The Drought, Tee Aerification and Pin Locations.

So far this year has been incredible for golfing. As with most outdoor sports the weather plays such an important role in not only the availability but also the conditioning of the playing surfaces.
With such nice conditions this year it's hard to remember how poor things were last year.  I reviewed some of the stats in an earlier post (http://ogcm.blogspot.ca/2012/07/water.html) and here's some of the updated information.
In 2011 the region received 621 mm of rain from April to August, over 33 days of rain (I'm counting anything over 5mm a day). This year the region has received a much smaller sum of 367 mm from April until today, over 22 days of rain (in which 60mm fell in one event).   When compared to the yearly average rain fall for Oakfield of 519mm, it's safe to say that it's been a dry year.
The lesser cloud coverage this year has increased our average temperatures as well.  In 2011 July and August the mean temperatures were 18.8 and 18.5 respectively.  This year our averages are 20 degrees for July and 21.5 for August so far. The yearly averages are 18.6 and 18.4. This years conditions mimic very closely the temperatures and rainfall amount from the Toronto region, normally a much hotter and drier zone.
Since my last post regarding the warm and dry weather it appears that the trend continues on the same path.  There are obvious signs on the golf course of drought stress in areas where we primarily rely on rain to irrigate the turf. Here's a pretty good example.

This the area between 14 green and 15 green. You can see the browned out areas where the irrigation doesn't reach, however the 14 fairway and approach is fine. 

 Perhaps the best example of how dry the region is this year is the water level on Grand Lake.

This picture was taken during the irrigation plant construction in July of last year.

 This is the same location this year.  Note the depth of the water around the dock.

Although the rain events of late have eased some of the drought stress on the course, our irrigation plant is still seeing a lot of action. Our total use for the year to date is 6,000,000 gallons, which is just 900,000 gallons shy of the total use from last year and equal to that of 2010.  This is a perfect example of the necessity to move the irrigation source from Fish Lake to Grand Lake.  Had we still been located on Fish Lake and using the same allotment of daily water withdrawal, the allocation of water would have been prioritized in a much more thrifty manner.  Sections of the golf course would have remained unwatered to make sure that the greens received enough irrigation to survive the heat.

(Edit: August 28, 2012) The CBC thought the weather was news worthy as well. Here`s a link to an article on the past summers and how they compare over the last 8 decades.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2012/08/28/ns-how-hot-is-it.html

On Thursday of this week we began the tee aerification program.  So far we have completed 12, 13, 14, 15, 18 and half of 6 tee. You might notice in the next week that the tee blocks are set up on alternate tees, making some of the holes longer or shorter.  These are not mistakes but rather us simply making room to aerifiy the tees without to much conflict with the golfers.
The process is similar to that of the greens. Here's a few photos of the process.

Here's Kyle pushing the cores off of 15 tee.  The aerification machine has already been through and moved off to eighteen tee. 

Once the cores are pushed off to the sides they are picked up and put into utility vehicles.  Here's Nathan doing just that.

We're currently dumping the cores into the extreme rough area along the right side of 12 fairway with the intention of making it more forgiving for errant shots.

The tees are then brushed and were watered last night to remove any excess sand from the surface.  This is the end result of the process. 

The final step is to top dress the tees using an 80/20 mix of sand and soil to fill in the holes.   During the next two weeks our staff will be reduced as the university and high school students leave us and return to school.  We intend to have all the tees completed before that time.

I have been asked a few times now from members about how we choose the locations for pin placements.  The pin locations are moved everyday, 7 days a week (the only exceptions are during rain events where play is reduced to a few players).  There are a few reasons for this.  The most important would be the reduction of compaction stress in the localized area of the pin for that day. Here are some numbers to ponder.  If an average golfer weighs 150 pounds and has a size 9  shoe then each step they take will result in 5.5 pounds per square inch.  For arguments sake lets say that golfer takes forty steps during their time on the green, all within 20 feet of the pin.  That works out to 220 pounds pressing down on the green around the pin.  If we have 200 golfers in one day that results in 44,500 pounds of traffic during the course of the day.  Add to that the cleats that most golfers wear and people dragging their feet, the compaction and wear would be most evident if the pin was left in one location for more than one day of full traffic. 
The other important reason that we move the pin locations is to alter the challenge level for that particular days events.  For example the organizers of the Audi Quatrro event requested more difficult pins to challenge the players abilities.  Conversely an outside social tournament with less experienced golfers would want easier placements to speed up the play. During regular play the pin changers are instructed to place six easy, six medium and six hard pins.
Locations are also dictated by green speed.  If the greens are running fast then there are less pin locations available due to the increased "greasiness" of the adjacent slopes.  Slower greens allow for the pin to closer to slopes because the ball is more likely to stop on the slope rather than blow 8 feet past the hole.

So those are some of the reasons why we move the pins, here's how we move them.

Below is a picture of the pin chart that we use on a daily basis.  The green is divided in six sections, two front, to middle and two back locations.  That's the oval drawing in the margin on the left. The top row indicated the pin location day, and the far left row indicates the green number.

The picture above shows that on this particular day, day six, eight green would be a four red, or front right red.  Note that also on this day 7 green would be a three blue or back left, and six green would be a 5 white or middle right.  The placements are dispersed this way to keep the traffic from one day  far away from the day's prior traffic. 
The person changing holes for that day is given the latitude to move the pin around the with in the scheduled section for that day.  They are instructed to make sure the pin is a flag stick from the edge of the green, not to close to older pin plugs and in a reasonably flat area. While there is some subjectivity to the process most of our pin changers are golfers and understand the concept of a fair hole.  Where that subjectivity may come into question would be where the pin is located close another section.  One person might see it as a white flag, when really it's in the red section.  The greens are divided, by paces, directly into thirds to avoid this from happening.

Here's Kyle and Stewart mowing and rolling.