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Thursday, December 1, 2011

Monday, November 14, 2011

As The Seasons Change...

We finally made it through the long dog days of summer and have emerged into autumn, albeit, a little tired and weary. With the temperatures on their gradual decline, we get a chance to catch our breath around here and cruise through fall taking advantage of what a beautiful place The Legacy Course becomes when the leaves begin to change.  Below are just a few select scenes from around the course. 

Fall colors provide a nice backdrop to Number 3 green.

Looking down on Number 17.







Left:  Looking from the fairway bunkers to number 5 green



Right:  A view of Number 18 and The Legacy Golf House in the distance


Ketch enjoying the view on Number 4 tee.
A frosty early morning at The Legacy

Above are photos of Number 14 on the left and Number 11 on the right.

The ryegrass is coming in nicely on the practice range.
However, as we wish it would stay "Octember" all year, the leaves do eventually fall off the trees and we do our best at keeping the course clean for play.  We use a combination of pull-behind turbine debris blowers and a tractor driven Rake-O-Vac to try and keep up with the falling leaves.
Turbine blowers rounding up leaves on Number 16 tee.













 

The Rake-O-Vac in action on Number 16.



















FROST!

We received our first frost of the season on October 21.  This is about average for this part of the state.  Please be sure to read through the Frost Delays tab on the blog for information on how frost and freezing temperatures affect the golf course.  Below is a photo of a frosty wonderland out on Number 5 tee.




Friday, September 30, 2011

Post Aerification Update II

The greens are healing well from aerification.  They are still soft to hit in to, only rolling about 8 1/2, and a little bumpy, but they are decent to play on.  We have begun working the height of cut back down and should be back to the height that we were at prior to aerification by next weekend.  I have included a couple of pictures from this morning below.


Friday, September 23, 2011

Post Aerification Update

The greens were mowed Wednesday for the first time since aerification.  The height of cut was raised .025" from where we left off prior to aerification to minimize, as much as possible, the mowers getting into the topdressing sand.  We will work the height back down as they heal.

Yesterday we vented the greens with bayonet tines.  We did this to create deeper channels for root growth in the greens profile. We achieved approximately 4 1/2 inches of depth with the bayonet tines in comparison to 3 inches with the coring tines last week.  Also, this along with rolling immediately afterwards, helps smooth out any light ruts created during the topdressing and brushing process following core aerification.  I have included a picture below of the bayonets in action.





The greens were mowed again today.  The picture below was taken following today's cut.  Even though we are closed, we will be mowing this weekend to continue grooming them for when we open back up on Monday.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Fall Greens Aerification

We completed our fall greens aerification on Thursday.  We removed approximately 3.93% of the surface area of the greens by using .5" inside diameter tines on a 2" x 2.5" spacing.  We aerified to a depth of 3".  Following aerification, we cleaned the cores off of the greens, applied topdressing sand, and brushed the sand into the aerification holes.  We will brush the greens one more time, roll them, and then let them be until they are ready to be mowed early next week.  We are scheduled to reopen on Monday, September 26th.  We will provide updates throughout the healing process.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Still Alive

We have been very busy since our last update!  This summer seems like it just does not want to end!  Despite that the greens are hanging in there fine.  The guys watering greens, on the other hand, are ready for a break!  We are looking forward to greens aerification in 2 weeks on the 15th!  I have added some pictures below of some of the cultural practices that we have completed over the past month.


Aerification and topdressing of approaches


Slicing of fairways with Aerway


Aerification and topdressing of tees



Verticutting of fairways (multiple times)



"Coach" getting the traditional treatment on his last day

Friday, August 5, 2011

Fairway Cut Modifications

As recommended by Steve Weisser in his report, we made modifications to the fairway cut lines on several holes this week.  We widened the fairway's approach into the green on holes 6,11,15, and 16.  The cut line had come in over time and we are merely trying to restore the original one.  We also extended the fairway on 15 toward the tee to shorten the carry to the fairway.  That area will require a lot of topdressing to smooth it out and get it up to fairway standards.  We will also have to eradicate the bermudagrass and re-sod the area with zoysiagrass in the future to maintain the consistency of zoysiagrass in the fairways.  We will have to do the same on the approaches that we modified as well, since they are heavily contaminated with bermudagrass.  You can see the change in the cut line in the pictures below.  The areas being reverted to fairway are brown due to scalping while bringing the height of cut down.

