 16 in 2022 & 20 in 2021 the year of our renovation. 2020 had only 13.

NOAA historic average temperature's for Granite Bay CA. But remember if you are sitting on a block of ice while your hairs on fire, on average you are fairly comfortable or so says GBGC's beloved John Korvin.

Spiking Greens

On Monday 8/12/24 we plan to spike and topdress the greens keeping in line with our small, but more frequent aeration events throughout the year. These aeration events are designed to keep putting surface disruption to a minimum year round avoiding  traditional large hole aeration in the spring and fall. This accomplishes the desired goals not disrupting putting quality for extended periods of time and mitigating poa annua encroachment by not giving it a chance to get going in larger aeration holes. Below are pictures of the process conducted today, Monday 8/12/24. 

Step #1 is to aerate with the Procore 648. We are using a coring tine this time around to actually remove some organic material from the green. Weather is forecasted to be in the mid 80's today with no excessive heat the remainder of the week making this a perfect time to jump on a core aeration in August.

Aeration holes are small. 1/4" in diameter maximum if that. The small hole combined with 2"X2" spacing will recover rapidly and will not deflect ball roll leaving putting quality intact especially after we thoroughly roll the surface's the morning after aeration. 

Step 2 remove the coring material. We basically use blowers and scoop shovels to remove all of the debris from the surfaces

Step 3 we usually mow the surfaces to remove any straggler cores that get stuck in the holes during initial cleanup. After mowing we blow the surfaces off again creating the finished product prior to sand topdressing depicted in the picture above with the ball mark repair tool. 

Step 4  we are seeding the collars. More to come in the future on what are our ultimate plans with these collars.

Step 5 lightly topdress the surface with sand.

Step 6 we brush the sand into the open holes and turf canopy.

Step 7 is to irrigate. We typically irrigate deeply after opening greens up with aeration. This deep watering brings the greens soil profile to its field capacity as well as drawing air into the rootzone which is one of the main purposes of core aeration.

View of Tilley's PG on Tuesday AM following a good rolling and blowing. 

A closeup view reveals some open holes after the seed irrigation event the evening before. A light follow up topdressing followed by brushing and blowing will fill them nicely. Size of the hole again does not deflect ball roll so they putt nicely and recovery will be rapid.

2024 Fairway Aeration & Topdressing Process

After being closed for a week, we are putting the finishing touches on our 2024 fairway aeration & sand topdressing.  We decided  to close for the traditionally slow week following the 4th of July rather then stretching out the necessary process for 3 to 4 weeks with alternating F9 & B9 closures. This will make the process more productive and produce consistent playing surface's with recovery being more or less equal.

Not only will the fairways recover at the same time, GCM  can get back to our normal irrigation regimen after they recover as open aeration holes will cause the fairways  to dry out hindering recovery.  Additionally we can get back to using sharp mowers as the  topdressing sand disperses  and the surfaces recover, and we can logically re-sharpen reels. 

What To Expect Saturday 7/13/24

You should expect a very playable, freshly aerified fairway surfaces with open holes and the remnants of topdressing sand. As mentioned above, open holes can dry the surface out rapidly so the fairways could be wetter initially then what you might expect, which will effect ball roll temporarily. If you dont want to scratch your clubs you might want to consider using a older set until sand disperses. 

A picture is worth a thousand words. For those who are interested enjoy the pic's chronicling the steps of aeration week at GBGC.

First step is to mow the fairways. We set the fairway mowers to as low as we can currently go    (about .400") to "scalp"  them down as low as we can get them. Even though we are in the middle of a heatwave in July, these hybrid bermuda fairways can take it as they are actively growing and will recover quickly.

Next step is to flag all of the irrigation heads, valve boxes, yardage markers so we do not hit them with the aerator's.

Next we start to aerify across the fairway in short patterns on both sides of the flagged irrigation heads, valve boxes & yardage markers.

These patterns on both sides of the irrigation head allows for the next aerifyer to move up and down the fairway at ease and safety from hitting the head. Even though the heads, valve boxes and markers are flagged , there is allot going on with a heavy piece of equipment and easy to make a raising or lowering mistake and take out a sprinkler head, valve box or bronze marker.

Granite Bay is blessed with 2 large fairway aerators. This one is aerating up the fairway after the above depicted work around the heads, boxes and markers. 

The third aeration process is the short grass around the greens utilizing a smaller walk behind aerator. This aerator is equipped with smaller coring tines then we used on the fairways but he hole pattern is tighter. Cleanup of these cores is being done by GCM staff with backpack blowers and rakes and shovels as we cant navigate the large aerators and sweepers in these tighter areas adjacent to the putting surfaces.

After the actual aeration process we remove the flags from irrigation heads, valve boxes and yardage markers and drag using a keystone metal drag mat. This process preserves previously applied  topdressing sand and substantially lessons the burden of the following step, sweeping.

Next we start sweeping the core debris with the large sweepers. When we are done with sweeping it is time to start the most time consuming part of the process, sand topdressing.

Prior to aeration week we take delivery of topdressing sand in three locations around the course. Above depicts the pile on the Barton Road lot which we use for #1, #2, #4 and any leftovers #9. We also stock pile sand in the corner of the parking lot which we use for #5 - #9 & #17 - #18. The third location on the small out of play lot pin high to the left of #12 green. This pile services #10 - 13 & #15 & #16.

We use a 4 yard topdressor to topdress 30 acres of fairway and short mowed hybrid bermuda turf. The above rate represents  approximately 31 tons per acre which amounts just over 900 tons. Above Enrique is painting #4 with fairway topdressing sand. 

Here Enrique is spreading that 30 tons per acre on #5. Again the spreader holds 4 yards so he makes about 170 trips to a sand pile and back during aeration week. That is an average of 34 trips per day and just about 4 trips per hour. Sometimes more trips per hour, many times less obviously depending on the distance needed to travel.

This picture depicts #15 recently topdressed on the left, In the middle #16 in process of being topdressed, the green circled section representing one trip to the #12 topdressing pile. On the right is #10 which was topdressed, brushed and irrigated the previous day. 

Its takes our whole staff to pull off aeration and topdressing of the fairways in a week and I appreciate all of them, but none are more important  then the
GBGC GCM legend Enrique Reyes Huerta, sand topdressor extraordinaire. 

Next step is to drag the sand topdressing into the aeration holes and turf canopy. I have personally done most of this process myself since our 2021 conversion and can say every time we do this you can feel these fairways getting better. It wasn't hard to get the sand dry this week as we were in the midst of a July heat wave and our new large fairway brush with stiff bristles worked the sand in nicely.

A few days after some deep watering we mow them for the first time and follow them with a blower to clean them up. Doug on the fairway blower has been pretty actively blowing during the core clean-up process as well as the fairway topdressing process moving sand accumulations around with the turbine blower. 

Irrigation during the week was  tricky as we needed to keep the surfaces on the dry side prior to aeration and  topdressing but couldn't completely neglect irrigation after they were aerified because of open holes that were exposed to hot drying weather. Good news that any discoloration from dry down will soon recover after we start irrigating and the deep watering they receive  after brushing in sand topdressing 

This represents the product 3 days out of topdressing. Holes on the B9 will be a few days out from the F9 but all should be recovered by next weeks end. We are planning cart path on hole #'s 15 & 16 as they were just topdressed the morning of Friday 7/12/24 and will receive a deep watering when we are done brushing and could be wet when we re-open the course Saturday 7/14/24