Bunker Renovation has STARTED!

First day of summer is here and with that brings some great things... today our full on bunker renovation starts with Mid-America Golf & Landscapes.

During this process there will be times when a tee complex may be closed, or an entire hole for the day for safety concerns and speeding up the process. Please check in with the proshop for notes, and PLEASE follow safety protocols for holes.

May Thunderstorms

Since Monday morning we have received tremendous amounts of rain, so far totaling just over 6" here at Canyon Farms.  The atmosphere has been so unstable that even yesterday without warning and without anything on radar a thunderstorm quickly brew and dumped large potions of hail across the golf course.  Here are some photos showcasing what we saw:

The greens made  it through relatively unscathed even with the large hail stones, but we will remain cart path only until it is dry enough to get carts out.  Thank you for your patience and may you all have a great Memorial Weekend Holiday!

Canyon Farms - New Bunkers Summer 2016

Sand is being delivered!!

As most of you know we will be rebuilding our bunkers here at Canyon Farms Golf Club.  This will be a major improvement as we will be going with a blended Arkansas White sand (seen at many courses within the city) along with a TOP of the line system to seal the underside of the bunker, reducing all washouts and contamination.  These two processes will begin in early to mid June and be completed within 45-50 days.

The "liner" we have chosen is called the Better Billy System, here is a short video showcasing the system along with a great article showcasing its benifits.
Video of Better Billy System *CLICK HERE*
Better Billy Article *CLICK HERE*

I hope all of you are as excited as we are for this major improvement to Canyon Farms!

Spring Aerification

Good morning Canyon readers, today we will be discussing our Spring Aerification that will be coming up shortly.  As many have noticed, our greens have been DRASTICALLY different since our 3rd Core Aerification last fall, both with appearance, ball roll, uniformity and most importantly in firmness.  All of these items and improvements seen are a case in point to our agronomic plan here at Canyon Farms.

The biggest change we have seen through our management, but is not seen by you and fellow golfers is within our root-zone.  Early last spring it was noticed that we had very shallow roots from our ISTRC testing, we were well below average with around 1.5 to 2.5" root depth with minimal root mass and excessive thatch.  Roots are a vital piece to any growing plant and take time to grow, during normal Kansas City summers we could have made it though unscathed, unfortunately we did not have a normal late spring and summer of 2015.  Many rain soaked days, limited sunlight that inhibited any root development, as the soil temps started to increase our once poor root-zone became a major issue, leaving us with less than an inch of roots and in some places less and a 1/2 of an inch.  This created a nightmare for our maintenance team and members alike with ball-marks (no root structure to bind the top surface down), soft greens and even though we were receiving adequate rain, only having 1/2 long roots on our mounds required frequent waterings throughout the day to keep them alive.

I am pleased to say after our 3 aerifications of 2015, our agronomic topdressing schedules we currently have an above average root-zone.  Currently averaging 4 to 5" of root depth with vibrant white color and a tremendous increase in root hairs and density.  We have several factors to consider as we head into our summer months and that is with our Spring Aerification.

As seen last spring, things do not always go to plan in the spring time aerification, both in getting holes filled in an adequate time frame and having to push extra fert to close the holes.  These two items are very troubling for golfers and superintendents alike.  This year our Great Life Golf & Fitness will be purchasing a state of the art new Aerifier for this upcoming spring.  This new technology is called the Air2G2, this machine uses compressed air that is shot into the green every 1.5 feet and a whopping 12" down into the root-zone.  This is the "true" form of aerification, not only are you incorporating a HUGE amount of air into the root-zone, but in the process you help break apart any layering created by your normal core and needle tine aerification creating a perched water table and a layer inhibiting further root growth.  Here is a youtube video showcasing the new machine we will be using this spring and summer:

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF AIR2G2

As you can see there is extremely minimal surface disruption, allowing us to maintain our putting surface excellent and true through the summer months.  To minimize any new organic buildup this spring we have limited our fertilizers and will soon be incorporating more aggressive verticuting and continue our topdressing schedule.  Along with this machine which we will be using monthly to incorporate air into our greens, we will also be utilizing our Needle Tine Aerifier to break up any surface sealing.  Our agronomic team in place with Great Life is extremely exited to have this machine that will better our greens health, appearance and for your enjoyment their play-ability.

Hope you all are enjoying our tremendous greens and course here at Canyon Farms, happy golfing!

2016 Pin Locations

Good morning readers, as spring is fast approaching and the excitement of our great Club going full private April 1st we have some new items for you all here at Canyon Farms.  One big item of note is with us going away from our Red-White-Blue pin flags to a more uniform and private feel for 2016 with flags that better represent wind movement by not being as heavy.  Our rotations will still remain the same, as in if the first green is a front pin, #2 will be middle and #3 will be back.  We will continue with a slightly offset rotation for our back 9 pins to make sure all of our Par-3 greens will not be all the same.  Here is a diagram of our new pin rotation sets, these will be placed in every cart and you will see which rotation we are on by a sign in the proshop along with new signs on #1 and 10 tee to come later in the month of March.  Hope you all enjoy this new design and a private feel for 2016.  We will be going to our new flags, flag-sticks and this pin rotation starting March 1st.

Update on Our Greens Profile

Want to recap everyone on our greens profile and the tremendous progress we have made over the past 60 days.  As you are all aware it was decided to have 2 fall aerifications this year to help boost our recovery to firm, well drained greens with deep roots and an abundance of oxygen.  With this we removed close to 20% of the profile and roughly 160 tons of materal between the two aerifications this fall and an additional 6% from the springs aerification.  Here are two photos of what our greens had before, and what we have right now after the aerification, make note that our watering practices and getting our water percentage to the desired ratio have not changed.

July 2015

October 2015

In these two photos you can see the major differences in overall appearance and health.  Additionally in the top 1/3" you can see the progress we have made this year from our regular topdressing programs and aerifications that limit thatch build up and produce a sandy firm surface absent of organic layerings.  We have made great strides, still have a long ways to go to fully disperse the underlying organic matter but as most will agree our greens have been dramatically better in the past few weeks.  Many thanks for your understanding as we progress through these hidden challenges.

Native Areas

Good afternoon readers, as most of you have noticed we have begun our native trimming here at Canyon Farms.  Two weeks ago we purchased a very robust and heavy duty brush hog for the property and we have gotten a majority of our areas completed.  We still have a few smaller areas that are too small or not safe for the tractor and brush hog that we will be string trimming.  As cooler weather approaches our lovely Zoysia grass will be going dormant and we will be able to fully clean these areas out, put out our fall weed control herbicides and start cleaning out our lower lying creek banks.

Please refrain from driving your golf cars through these areas as they are riddled with thorns, low areas and can be dangerous to drive through.

We have several other fall projects we will be doing and addressing areas of concern and improvement going into our 2016 golf season.