Late July Update from the Golf Course

Unfortunately for Iowans the news this past week about Emerald Ash Borer was not good. The pesky bug is now on the move again and it is now officially in Iowa. This pest will do some major damage to ash trees and if you have them you need to think about 1 of 2 options. Do I cut down the tree once it becomes infected or do I spend the money on an insecticide to treat it and try to save it. Knowing that I will have to do it for the life of the tree. Tough choices to make on a landscape item, but you have to make it. There is a lot of good information on this web site.

http://www.iowadnr.gov/Environment/Forestry/ForestHealth/EmeraldAshBorer.aspx

Overnight we had just over .90" of rain. What a great relief for the grounds crew. We have spent a solid month hand watering dry spots and syringing on hot days. This consumes many man hours and we always seem to be in the way. Now with the cool forecast for the next week we are looking forward to doing something other than watering! We have a few projects to tie up some loose ends on. We also plan to do some rough and fairway fertilization this week while it is cool out. We also have numerous trees that need some minor tree limb pruning and or elevating.

In the next 7-14 days you will also see some work being done at the North Pump Station. We have 2 different pumping stations with a total of 5 different irrigation pumps. One of those pumps decided to break this past Sunday morning. While it is not critical it is very important that we fix it right away in case Mother Nature throws more hot weather at us. We will have a new pump delivered and we will replace it as soon as it arrives.

Please remember that we are under a month until Phase 1 of the Master Plan renovation will start. Please pay attention to calendar details because we will have a different schedule for golf course aerification. Our plan is to always have 18 holes in play for you to enjoy. So we will be aerifying a particular 9 holes and then waiting 2 weeks before we aerify the next 9 holes. So the schedule will be as follows:

North Course 1-5, 15-18 August 19th
North Course 6-14 September 3rd
South Course 1-9 September 16th
South Course 10-18 September 30th

This has been a great year for our flowers. In the clubhouse grounds department Todd Triplett injured his rotator cuff and is out for surgery and rehab. In Todd's absence, Ruben Robles who has been a long time South Course employee, has moved up to the Club Grounds area and has been doing a wonderful job. I will leave you with a look of some of the flowers out on the golf course. We hope you enjoy all of the gardens and flowers that our staff work on.