Noah Gessler, Golf Course Superintendent
Summer is winding down and it has been very busy in golf maintenance. Summer is the time when we get the most grass growth and also the time when we can do course cultural practices such as aerification and topdressing. We need to be in the growing season to do aerification so that the turf can recover from this type of work. Throughout the summer we will have aerified all of the course greens three different times. The fairways, tees, and roughs are just done once per year.
As we move into September, we start to see things slow down, even though the weather is still quite warm. As the summer monsoons fade away, we lose the humidity that the bermudagrass loves so much. The days getting shorter also slows things down and typically our warm temperatures are just in the midafternoon.
At the end of September, we will be closing the driving range and the practice greens for overseeding. These are the only areas on the property that our department overseeds. The golf courses themselves do not get overseeded any more. At the end of September, we start adding colorants and fertilizers to the turf to extend the growing season and also keep the green color. As we get colder, we switch to a turf paint to keep the color through the winter months.