So much rain...

Well another day started with heavy rains here at Canyon Farms, currently at .8" with more on the way later today.  I know most of you have been frustrated with the current course conditions, mowing frequency, cart path rule and overall course appearance the last 3 weeks.  You are are not alone.  In the past 23 days we have received just under 12" of rain, some being extremely heavy downpours.  One positive is our water supply in the ponds is at full capacity and we should be good going into this season.

Here are some photos I took this morning showcasing just what we see after such a heavy thunderstorm and why we will be cart path only today and more than likely through the weekend.

As always as soon as we can get out and start mowing and maintaining our beautiful golf course we will be doing so, as you can clearly see today is a lost cause for mowing and we will be focusing on some more of our never ending detail work.

Thank you for your patience as Mother Nature has not been kind to us this spring.

Meet Our New Equipment

Good morning readers!  Today we will be discussing our amazing new state of the art equipment here at the Canyon Farms Maintenance Department.  A huge thanks to our owner Mr. Klausman and our Great Life Management team on getting these pristine machines for our fleet.  As always we spare no expense on having the highest quality of cut and appearance for our many members and guests.

First is our two state of the art brand new Greens Mowers.  These Hybrid Toro 3320's deliver walk mower quality with a reduction of over 50% labor.  This enables us to have the highest quality of cut, appearance and ball roll with labor savings used to better detail this great facility.   Another great feature is with the Hybrid technology and 14-blade reels, this gives us the ability to have the highest clip rate (times the mower cuts the crass per square inch) in the market.  Here is one of our most experience crew members Juan mowing number 5 green on this lovely morning.

Second is our brand new Salsco Greens Roller, this side to side machine gives a 5 psi on each pass, this gives the most consistent ball roll and smooths out any imperfections from foot traffic, improper ball mark repairs and leaves a glassy appearance when finished.  This industry leading roller will be used 2 to 3 times per week to give you a consistent and better ball roll than Canyon has ever had in the past.  To the right you can see Rene rolling #2 green and leaving a pristine and tournament style ball roll.

Lastly is our two new rough units, the Toro 4700 Grounds-Masters. These machines have 7 single decks that have a solid back roller giving us a striped appearance of 12 feet. Given our acreage of the golf course when both are in operation we can give you the highest quality of cut, striped appearance with zero scalping in just under 4 hours for the entire property.  With this extremely efficient mower not only can we accomplish our rough mowing faster than ever before but we can mow the golf course 3 times per week giving everyone Monday - Sunday a consistent playable rough.  Here you can seeing one of my Assistants, Mr. Duane Davied mowing #4 Green Bank in 20% less time than it took before.

Many thanks to our owners and managers for finding and purchasing these amazing pieces that complete our fleet here at Canyon Farms Golf Club.  I hope all of you are enjoying our more consistent and playable golf course.  As always thank you for reading this blog and taking part in learning more about our Maintenance Department and our many processes that go along with maintaining a golf course.

Greens Aerification

Wanted to get in touch with all of you that have had many questions on our greens healing from our Spring Aerification program.  To start off, I can insure you that I am far from happy on their healing and it has bugged us here immensely, there is no one more upset than myself and my staff.  I want to go through why we aerify, why we aerify when we do and the lasting impact it has on our greens.  Lastly I will discuss reasons why they have not healed in an adequate time frame.

Any facility will core aerify (pulling material) several times per year, this maintains our underground composition.  To maintain our greens health it is required to remove 15-20% of material each growing season from practices such as this.  Over each year we get buildup of organic matter (dead tissue, root decay etc) from having A-4/A-1 Bent-grass mix, these are some of the best bent-grasses courses can have on their greens but they are heavy producers of organic matter.  With the buildup greens can get puffy, soft, have inadequate drainage, poor air quality in the root-zone and disease infestations.  These issues have massive lasting consequences if they are not controlled, up to and including a complete rebuild of the greens, core aerifying each month, drill and fill slicing, higher pesticide usage, each causing a huge impact on play far beyond our current practices.  We chose the size tine and spacing we used to best pull that 15-20% over 2 yearly aerifications based on our ISTRC testing (spring and fall) to keep our greens healthy not only for this coming summer but for 5-10 years down the line.  A mistake, skipped aerification or an improper tine size has lasting consequences.

