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!