#6


#11



#15



#16


#15

Friday, July 8, 2011

Greens Venting

Venting is an important practice on bentgrass greens throughout the hot summers.  Venting, or creating open channels for the movement of air, water, and gases in the greens profile, is critical to the health of the greens.  There are several different ways to vent, but we have found that venting with solid tines works best for us.  We use a variation of tines, with a wide range of aggessiveness. 

We have vented greens the last two weeks with very small (.2" diameter) pencil tines.  This is the least aggressive form of venting that we do.  It has very little effect on the playability of the greens.  In addition to the pencil tines, we also pulled small cores around the outer perimeters of the greens this week.  We went 30" wide and used .2" inside diameter (.36" outside diameter) coring tines.  We chose to be more aggressive on the edges and provide more relief, as these are the areas that encounter the most stress.  We chose not to fill the larger holes on the perimeters with sand, but we did lightly topdress all of the greens this week.

Our goal is to hold off of the more aggressive venting until two weeks after the Member/Member Tournament, when the Founders Course has opened back up following their greens aerification.



a green after venting with .2" needle tines



a green immediately after aerification of the perimeter with .2"id coring tine



a closeup of the perimeter, taken this morning, after mowing and rolling

Friday, July 1, 2011

Steve Weisser Visit

Steve Weisser, of Rees Jones, Inc., paid us a visit this week.  Steve was the lead designer of the Legacy Course.  We brought him in at the request of the Building & Grounds Committee to provide guidance for future course improvements.  We had a really good visit!  I will go more into detail about his recommendations after I have received and reviewed his follow up report. 

    The braintrust deep in discussion about the landing area to the right of the fairway on #6
L to R: Steve Weisser, David Jones, Steve Smith, and Dave Kuykendall

Here is a link to Steve's bio:  http://www.reesjonesinc.com/steve-weisser.php

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Updated Moisture Index

As you can tell from the index below, we have seen a dramatic improvement in soil moisture in the last two weeks!  We are now at a rainfall deficit of only .35" year to date, here at the Legacy Course.  It is amazing how quickly the weather can change in Alabama!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Drought Relief!

We have received some much needed rain over the past 6 days!  We recorded .80" last Friday, .50" yesterday, and have received .30" already today as I write this, with a good chance of more rain today and through the weekend as well.  Our irrigation supply lakes could use a lot more, especially the one behind #11 green.  It is about 6 foot low right now, which equates to approximately 10 million gallons of water.  As a point of reference, our average monthly useage May - September is about 6.2 million gallons per month.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Dry Weather Continues.

The map below gives a very good perspective of the dry conditions in our state right now. In the past 41 days, the Legacy Course has only received 0.62" of rain.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Early Signs of Summer

Although summer does not officially start to June 21, it sure seems as though it is already here!  May was a very hot and dry month and the indicators point to much of the same through at least mid-June! 


Syringing of greens has become an everyday thing



The greens fans were turned on today and will continue to run through the end of the summer



We have also begun hand watering of fairway trenches and dry spots on tees



The lake behind 11 green, which we transfer water to our irrigation lake on 2 from, is starting to get the summer look as well


Thursday, May 26, 2011

Legacy Club House Summer Annuals
and Landscape Renovations






As the seasons change, temperatures increase, and the days get longer, the smell of freshly mowed grass, birds singing, and the sound of the scurry of setting up the golf course for a busy morning of play permeate the last of the cool spring mornings in our lovely little valley. This time of year also brings the changing of the annual flowers around the club house. Over the past years we've learned what works, performs best, and is least appetizing for our pet deer.

 





This year we went with some old favorites and good performers from last year’s endurance test, thanks to one of the longest and hottest summers on record. Dragon wing begonia, scaevola, angelonia, coleus, lantana, and purple fountain grass are a few of the chosen plants for this season. Below are some pictures of the installation process.







Below is Mike, Adrian, and Joe placing and planting the flowers for the island bed.




Adding the mini pine nuggets gives a clean look and also holds in moisture.




Prepping the beds on the back side of the club house.




...and here are the finished beds.



 



 
Picture below from right to left is Mike Donaldson, our Landscape Foreman, and his helper Adrian Vargas, these guys to a great job taking care of the clubhouse grounds.





Landscape Renovations

This year we are able to do some landscape renovations at the clubhouse by filling in open areas and replacing plants that were past their prime. We concentrated on the front door entrance of the clubhouse to give the landscape a cleaner, balanced, and more welcoming look. We replaced some of the scraggly dwarf yaupons with 3 gallon Carrisa hollies and Maiden Hair grass.


Before




After

 






We also renovated the area on either side of the walkway that leads to the Men's Grill in the back of the clubhouse by planting gardenias, itea, and butterfly bushes.


Before










... and after.