Golf course work progresses with an emphasis on fairways where severe compaction from decades of cart and equipment traffic has resulted in fairways that are unable to support the growth of strong turf. We have been working on this with our Wiedenmann Deep tine aerifier that is capable of easily penetrating 7”-8” into these hardpan fairways. The process is not disruptive at all to the playability of the golf course and already after a few years of pounding we are seeing a dramatic difference in turf quality and the ability of the golf course to firm up faster after rain events resulting in more favorable cart path only rulings. This is a long term commitment and will help improve conditions at Nemadji with time.
18S Fairway after Wiedenmann 8-23-2022
Depth About 7” (At bend in wire)
You may have noticed some tearing on some of the fairways on the golf course-such as 8 North and 9 East. The main culprit causing this sort of tearing is the severe thatch issue on many of the older fairways.
Thatch Layer 9E Fairway 8-22-2022
This layer of dead and decaying stems and roots(the lower parts of the thatch layer are probably over 50 years old) pretty much seals off all water from entering into the soil beneath resulting in fairways that dry up under any kind of droughty conditions regardless of how much we water. In some instances the thatch layer is over 3 i
nches thick. Creating channels for air and water movement with the deep tine aerifier helps with this but the fundamental problem remains that there is simply too much thatch on these fairways. What these fairways really need is a complete renovation involving stripping and regrading but this would involve course closings and a substantial investment of time and money. More realistically, we could begin to remove this thatch with very aggressive deep verticutting to a depth of 2”-3”. This would require a more modest investment in equipment and labor and currently we are exploring our options. The big challenge with Nemadji is that there are so many things that could be done to improve but we simply cannot afford to do everything at once-we have to pick our battles. Which always seems to lead us back to our irrigation system.
Labor Day allowed us to celebrate as a golf course maintenance crew yet another damaging leak:
Leak 17W 9-5-2022
This leak currently under repair resulted in a “waterbed” of trapped water between the turf and soil beneath as big as a tee and over a foot high. This means yet more water wasted and taking the system out of service while repairs are made. These repairs are a dirty, thankless job and I cannot express enough appreciation for those who perform this work. What is funny (peculiar, not haha) is that these sorts of incidents occur with bi-weekly regularity at Nemadji while at a “normal” golf course this might be a once a year thing or less. This is not sustainable and hopefully we can move on from this money wasting process in the not so distant future allowing us to focus our efforts more on other improvements such as bunkers, cart paths, turf renovations, or whatever else we choose to do. One thing I would also like to do is find a way to prevent the occurrences like the two pictures below show:
Vandalism 3E 8-23-2022
Vandalism 2N 8-23-2022
Ballwashers at Nemadji have a tough life-Ballwasher was thrown onto 2N Fairway from 3N tee
Disheartening to say the least. I just wish that all players showed the respect and integrity on which the game was built. I truly think that most indeed do and thank you for that. In the future if anyone sees this kind of nonsense happening on the golf course please report it as soon as possible so that we may protect the facility for everyone’s enjoyment.
See you on the golf course.
