What a nice day it turned out to be for the first Member Guest of the year. We had a total of 0.69" of rain onsite since Wednesday. We were lucky considering Reading airport recorded over 1.5" foer the same period. We have not had much precipitation since the middle of April so the course soaked up most of the rain, with only the usual areas needing to have traffic diverted around them.
The rain did prevent us from getting all the roughs mowed as planned, so today we made sure that at least the rough immediately around the fairways was mowed. However we plan on having it all mowed again for the weekend.
The growth on the greens is still slow and yesterdays rain only helped a little. They are putting very true - as one would expect after a heavy topdressing - but they are still slower than we would like as they are just not growing through the sand as normal, due to the colder than normal weather. It is frustrating that they are so close and there is nothing to do but wait for warmer weather. The frost forecasted for early next week is not going to help, but hopefully after that we start to see some more normal temperatures. Speaking with other Superintendents, they are also having the same issue with their bentgrass greens being slow to recover, so at least we are not alone.
Lastly, checking the sod today, showed that it is starting to root. The picture below is the root hairs on 17 fairway. I should be able to reopen the drive off on 1 to cart traffic this weekend. If 17 continues to root as it has over the last week, it should be ready for rolling next week and then it can be topdressed. At that point, it will be close to being open for play.
