The following picture is of the rough on the side of 15 fairway. Please notice how green and dense the turf plants are.
While I understand how frustrating this can be I would like to remind everyone that less than two years ago one of the hottest topics from the vast majority of the membership was "how do you intend to improve upon the thin roughs here at the club?". That being said, this year the rough hasn't needed any extra help from us. We have only applied .5# of nitrogen to the rough this year as nitrogen is a macro-nutrient that is mainly responsible for top growth of turfgrass plants. This is a very small amount as it already mid July. For those of you on a scheduled fertilizer plan for your lawn, you have probably already applied 2 to 4 times that amount. So let me just say that amount or frequency of fertility has not been the cause of the difficult rough conditions so far this season. The other variable that hasn't been the cause of our issues, a lack of effort. Whenever we have the opportunity to deliver tight, trimmed and finely manicured rough conditions we do. This has often resulted in us having three machines and three employees mowing different rough areas the majority of the time. This is something that previous regimes didn't even have the option of as the current ownership is responsible for the purchase of the third machine. The amount of importance that our team puts on daily conditions of the rough has greatly decreased the amount of capital projects that our team has been able to achieve. I tell you this not as a negative but rather a positive that our team puts the utmost effort into your daily playing conditions. The other item that hasn't influenced the change in our roughs condition is the height of cut. We mow at 2.5 inches with sharp blades. I believe this to be the standard in this area for public and private clubs alike.
The factor that has influenced the condition of the rough this season has been the weather. We have had an unusually cool and wet season thus far. This has caused a jump in the growth of the roughs all year long. We continue to cut areas and the following day they don't even look as though we have touched them. The weather conditions have also caused extremely wet ground conditions for most of the season. This has caused us to be unable to mow certain areas for a week at a time which has caused some locations around the course to look like these photos of the rough on the side of 9 fairway.
The easy solution to this is to send the mowers out to rut the course up, or to allow carts off the paths to do the same even though we know that we shouldn't. It is my hope and belief that our membership has higher expectations for our future playability than this. No one round, or even a weeks worth of rounds is worth jeopardizing an entire season. It also isn't worth jeopardizing the entire development of our club. If we want better conditions we all have to be willing to do what it takes to get them.
Rest assured that we will continue to always do the best job we can to deliver the best conditions possible on all areas of the course on a daily basis.
Thanks for your time and patience,
Klint Ladd
Golf Course Superintendent