How are your courses fairing with the heat?

[Fairway_CY]

44 minutes ago, Aflighter said:

Hey CY, them greens were terrible last year in that tourny.They actually looked better this year.The long par 5 and the short par 3 over the gulley were the worst looking.They putted ok I thought.They gotta replace them with Bermuda or theyll always be like that. Gets too hot here.

I don't remember last year being that bad, but to be honest... I played so poorly that day that I tried to forget it outright!  

Yeah, #3 was really bad, and where they had the hole cut was surrounded by awful areas.  The reachable par 5 on the back (#13) was pretty bad too.  

I hit at least 5 shots that hit the green and plugged into that soil.  One of the guys I played with hit his ball 18" from the hole on #12 and it plugged otherwise, he very well could have hit the stick and rode it down into the hole.  

I agree about replacing them with Bermuda.  The courses with Bermuda are thriving because they are made to tolerate this heat.

I won't be at Firethorne, but I believe that Cabarrus is also Bent Grass.  Hoping they're holding up okay.

CY

[Aflighter]

1 hour ago, Fairway_CY said:

I don't remember last year being that bad, but to be honest... I played so poorly that day that I tried to forget it outright!  

Yeah, #3 was really bad, and where they had the hole cut was surrounded by awful areas.  The reachable par 5 on the back (#13) was pretty bad too.  

I hit at least 5 shots that hit the green and plugged into that soil.  One of the guys I played with hit his ball 18" from the hole on #12 and it plugged otherwise, he very well could have hit the stick and rode it down into the hole.  

I agree about replacing them with Bermuda.  The courses with Bermuda are thriving because they are made to tolerate this heat.

I won't be at Firethorne, but I believe that Cabarrus is also Bent Grass.  Hoping they're holding up okay.

CY

Oh no.cabarrus is that champions bermuda.Fast as hell.Yeah my ball marks were right at my ball.

[Buckeyebowman]

12 hours ago, billchao said:

You just attach them using the paper clip icon underneath the text box. If they're over 5MB, you'll have to resize them first.

OK. I'll have to go out, take some pics and try that. I have my camera set to VGA just for that reason, to keep the file size small enough that I can just post a pic without resizing.  Works like a charm on other sites I'm on.

11 hours ago, mcanadiens said:

 I have noticed an unusually large amount of weeds in the tee boxes, but I don't think the weather has that much to do with that.

 

 

Oh, but it does! Hot, dry weather like we've been having favors weeds over grasses. Grasses like cooler, wetter weather and don't like to have "hot feet". At least grasses that usually grow well here, like fescues and bent grass. Also blue grass. My back yard is a fine example of this. The grass has hardly grown at all in a month and a half, but I have a bumper crop of Queen Anne's Lace coming on! I'm just letting it go. Nobody can see it, so I'm not going out there, sweating my brains out and killing myself for some weeds!

[mcanadiens]

10 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

Oh, but it does! Hot, dry weather like we've been having favors weeds over grasses. Grasses like cooler, wetter weather and don't like to have "hot feet". At least grasses that usually grow well here, like fescues and bent grass. Also blue grass. My back yard is a fine example of this. The grass has hardly grown at all in a month and a half, but I have a bumper crop of Queen Anne's Lace coming on! I'm just letting it go. Nobody can see it, so I'm not going out there, sweating my brains out and killing myself for some weeds!

Good to know. Thanks. 

With our lot down here at Kittyhawk, I just figured it was more of the typical effort. 

[jsgolfer]

On 8/2/2016 at 9:59 AM, DaveP043 said:

Your area is a tough one for bent grass, the heat is almost too much in many years.  I have a condo at Talamore, near Pinehurst, and they've just spent the entire summer replacing the bent grass greens with an ultradwarf Bermuda that they expect to be more heat-tolerant.  A number of courses in the area have converted to various forms of dwarf Bermuda in recent years, including MidPines and several of the Pinehurst courses.  In northern VA, we're in bent country, and I've seen heat and/or drought wreak havoc with greens even at some of the best clubs.  This year, though, we're in good shape.

We are in really good shape right now, greens are a little slower than normal, but its expected as they are not cut as low due to the heat.  However, we've had plenty of rain and our ponds are full.  Other than our normal lightning fast greens, the course is in the best overall shape since I've been a member.  

[boogielicious]

The courses I play are doing OK. The areas they water are fine, but there are many areas of dormant grass around and some hardpan lies. Greens are in good shape though.

[RH31]

Our course is in good shape. The greens are slow, soft and very damp from all the rain. Aeration at the end of August. Very little brown out or rot around here.

