2025 Summer Update

 The Spring of 2025 seems to have just flown by and in a couple of weeks we will welcome the official start of the 2025 Summer season with the Summer Solstice on Friday 6/20/25. Before this date we have a couple of big events to prepare for and then afterwards we have some planned turf conversion areas to develop just ahead of our summer fairway aeration week where the golf course will be closed. Below are some pictures highlighting some of what we have been up to in GCM as well as our plans through the first part of the Summer of 25.

Upcoming Summer Golf Course Maintenance Schedule Overview

June 9 through June 22 - Prepare and Host  MacKenzie Cup & California State Amateur

June 23 through July 6 - Prepare select areas on golf course for turf conversion

July 7 through July 11 - Aerify & Sand Topdress Hybrid Bermuda Fairways. Golf Course Closed

GCM Activities Spring of 2025

Springtime is always a busy time on a golf course as everything starts growing at once. One of the things that we've been working on in addition to mow, mow, mow is adding more sand to our bunkers. Adding a little sand to bunkers here and there is a normal maintenance function, however our bunkers needed some substantial sand refreshing since the 2021 renovation and we are just about finished.

Our driving range mats are scheduled for replacement on Tuesday 6/10/25. Invited Clubs has switched golf mat vendors to Fiberbuilt Golf. Predictably our concrete pad was to narrow by a few inches to accommodate the new Fiberbuilt Mats, so we had to add some concrete to existing pad. 

Our strategy of late has been to lay off projects Spring through the first part of Fall and concentrate our efforts on course maintenance but we couldn't help ourselves and installed a block of sprinklers along the rough edge on the left-hand side of #12 in May.

I've been mentioning this irrigation work ad nauseum because it is the infrastructure improvement that has been proven time and time again to produce the greatest results on this property. Any opportunity we have to check one of these areas off our Master Plan we will typically move on it even though the timing was not part of our overall spring through summer plan.

This is the rough between #15 & #13. If you can recall what this rough used to be like and what it is like today, it is because we now have supplemental irrigation heads surrounding it which has improved irrigation coverage and control allowing us to maintain cool season rough right next to warm season fairway turf facilitating the very different irrigation needs of both areas.  

We have deep spiked / aerified the greens along with associated sand topdressing a couple of times since the beginning of spring and the process is helping with rooting and firming of the greens and has kept with the small hole but frequent cultural practice strategy on our greens. Here Enrique is using a Vertidrain Aerator to spike 1/4" holes 8" deep into the surface.

GCM Planned Activities Summer of 2025

Part of our Master Plan is to convert some chronically bad areas on the golf course from cool season turf to warm season Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda to facilitate cart traffic in certain entrances and exits on the course. These are areas that are adjacent to warm season turf that have never been right.

Hybrid Bermuda can only be established vegetatively or by live plant sprigs or sod. There is no seed for hybrid bermuda. We have a couple of weeks before we aerate the fairways after the Mac Cup and the CA State Amateur. Using the fresh cores from the fairway aeration process will be great way to establish hybrid bermuda, we just have to prepare the areas beforehand. 

Above is the drive off area of #13, a chronically bad traffic pinch-point. Our plan is to strip this area, condition the existing native soil with sand and compost, compact and grade then cover with fresh aeration cores. This has to be done in the summer when hybrid bermuda is actively growing. More details to come on this great opportunity to improve some chronically bad areas. 

Another area we plan to address with aeration cores is the narrow strip of rough along the cart path on #9.

Above is an area we plan to address with aeration cores as well.  It is the drive on to the fairway #12. Another area we will address which is not pictured is the drive on to #15 right after you cross the bridge.

Another part of our summer re-grassing strategy is to prepare a few select small areas for seeding in the early fall which require some weed eradication first.  The above photo is of Dallisgrass, a notoriously difficult perennial weed to control selectively, or by using a product that will kill the dallisgrass and not the desirable turf. It can overwhelm an area to the point where a scorched earth tactic is the most appropriate way to eradicate it. 

Dallisgrass is a perennial weed that goes dormant in the winter then comes back with a vengeance in the summer by way of a very robust root system. To eradicate the weed for good you have to kill the root system so multiple treatments are recommended so the areas we plan to address will remain bare until we seed them in late summer - early fall.

This area behind #15 tees is out of play and completely infiltrated with dallisgrass. We plan to treat this area  multiple times and afterwards seed with Tall Fescue in the late summer. Other areas we plan to address in this manner are the back slope behind #1 green and the left hand rough of #12 near the pond. All of these areas have a substantial amount of dallisgrass infestation that needs to be eradicated.

