Winter has arrived!

Well for those of you who have not ventured outside in the past two days, Winter is Here! We started off Sunday with a low temperature of 26.8 degrees for our first frost delay of the season. That has been follow with some wet weather that rolled in Sunday Night and still continues to give us a scattered shower or two. No snow as of yet, but and I am sure when the clouds clear out that we will see some snow dusting the tops of the hills surrounding our valley.
So far our rain total is 1.3" A nice slow and steady rain that lasted over 10 hours. Combine this slow and steady rain with a golf course that was fairly dry, and most of the water soaked in versus running off.
Showers are forecasted through Wednesday and then I would expect a fairly slow drying out due to cold temperatures. If I had to put money down I would guess that we might have to stay on the cart paths till Saturday.
With this first major cold spell of the winter season we will lose some of the lush green color that we have been experiencing for the past month. We will be make foliar fertilizer applications to fairways and tees to help offset this lose of color.

Rain Update for 11/26

Last night we received 1.2" of rain in a 6 hour window. Currently this morning the rain has stopped and the radar map shows that we will be receiving scattered showers throughout the day. The golf course will open at 7am. We will be cart path only and not allowing medical flags. The driving range will not be open today, however the short game practice facility will be.
This morning we will be spending ample amount of time on repairing improperly fixed ball marks and working on the redistribution of sand in the bunkers.

Straight Down Fall Classic

Like Craig mentioned in his weekend release, we had the pleasure to play in the Straight Down Fall Classic this past weekend at San Luis Obispo Country Club. What a blast! Just a little background info: The Straight Down Fall Classic is a two man better ball pro-am event where the amatuers handicap are thrown out the window. That is right, even up, no strokes, play the back tees and every shot counts. The best part about the event is that the touring pros that represent straight down are also playing in the event. Including our local talent:

Jason Gore with his partner Kevin Marsh went on to tie for first place in a four hole playoff that was decided by darkness. Craig and I only finished a 2 shots behind them... Oh wait I missed a zero. I meant 20 shots. Yep those guys are good.

All the results and photos can be found at http://straightdown2.com/fall-classic/

As a result of last weekend I have now putted on some of the most difficult greens on the planet. San Luis Obispo CC is built on the side of a hill with greens that have some very severe slopes on them. In addition to the slope, the record breaking heat in the mid 90's caused the greens to become firm and VERY FAST. While I did not carry my trusty stimpmeter with me, I can assure you that if you were to find a spot on a green flat enough to take an accurate stimpmeter reading they would have been rolling in excess of 13'. Craig and I both had several times that we had putts inside of 20' and were very concerned about not three or four putting.

Be sure to check out the website for some pics of Craig, Freddy, Jason and the rest of the gang.

Ball Marks

Ball Mark Improperly repaired.

Ball Mark Properly Repaired.

Both of the ball marks started as relatively the same size and depth. As you can see the ball mark that was not repaired properly is an ugly scar and will take around 3 weeks to fully repair.

The ball mark that was properly repaired will take about 2 days to not be noticeable.

The end result of a properly fixed ball mark shows no soil. The grass has been knitted or pushed back in so as the grass once again covers that area. If you are struggling to repair ball marks so that they look like the bottom picture please ask one of our golf pros for a tip. They will be more then happy to give you a free lesson on repairing a ball mark.

More Weather News..

October start with a 100 degree day and now November has started with a rainy day full of lightening and hail. What a difference a month makes.
A few facts: In September we saw the high temperature climb over 92 degrees 20 days. In October the high temperature exceeded 92 degrees 16 days. This made October one of the warmest in history. Now November has started off with a .25" of rain. So what happened to fall?
As has been the story in the media over the past few days, California is in a serious water crisis. So all rain is welcome and we will continue our committment to use water in the most efficient manner.
**UPDATE: We ended up with a very welcomed 1/2" of rain for the weekend.**

Making History!

This morning the LA Times reported the high temperature yesterday, according to the National Weather Service weather stations, for the 48 continental states was in Santa Clarita. It was reported as 95 degrees!! We have a weather station at the golf course which is located adjacent to the Maintenance facility. Yesterday our weather station reported a high temperature of 94.6 degrees and a low temperature of 39.4. Yep that is right 39.4! Pretty darn close to temperatures where we will start having frost delays. We tend to have cooler temperatures due to the fact that we are located at one of the lowest points in the valley. It goes back to the concept wher warm air rises and cool air settles. Degree changes that exceed 55 degrees in one day are pretty extreme. Typically weather like this is good for growing grapes, but in the mean time we will continue to try and grow quality turfgrass.
So we are left with the question: is this global warming or global cooling?
One more weather related topic. Long range forecast, meaning the next 7 to 10 days shows a chance of rain. This would be great for the golf course as over the past week we have fertilized everything and reseeded areas that were thin. Let's keep are fingers crossed that mother nature will give our area of the country some much needed rain.

Pea Soup Lake

If you have played the front nine recently, you have noticed that the lake that borders #6 and #7 looks a lot like pea soup. The cause of this green color is Planktonic Algae. Planktonic algae are single-celled plants or small colonies of cells that attach to each other and float freely in or on the surface of the water. Most planktonic algae are beneficial, because they convert nutrients into food for fish and other organisms, forming the base of the food chain. And, like all plants, they produce oxygen through photosynthesis.

However, excessive growth, like we are seeing now can be undesirable. This excessive growth is called a bloom. Blooms are caused by excessive nutrients being introduced to the aquatic system. During overseeding we had a wind storm that blew an excessive amount of grass clippings. Now that the grass clippings have had time to break down and release nutrients the algae is now consuming the nutrients. Fortunately, Planktonic Algae completes its life cyle in 24 hours. So, soon the Planktonic Algae will consume the excess nutrients in the lake and ecosystem will so return to a normal balanced state.