 

[shanksalot]

From mid June through July we had 95-105* most every day. Fairly unusual for our area. The course is still green, but the fairways of course are very slow and we don't get much run. Makes the course play way too long for my puny swing. The only good thing out of this is the course is not as crowded this summer. Good for us bad for the course though. I have always loved hot weather but this is just way too hot. The older I get the more I like lower temps and some clouds in the sky. 

[Pendragon]

Sadly, one of the better public courses in our area, Roddy Ranch Golf Club in Antioch, CA, made it known yesterday that they'll be closing permanently on August 11. In their announcement they cited the increasingly high cost of water as the primary reason for the decision to shut the doors, as noted here:

"Ultimately the expense associated with irrigating the golf course has burdened the Club to the point that it is no longer economically feasible to stay in business".

I had the pleasure of playing Roddy Ranch a number of times during the 16 years that it's been open. It's definitely one of the more challenging tracks around, stretching out to 6,976 yards, with a 74.5 rating and 142 slope. Roddy Ranch's closing will bring to 7 the number of golf courses in northern California that have shut the doors in the past year or so, joining Sunol Valley GC (2 courses), the Legends course at Diablo Grande, and 9-hole tracks Grayson Woods in Pleasant Hill, Springstown GC in Livermore, and Pine Meadows GC in Martinez. Other courses are definitely struggling, with the availability of water being a common issue, along with reduced play. 

[stealthduffer]

Our course north of Atlanta was looking a little rough a month ago but some regular afternoon showers has it looking in good shape.  Played yesterday and rough was thick and lush (er, so I heard from friends) and the greens are wonderful.  Aeration was 5 or 6 weeks ago and they are now back in peak condition.  As long as we keep getting the afternoon rains we should be good.

 

[Natural Patrick]

Everything is still pretty green on the courses in my area. I think the longest we have went without rain this summer is 4 days.

[stealthhwk]

On August 1, 2016 at 3:02 PM, Fairway_CY said:

Just wondering how the courses everybody plays at are handling the heat.  The majority of the courses here are getting VERY brown and burned out.  I guess that's to be expected with continual heat like we've been having.  Since June 11th, the high temperature has been below 90 degrees only 8 times... and 2 of those days were 89 degrees, so not a whole lot of a 'break' from the heat.  Also, we haven't had a ton of rain, so things are drying up pretty quickly.  

The courses are having to leave the greens a little longer to protect them, but a few courses (especially those with Bent Grass greens) are starting to lose them.  The course I played on yesterday was really poor in certain areas and if the greens survive another week, it'll be a miracle.  It's a shame but, I suppose that's part of living down here.  

So... how are your courses holding up with this heat?

CY

Lol! Courses in my area only drop below 90 this time of year for a couple of hours, and thats usually between 3 and 5 am. All that aside, weve had another wet year so courses are in great shape for the most part. Were gonna need significant rainfall soon tho if thats gonna keep.

[anthony]

Courses in the SW Pa / SE Oh / N WV area are as green as they were in May. A few spots started getting brown in the middle of July, but we've got a decent amount of rain since then. These last two weeks especially. I don't know how we dodged the storms during yesterday's round. They just lingered there from 8:00 am until around noon. Nice to have some cloud cover to be honest.

[newtogolf]

Home course is doing well, except for a few greens that are showing some sort of disease.  

[GlennInBama]

My wife bought me 2 greens fees including cart rental for a course I had not played in years for Christmas. When I called to reserve a tee time for a Friday play time, I was told that I would not need one. So my friend and I show up Friday morning and there are maybe 4 cars in the parking lot.  It was a beautiful day and it was not hot yet. Perfect golfing weather. We went and checked in and got our cart and teed off. When we got to the first green we realized why no one was playing. The greens were gone. Gone. GONE. There was sprigs of grass, but most of the greens were sand. In fact, on a couple of the holes, they had cut a "green" into the fairway. It was a joke, and when we came in after 9 holes, we told them that we wished they had warned us before we started, or when I had called. We ended up tossing the scorecard and playing best ball on the back 9 and just tried to enjoy it the best we could. When we finished, the course manager called my friend in and gave him 2 more gift certificates to replace the ones we had wasted. I am waiting for the greens to grow back before I try it again though.

[jbishop15]

My home course is holding up really well, but the course I played today was pretty bad. The greens are essentially turning to mush in this heat. They've punched, sanded, let them grow up; but they just keep fading away.

Very sad. It's really a scenic course, save for the greens.