Getting Through the Summer of 2025

How Members Can Help

This is the left hand rough edge of #16 and it highlights one of the main challenges Granite Bay faces in the summer post 2021 renovation. We converted half of our golf course to Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda and the rough remained primarily a blend of cool season turf grass varieties because of the shade issues associated with our tree lined holes.  These cool season turf areas are very susceptible to the heat of the Granite Bay summers.

How can you help? The best way to help the course in the summer when operating a golf cart is entering and exiting though the gates and drive exclusively on the short cut fairway turf avoiding  the rough with cart traffic.

To protect the rough, we do plan to close a few holes at a time to cart traffic during the summer months. 

Additionally, you will notice some soaker sprinklers in areas that a bit stressed. We haven't experienced any mishaps with carts tangling up or running over these hose stands yet so thank you. 

Something to note is that the areas you notice these hose stands are areas that are outlined in our Granite Bay Golf Course Master Improvement Plan so one day there wont be such a need for hose-stands or as many cart restrictions in the summer.

Back to this image of the rough between #13 & #15. This is the goal for the entire course. Healthy cool season rough with its irrigation needs being met coexisting right next warm season fairway turf with it distinctively different irrigation needs being met. We are not that far away.

Thanks for your support!

Spring is in the Air

 GCM has had a very successful late 2024 and 2025 winter project season this year with the absence of any tree tumbling storms. We were able to check off many items from our GBGC Master Improvement Plan from cleaning up the back of #7 Green to irrigating and planting shrubs in some very bleak parking lot landscape beds. 

Once we got through some weather around Christmas, we were able to make substantial progress on supplemental irrigation install on Holes #2, #15 & #12. All of these areas in the rough have been perennially bad in the summer and the cool season turf will now have a fighting chance. These supplemental irrigation blocks have only worked every time we have installed them here at GBGC so we are confident these areas will be much better this summer.

Now that Spring is in the air, we have to shift gears to cultural practices on the golf course. We have been aerifying rough the week of March 3rd through March 7th and will have some more to do next week. So ahead of some forecasted weather on Wednesday 3/12/25 we plan to spike and topdress the greens as well.

Spiking Greens

On Monday 3/10/25 we plan to spike and topdress the greens keeping in line with our small, but more frequent aeration events throughout the year. These aeration events are designed to keep putting surface disruption to a minimum year round avoiding  traditional large hole aeration in the spring and fall. This accomplishes the desired goals not disrupting putting quality for extended periods of time and mitigating poa annua encroachment by not giving it a chance to get going in larger aeration holes. Below are pictures of the process that we will conduct on Monday.

Step #1 is to aerate with the Procore 648. We are using a coring tine this time around to actually remove some organic material from the green. Weather is forecasted partly cloudy and in the upper 60's, perfect weather for this process. 

Aeration holes are small. 1/4" in diameter maximum if that. The small hole combined with 2"X2" spacing will recover rapidly and will not deflect ball roll leaving putting quality intact especially after we thoroughly roll the surface's the morning after aeration. 

Step 2 remove the coring material. We basically use blowers and scoop shovels to remove all of the debris from the surfaces

Step 3 we usually mow the surfaces to remove any straggler cores that get stuck in the holes during initial cleanup. After mowing we blow the surfaces off again creating the finished product prior to sand topdressing depicted in the picture above with the ball mark repair tool. 

Step 4  we are seeding the collars. More to come in the future on what are our ultimate plans with these collars.

Step 5 lightly topdress the surface with sand.

Step 6 we brush the sand into the open holes and turf canopy.

Step 7 is to irrigate. We typically irrigate deeply after opening greens up with aeration. This deep watering brings the greens soil profile to its field capacity as well as drawing air into the rootzone which is one of the main purposes of core aeration.

View of Tilley's PG on Tuesday AM following a good rolling and blowing. 

Dry Start to 2025

The wet weather that Northern California experienced in late December of 2024 has flipped to dry in 2025. Mornings have been a bit frigid with a frost delay here and there, but with the absence of rain and occasional gusts of wind, the golf course has dried out and is playing winter fast and firm in most areas. The long tree shadows of winter keep some areas shady and therefore wet from December's rain, but we are getting one those Januarys where cold mornings and sunny temperate afternoons create good conditions for winter golf. These conditions are good for getting things done on the golf course as well as turf is not growing and we are not having to irrigate so can easily allocate resources to projects from our GBGC Master Improvement Plan. 