Each golf course is different, even having the same A-4/A-1 Bent-grass mix as most of our neighbors does not entail that we have the same root-zone, yearly fertility levels, same microbial population but most importantly we all have different growing environments.  We chose here at Canyon to aerify in mid to late April, this is a typical “best” time to aerify without massively disrupting your playing ability.  The earlier you go in the year, not only have you not had adequate time from the previous falls aerification to get the best bang, but you can see very slow recovery times as seen in 2009, 2013 and 2014. 

To the questions on our greens this year, since we aerified on April 21^th we have seen horrendous night temperatures that have slowed the growth of not only our greens but the rest of our golf course.  Keep in mind that an A-4 / A-1 mix desires sunlight and soil temps of at least 60-70 degrees for adequate growth.  During our time since April 21^th we have had lows drop to 33 (April 22) 40-45 (April 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, May 1, 11, 12) causing a stunting reaction to our greens and slowing their vertical and horizontal growth.  As much as I wish I could snap my fingers and have grass grow we require some help from Mother-Nature.  We have supplied the greens with well above average fertility since my arrival and have kept them at the best water to air ratio for growing grass.  The only item left is Mother-Nature to turn on the sunlight and warming soil temperatures.

I have contacted many other courses and fellow Superintendents in the city that aerified the same day that we did, all… and I repeat that ALL have struggled to get their greens to heal up in the normal window of time.  We are not in the minority and in some cases have healed up “faster” than they have.

I ask for your patience, as I stated before we are doing, will do and have been doing everything in our ability to get our greens as healthy as possible for you and your playing partners.  To the questions of our “open holes” needing more sand is not what they need right now.  Applying sand, dragging it in is an abrasive process and it causes tremendous amounts of friction and can stunt growth of filling for another 4-5 days as the grass heals from the added sand, we still end up in the same predicament we are in today as the grass tries to grow and fill between the open areas.  Right now the greens are at the cusp of healing, as the old saying goes “It is always darkest before dawn” greens after aerification will always be the bumpiest and hardest to putt right before they fully heal.

Thanks for your patience and remember, we are here to make Canyon Farms one of the premiere courses in the Kansas City area, we have made changes from previous management to the benefit and health of our great Club.

Mark Newton, CGCS
Certified Class A Superintendent

What do we do when the course is to wet?

Some days just don't go as originally planned.  We have received a great deal of rain the past few days and that has made the course a soggy mess.  One of the many "benefits" that come with these days when they happen is our many many many on course projects.



Since my arrival #14 teebox area has bugged me greatly, with extremely limited irrigation to adequately grow a healthy stand of grass.  To the left you will recognize this horrendous area, from what I have gathered it has looked like this for quite some time.

Below you will see our finished product in just one day.  This incorporated hauling lots of stone, digging out some of the grass that was there and then planting some very rugged perennial flowers that love full sun and poor soils and irrigation.

Hope all of you enjoy the many changes and improvements!  Happy golfing!

Zoysia Seedheads

As you all have most likely noticed over the past two weeks our lovely Zoysia-grass has started to seed out.  These can be seen as a rich dark purple / black look to our fairways and tee boxes.

These seedheads, unfortunately carry a non-viable seed but cause massive chaos to our mowers.  They have close to a wire for a seed-stock that easily dull reels in seconds.  You will see us out many times mowing these with a rotary style mower that is normally used on our roughs to knock and cut these horrendous seed-heads.  Even though these last for a relatively short time (roughly 2-4 weeks) we know that summer is right around the corner and soon our fairways will once again be striped out and prestine looking.

Please be patient with us as these next few weeks our fairways wont look the best but we are in the same boat as every other golf course in the area with Zoysia-grass.

New Tee Markers - Touch Points

Has been a while since our last post, but wanted to showcase our new tee markers.  We made these ourselves over the past couple of months, each one individually had to be cast, painted and two thin coats of concrete sealant painted on.

One of mine along with Great Life's initiatives is our touch points, you can see this in our new golf carts, flags, flag-sticks and now our custom made tee markers.  These provide a unique look and set us apart from other facilities.  We chose a design and coloring that brings in our other natural landscaping here at Canyon Farms that is extremely unique for the area.  I hope you all have enjoyed our changes here in the first few months of our management and I hope we can exceed all of your expectations here at Canyon to have a course you can be proud of once again.