Good Morning,
It’s been a very busy weekend at the golf course. We had a lot of green fees on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. There was also the Merten family golf outing held Saturday afternoon. Tee times were booked solid all weekend until we got to the hot part of Sunday. Today it looks like we have a lighter sign up for tee times. Overall, a great weekend with a lot of golfers visiting the facility.
Year to date irrigation totals are 89.72 acre feet of water (29,750,000 gallons) has been applied to the golf course from the pond. The well has pumped 55.66 acre feet of water (18,144,000 gallons) into the pond. The Iowa DNR permit allows 121.5 acre feet of water to irrigate the golf course and 81 acre feet of water to be pumped from the well. The upcoming cool weather will help tremendously on reducing irrigation totals this month.
We have continued to go around the course and repair or replace sprinkler heads that are not working properly. Sometimes they get debris in the bottom and the head will not rotate. We have also dealt with muskrat debris in the pumphouse wet well. This is causing the holes in the intake screen to plug and the pump cannot pull enough water. This causes low pressure and the system shuts down. I cleaned the screen with an extension brush this morning. If this does not work then we will need to remove the intake and screen to power wash the debris off the sides. Another challenge from the muskrats.
Thursday evening I sprayed several fairways to control the grubs present in the soil. These grubs become a fancy meal for the skunk population during the night time hours. These skunks can tear the fairway up in a very short period of time. The insecticide application will help with this issue.
The cooler weather will really help make a difference in the golf course conditions. It will allow us to irrigate adequately but less frequently. The cooler temperatures will also allow some of the drier areas to recover. We will hit these spots with hand watering and wetting agents to help the process.
We sent our tractor to the Country Club so they can aerify their greens this coming week. Once they finish aerifying greens we will go over our greens at The Muni. It will cause minimal disruption to the green and help with water penetration in the soil profile.
That is a wrap on the past week at The Muni. Enjoy the remainder of your holiday weekend.
—
Brian C Mohr
Director of Golf Operations
City of Spencer
Spencer Municipal Golf Course
Spencer, Iowa 51301
712-260-5370
Spencer Municipal Golf Course 