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Spring of 2018 and The Greens
The Spring of 2018 will go down as one of the colder starts to a golfing season in recent history.
The cold temperatures in April have caused soil temperatures to rise very slowly.  Soil temperatures are the primary driver to  cause turfgrass to start actively growing.  As many of you may have witnessed, the Greens in early March and April were very fast, especially the East Course.  This was caused by the fact that the turf was not actively growing and that allowed putts to roll out. 

 How did the cold affect our greens? 

The cold temperatures caused us to apply 2 extra applications of fertilizer to the West greens to get the holes to close from aerification.  It also forced us to delay our annual application of growth regulator to the West Greens to reduce the number of Poa Seed heads so we could get the holes closed from Aerification.  The good news is, the holes are closed from aerification despite no help from Mother Nature.  The downside is it will take a few days to thin the plant back from the extra fertilizer and seed heads to get them back to normal speeds.  May temperatures have been much closer to average and the plant will start to return to a more normal growing pattern.  (If there is such thing as a normal pattern these days!) 

 The Lime green spots are Poa Annua spots that have established on 6 green West. The darker green grass in bentgrass.