On that note, the week of January 20th GCM plans to start a multi-week project on the right hand side of #2 cart path near the green. We need to replace the curbing in this area that was damaged during the 2021 renovation. Additionally we want to do some irrigation retrofitting and some sod work. When doing this work, we plan on occasionally re-routing Member cart traffic in front of the green to the left had side, then over to a forward position on #3 tee. This occasional detour will start Wednesday 1/22/25 after the MLK Holiday along with back nine starts with the hope of  creating less inconvenience to the Member during our activities in the area. We estimate this work will take us through the first part of February. 

Above shows the damaged curb and the area we plan to start working on the week of January 20th. 

The detour will be delineated by simple cart directional signs. Cart path will be coned off at this juncture and the detour will be pretty hard to miss.

The forward location of #3 tee wont be much different for the pebble tees (green) but clubs will be paired with the pebbles and Granite's and Tournaments will be paired as well at about 25 to 30 yards shorter then their normal placements. 

Granite and Tournament tee markers will again  occasionally be located around the 136 yard marker on #3 when we detour cart traffic around the left hand side of #2 green during some repair and retrofitting work on the right hand side of #2.

Recent Birds of Granite Bay Golf Club

Granite Bays resident bird expert, Michele McCormick was out on the course when we were closed on Tuesday 1/21/25 and shared that she has been sighting some rare birds for our property that are starting to make GBGC their home we hope. Below are some stunning examples of Michele's work right here at GBGC.

Bufflehead

Great Blue Heron

Kingfisher

GBGC's Mute Swan returning for a third season.

Ring Necked Duck

Brand New to GBGC American Wigeon

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Granite Bay! 2025 is here and we in GCM are looking forward to another year of progress on the golf course and grounds. 2024 was a successful year for us in golf course maintenance and we look to build on that success in  2025 by continuing to work on infrastructure projects that are part of our golf course master plan. 

The end of 2024 was on the wet side but nothing too historic or alarming as December has been the wettest month of the year on average for the past 20 years. Its hard to stay productive when it is wet and rainy but we are able to make progress nonetheless. 

The pair of Swans that left us this fall returned home on January 1, 2025. This will be the third season they have  nested here assuming they are planning on staying. We did have a lone Cygnet survivor from  the pairs 2024 spring family who remained here until just a month ago after her parents left  in the fall. We believe the lone survivor is a female and just recently left we assume to find a mate.  We are hoping she returns with a mate. 

After the 11th of December it started raining and seemed like it never stopped. Seventeen out of the remaining 20 days of December we measured some precipitation. Much of the rain during the holidays was light but  the associated cloud cover, mist & fog kept the golf course wet.

As you can see from the above historic rainfall data that has been produced by our GBGC Weather station, December of 2024 was slightly below the 20 year December average. 

The only significant rain events were on the 12th and 14th which produced conditions like above which rapidly dissipated once the rain stopped. The rest of the rain days were light.

So what does GCM do when it is raining like this? The staff rarely works a full day when the weather is this stormy but there a some tasks we can accomplish such as filling divots which is what they are doing above.

Another task that can be accomplished is spreading bark in large landscape beds.  

The lighter rain events during the Christmas Holiday week kept the golf course wet without oversaturating it. So when we did get some clear weather with some sunshine on 12/31/24 through 1/2/25, we were able to get out and use small mowers (triplexes) on the fairways to clean them up. Here we are doing just that. We are not mowing much grass as the Hybrid Bermuda is not actively growing in the depth of winter, but just cleaning up and smoothing out the surface. We have to be careful and avoid soft wet areas, but have found this process to be a BMP for this year round golf course that gets played on in all kinds of conditions.

We were fortunate that these December storms were mild and dident result in the tree loss we experienced over the past two seasons. The only tree that toppled was a non-native oak tree that was planted some years ago across the path from the #8 tee.

We were rushing a bit to mow fairways to clean them up as another storm was forecasted for Friday 1/3/25 which has materialized. After that it looks like we are in for a patch of nice weather, the kind of weather that will dry the golf course out proper.

Another Atmospheric River

 All of us in the golf world, both players and operators watch weather fairly closely as the sport we all are a part of is played outdoors and thus impacted by weather. As such, I'm sure for most of you it comes as no surprise  that we are in for another Atmospheric River starting Wednesday 11/20/24. Dr. Daniel Swain, a weather forecaster from UCLA states.....

