Gas Exchange

What are you all doing to the greens today? This question seems to be asked a hundred times a season between our members, staff, and once a year players alike. As superintendents green's health is always on the forefront of our minds. Luckily with continued innovations in the turf management industry we have a plethora of tools in our toolbox to manage not only turf health but playability as well

Many of you this week likely saw our Turf Team venting the greens before play on Monday and Tuesday. Now what does venting do and why is that important? Our venting process as Swope this week involved using "pencil" tines to penetrate roughly the top 4 inches of our greens. Each hole is spaced out 3 inches from the previous and this is continues over the whole green. Now why is this important? Venting is crucial for gas exchange to happen for the plant. Without venting soils can become to compacted to allow proper gas exchange and will also affect water retention.

Why Vent?-  Along with the health benefits of venting the greens there is also a huge benefit in the playability of the greens after a vent versus a full aerification as we do in the spring and fall. After venting we are able to roll the greens and add a light layer of top-dress sand. This combinations is very non aggressive and keeps the greens much smoother than after a normal aerifications.

The Best is Yet to come

 What an interesting month May proved to be here at Swope. Once again Missouri weather will keep you on your toes. May brought us some unfortunately unexpected high temps, but also blessed us with an exceedingly large amount of rain and thunderstorms. 

 

One perk of the job here at Swope is it should never be boring and monotonous. One day you can be dealing with keeping greens alive during scorching temps, and the next you can be pumping out bunkers from a torrential rain fall. May brought the best of both worlds to us and a little more.

During May we also got to lay zoyzia sod on many of the tee boxes that struggle each year. You will notice new sod on number's 5,6,7,11,12,16 tee boxes. This has become a yearly occurrence due to the number of rounds played at Swope each season. With rumors of a renovation this will be an issue we plan to tackle head on to create both the best playing conditions as well a sustainable management practice.

Spring Swing

 Spring is in full swing here at Swope. With increased rainfall and rising temperatures Swope is turning as lush and green as ever. As many of you will have noticed our rough and greens surrounds are extremely healthy allowing for a thick stand of turf. As mentioned in the previous blog our areas on green that were affected by our harsh winter are also making a full recovery. 

The zoyzia issues we are facing from the increased rounds per year as well as our harsh winter are being addressed as well. The month of May will see many of our zoyzia tee's re-soded as well as low areas in our fairways that tend to hold water. Swope will be re-soding roughly 15,000 square feet of zoyzia this spring with the hope as always of improving the players experience. 

Along with on-course improvements a large step has been taken in the appearance of the the grounds surrounding the historic Clubhouse. You will notice we have moved to using black mulch in the beds as well as planting an exorbitant amount of flowers in said beds.

What's Wrong with the Greens!?

 If you've noticed a handful of greens at Swope Memorial that seem to have some off-color or yellow patches, you're not alone. Coming out of winter dormancy this year, we have battled a few slow-to-recover winter exposure spots on select greens. During bitter temperatures like we experienced in mid-January, any part of exposed turf is susceptible to cold damage and in extreme cases of prolonged exposure can lead to winter desiccation. If you remember the unbearable cold during that week and a half, you can probably understand why bentgrass grown at 1/8th of an inch does not enjoy it much. We believe these areas are pushing through it and the majority of the areas should be just fine. If by chance any areas decide to head back the other direction, we will address it with some interseeding, but as of now, we do not anticipate needing to do this.

New Course Marking

 

You may notice while playing Swope the new paint on all of the cart paths. Along with many other course improvements we've been working on, this has been added to help golfers while they enjoy their round. Many patrons will already know, but for those that don't, the different colored stripes on the cart paths signify yardages the golfer is from the green. The important distinction that should be made here is that the paint line marks the distance from the middle of the fairway strait out from the line. Not necessarily the distance from that spot on the cart path. Red indicates you are 100 yards from the middle of the green, white 150 yards, blue 200 yards, and yellow 250 yards. The goal with this is to improve the golfers perfection of distances by giving them a reference point before they ever leave the cart. This is especially helpful when we are cart path only, because you will be able to estimate a club or two before walking out to your ball.