23 Days.........

     With only 23 days left until some of the worlds best golfers arrive to play in the 2013 John Deere Classic, the TPC Deere Run Agronomy staff are putting in some long days to ensure we have this place ready.

Media Day. Zach Johnson tried recreating his winning shot.

     Our last granular application of fertility went out on greens, tees, fairways, and rough over the last two weeks.  The Agronomy staff has also been busy with a variety of cultural practices.  For example, verticutting of greens, aerification of tees and fairways, and topdressing of tees and greens.  We are continually monitoring and scouting as part of our IPM program for disease and insects.  Primarily, we have been cool and wet with some warmer temperatures recently.  Dollar Spot tends to be the primary concern on this property thanks to the heavily wooded, tree-lined perimeters of the golf holes that restricts air flow throughout the property.  On top of that, our strain of dollar spot has developed a resistance to DMI's.

A monster Catalpa tree blooming on Hole #10.

     Thanks to Mother Nature, we were able to keep our pump house inactive for almost a month due to the seemingly constant precipitation we received since we pressurized our irrigation system this spring on April 11th.  On June 13th, we finally ran our first full irrigation cycle of the year!  Last year the system was pressurized on March 17th and was used instantly.

     As I stated in an earlier post, we have received an abundance of rain this year and are currently 8" above normal precipitation.  The rain was welcomed initially since we had been so dry for so long that it was nice to give the irrigation system and our hoses a break.   During this wet spell we have seen the bunkers washout a few times and sink holes form around many of our drains.  Initially we hoped these would be somewhat minor fixes but after a few minutes of hand digging around these areas we realized we needed to bring in the reinforcements and rent an excavator. For the most part, the sink holes were caused by the pipe either being crushed or the fittings had been pulled apart.

     The JDC staff has their crews working long hours also to wrap up their work within the next two weeks.  Setup of the grandstands, skyboxes, and tents continue to progress.