Did you ever wonder?

This time of year is perfect for seeing oddities in the turf. Once everything wakes up it tends to become more uniform but now there are all sorts of different colors and growth patterns. I noticed a few while mowing the other day and it got me to wondering. The first  picture is typical of a bird dropping. The nitrogen in the excrement releases and causes the grass to green up. Old unreplaced divots have a similar effect but that is just warming the soil underneath by creating a little insulation. There was no visible signs of bird droppings in this area but it was greener none the less.

Bird or animal droppings?

The next picture is a bit more of a mystery. It's a much larger section that has clearly grown a lot more than the surrounding area. The picture doesn't show it very well but there are a lot of grass clippings on this section after it was mowed. There is obviously something going on in the soil underneath this area making this patch green up and grow more than anywhere else around it.

larger area greening up

Days after the first pictures with this post still rattling around in my head I see this just off a green on the mounds behind 7 and have a chuckle. If this acorn was forgotten and rotted in place would it cause a small area to green up next year?

Breakfast

There is a fungal pathogen referred to as fairy ring which causes varying sizes and shapes of rings where the grass will green up. That is completely different but has the similarity of starting in the soil. Everything we do begins and ends in the soil. Without good soil health you are fighting an uphill battle every day. That's why we try to work with Nature and not against it. My job gets easier the happier the turf is. Growing too much is just as bad or worse than growing too little. Applying the right amount of fertilizer, water, plant protectant, etc is an art form and skill. It takes years to learn a piece of property and the weather is always changing so no two years are the same. It's one of the reasons most people have no idea what we really do to maintain quality turfgrass. 

perks of getting up early

Have you ever heard the saying "we just can't have nice things". Having nice things requires a buy in from the people using them. If you let your teenage son borrow your car and he doesn't appreciate it as much as you do it may get returned not as nice. We were not allowed to ride our bicycles near a car for fear we would scratch or dent it with the handle bars. Heaven help you if you put the kickstand down on a summer day after the driveway was repaved. Anyway, the same holds true for the course. We can repair an area damaged by a storm but if you the players do not give the seedlings a chance to grow it will never be nice.

storm damage seeded on the right of 11

For the life of me I cannot figure out why golfers cannot drive carts on paths. I swear they could be 10 feet wide and someone will have to have two tires off the edge onto the grass. Do they do this with their vehicles? Are the edges of their driveways worn down to dirt? We tried to fill this area behind 11 last year with gravel but the rain rips down the hill and washed it out. So, this year we put it back and capped it with asphalt patch. Not the nicest but better than it was. Hopefully this is wide enough now and they do not continue to wear out the bunker edge anymore. 

We can continue to make improvements to the course, and we will, but we will only have nice things if you all do your part and simply pay attention and try to not make things worse. We put up stakes and rope for a reason. In fact Mike just went out this week and added the directional signs back to the stepcuts. So now there are three signs across most holes directing you to the cart path. That is two more signs we have to deal with when mowing, per hole, just to try and get YOU to use the cart paths. One golfer was witnessed driving to the left of the bunkers on 3 because we have the rope keeping carts from behind the green. I didn't know there was room to get by those bunkers and the woods. It defeated the entire point of trying to get the grass behind the green to grow. There is very little room back there so carts all have to go in the same place and this wears it out. I have personally aerified and seeded this area at least 6 times and it still isn't nice. If you or anyone you know is the reason we just can't have nice things, please try to do better and tell them to as well.

Thanks 
 

Editors Note:

The very next day I witnessed this guy drive off the path then over a tee onto another tee. It boggles the mind.