Summer Schedule

         The summer is an extremely important time for a golf course in Florida. This is the time when the course can thrive, and maintain healthiness throughout the year. It is this period that can make or break a course. If precautions aren't taken in the summer months, then the winter months will take a heavy toll on the surfaces. Because we live in Florida, Bermuda is the typical grass for golf courses, and because it is a warm season grass, we need to prep the grass for the harsh months when it wont thrive. Items such as Aerification and Verticutting are necessary for the well being of the course, however it isn't aesthetically pleasing. This is what the schedule for the month of July looked like at the Mark Bostick Golf Course.

         Looking at the Schedule we can see plenty of precautions before the staff goes into aerification. The course will need to be aerated 3 times over the course of the summer. As we know, aerification relieves soil compaction, it provides a method to improve the soil mixture around the highest part of a green's roots and it reduces or prevents the accumulation of excess thatch. This is all necessary for upkeep for the greens and fairways through the winter months. The course also takes the opportunity to put down sod throughout the course in areas that need it. Some areas don't get as much sunlight, but to aesthetically please customers this item is needed. This schedule was released after the first two aerifications, so we can see that two weeks after the second aerification they verticut the surfaces. Then two weeks later they will begin the last process. They not only fertilize the greens and the fairways, but they also fertilize the bunkers to prevent weeds from growing inside them. They also put Fungicide on the greens to prevent disease, and topdress every week as stated before in the previous post. All of these precautions are used in order to maintain the course throughout the year.