The streak is over! 2 inches of RAIN and counting!

After 62 days of dry weather and not a drop of rain, the sky has broken open and we finally got a much deserved downpour!  We have so far received a little over 2 inches of rain and the sun is just now starting to poke out!  It will be Cart Path Only today unfortunately, but it has been over 3 months since we had to restrict the carts!  The lake between #3 and #13 is now completely full, and Overlook lake came up over a foot!  (Even though it is hard to notice)  With more rain forcast over the next 24 hours, it sounds like we will keep getting more of that much needed moisture!

60 Days without RAIN!!!!

Today marks day number 60 since the last rainfall, which was on September 27th.  It has been a record setting drought and has taken a toll on all sorts of trees, shrubs and grass across the entire state of Georgia.  Our staff has tried our best to water all the areas needed over the last 2 months to try to minimize any damage some of the plants may have incurred.  Overlook lake, as seen in the above picture, is almost 2.5 feet below full level, and our irrigation lake on holes #3/#13 is over 2 feet low as well.  The state of Georgia has just recently mandated a water ban which only allow watering of lawns 2 days per week.  One good thing to note, rain is in the forecast finally!  The local meteorologists say that Tuesday and Wednesday of next week we have a 90% chance of rain, but we all know they are hardly right even half the time!  If we do get rain on Tuesday, that will be 63 days without rain!  Any rain will help, and we will be happy no matter what!

Frost Delays

I hate to say it, but today we had a heavy frost on the golf course, and even the greens!  No doubt it is that time of year again where we deal with the occasional Frost Delays.  Frost is very hard to predict, and sometimes lasts much longer than we want.  There is no doubt Frost always causes confusion as to when the golf course will open, or what is happening to tee times because of Frost Delays.  This year we will be using the Marietta Country Club App to send out the Frost Delay notifications.  If you do not yet have the App on your phone, please take a minute to do so.  Go to the Play store, or whatever your phone uses to sell Apps, and type in Marietta Country Club.  The App is free, and is full of helpful information about the Club and current events going on at any given time.  We will no longer use Trumpia to send out notifications on Frost Delays, only the Marietta Country Club App!!!  If you still need help getting the App on your phone, contact myself or Judi at the front desk of the Club and we would be glad to help.  Thank you!

Battling Moss on the Putting Greens!

If you have been out to play golf recently, you may have noticed some black or white colored spots on the greens and wondered what was wrong.  Take a look at the pictures below and you will see an example of what I am talking about.

This is a picture of the Putting Green near the Clubhouse, the white area is the dying moss.

This white area is what the moss looks like after it is treated with a chemical designed to kill it.  The moss we are battling is technically called Silvery Threaded Moss, and is a nusanse in putting greens.  The  main reason it is such an aggressive pest is because it can tolerate very low mowing heights, such as putting greens are generally maintained.  Most of the time when you think of moss growing, it may be in the woods on old logs or on top of rocks in a pond.  On putting greens there is really no rhyme or reason as to where it shows up.  Some spots are shady and damp areas on edges of greens, others are in full sun, such as the putting green.  Another bad area of moss we are dealing with is on #3 green, in front of the large fan which blows all summer.  One would think that in full sun and with a constant breeze it would be a place that moss hated, but it actually grows very aggressively there.  

We are currently working with different herbicides which will effectively control moss, while still being unharmful to the creeping bentgrass turf.  That is the thing, there are products that will reduce and remove the moss, but they are also very dangerous to turfgrass.  So please be mindful when you see these areas that we are working to remove the moss by damaging it and allowing the healthy turf to fill in the voids.  We will plug some of the worst areas out, but will wait until the greens out grow the damaged moss in most areas!

What a difference a year makes!

As most of you know, we are currently in a very serious drought, with no rain in the immediate forecast!  We recorded 0.0 inches of rain for October, which is an all time record.  Not only for October, but for every month of the year!  I ran across these pictures the other day and thought it would be very interesting to show you the difference between last year on November 4th, after we received 3.8 inches of rain in October 2015.  You can see how green the rough and particularly the fairways on here on hole #10.  

Here is a picture from 11/4/15 after a month of average rainfall

Here is a picture from 11/2/16 after receiving ZERO rain for the month of October.  

For everyone who is tired of seeing brown spots in the fairways and burned up rough, so is our grounds staff!  This record setting hot and dry weather has really done a number on the golf course, and we will really need some rainfall before it turns cold this winter to save us from too much damage.  We will continue to use our available water as much as possible, but have cut back drastically over the last 6 weeks.  Without any rain in the forecast, we can not use up our reserves too quickly.