"The upcoming atmospheric river event will be a very long duration event for portions of Northern California north of the SF Bay Area... This combination of long duration and strong intensity will yield an overall rain event that will be, in many ways, more impressive than the sum of it's parts." (Weather West - November 18 2024)

Radar imagery from the Weather Channel 11/20/24 12:00 PM.

10 day forecast from Wednesday 11/20/24

What Does This Mean for The Golf Course?

Of course it means the golf course will be wet and we will be cart path only until the course dry's out. Additionally we will potentially need to call for some F9 & B9 alternating closures as the course dry's out to make pigment applications to our hybrid bermuda fairways to help them with winter color. These scheduled applications cannot be done in the rain or when it is too wet to get application equipment onto the course without causing damage and to  it needs to dry before golf activity. 

What Have We Done to Prepare for this Storm? 

We were mowing rough today right up to the start of rainfall. Additionally we make sure all of our drainage inlets are trimmed and clean to facilitate quick movement of rain water off of the golf course. We also made a big push to finish the entrance way landscaping and irrigation work that we were in process  with as  this type of rainfall will make open ground a real mess and delay progress once the storms subside. Below are some pictures of this progress. 

Finishing up second pass on rough mowing this week on Wednesday 11/20/24 just as the rain started falling

We also finished new planting on the  parking lot mound in the entrance way ahead of the storm on Wednesday 11/20/24. 

We also added plants to the left hand bank as you enter the club. We completed renewing the irrigation of this area two weeks back. 

The renewing of the irrigation on this parking lot bank was just getting started on Monday 11/18/24. We of course were looking at the forecast and pushing to get the work completed prior to the storms so we could plant and bark which is precisely what we did. It literally started raining on us when we were raking out the last of the bark. 

11/22/24 postscript. The atmospheric river is not hitting the golf course with the originally forecasted intensity. Through Friday 11/22/24 mid morning we have had just over 1" of measured rain. The jet stream seems to be skirting us and even producing some great photo op's for Kubota.

2024 Fall Projects

We have been making steady progress with projects that are part of our Granite Bay Golf Course Master Plan after overseeding tees and select areas of the surrounds and collars in late September. Despite having numerous club events and a busy tournament calendar, the cooler weather and shorter days of fall slow the growth of the Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda Fairways and reduce the need for irrigation and associated management opening up windows to advance on our plan. The progress we have made the past five weeks has been good considering great fall golfing weather and the need to prepare and maintain the golf course daily. Below are some pictures of the progress.

Overseeding with ryegrass in the collars was successful. This might be a temporary fix as ryegrass is very susceptible to our summer conditions, but ryegrass can take a low height of cut better than the tall fescue collars originally installed in 2021, and that we seeded the ryegrass into.

First fall project we did after overseeding was to replace the walk-on sod to the upper PG

The second project we did was to fix the perennially bad area behind #7 green. This area has always been bad, exacerbated by tree roots, inadequate irrigation infrastructure and a drainage water pattern that washed walnut shells and dirt onto the turf of upper left chipping area. It took us three weeks to dig drainage, pour curb and gutter, install irrigation, condition the soil and re-sod and add and pack DG for cart parking.

Behind #7 green on the left-hand side where we removed some walnut shells and added turf. 

Drainage was a big problem in this area and there wasn't any drainage infrastructure nearby to tap into, so we had to tap into some below the chipping area.

Here is the curb and gutter with associated drainage inlet that was installed to control traffic and catch water that comes through this area during rain events.

After #7 we started working on The Clubs entrance way landscaping which could take us the month of November and is part of our Master Plan. The first area we addressed was repairing the irrigation on the barren bank to the right of the #8 tee along the driveway. This area was originally irrigated with drip irrigation which we long ago identified as inoperable for any length of time at GBGC because the of the dirty water we pump out of our pond between #1 & #9 clogging drip filters and emitters. Replacing this system with overhead water will allow the lavender that is already there to thrive as well as new plants we plan to add in the very near future.

We have already cleared the way for new irrigation and planting on the next parking lot mound as you drive into The Club. 

More to come on this, but the work we will be doing this year is just part of the plans we have for the entrance way, parking lot and clubhouse landscape and is largely focused this year on repairing irrigation infrastructure.  Without proper irrigation in the west, you can't sustain turf or plants and is a major theme of our plans.