July Closure Recap

During our four day July agronomic closure we achieved the following -

1. Triplex verticut (7/20) and clean up all champ putting greens followed by a Maximus DryJect (7/21) to all champ course putting greens. Standard DryJect (reduced depth and sand volume due to the greens being younger with less organic matter) was performed on the Covey greens and Croquet Lawn.

2. Terrarake and circle cutting of champ fairways and driving range tees followed by deep hollow tine aerification.

3. VC-40 verticut all tees, collars, and approaches followed by sand topdressing.

4. Rebuilt washed out and eroded lake bank adjacent to # 10 green tee.

5. Shockwave all high traffic/wear areas across the property.

Outside of the closure period, here are some other achievements we’ve focused on over the last 30 days -

1. Fipronil application to all tees, collars, approaches, fairways and driving range tees and fairways to control mole crickets and imported fire ants for one year.

2. SandCat injection to selective approaches to improve firmness, drainage, and playability.

   

3. Addressed bunker drainage and sand redistribution to achieve consistent depths and improved playability on holes 2, 8, 9 (greenside), 11, 12, 13, 14 (behind green). Bunkers are being carefully evaluated throughout the summer to add additional drainage pipe, redistribute and/or add bunker sand where required.

4. 14,400 square feet of bermudagrass sod installed around the property to eradicate invasive zoysiagrass that migrated into the golf course.

5. Trimmed up and applied growth regulator to our natural areas on holes 3, 13, 15 and 18.

6. Applied biological stimulants and natural plant protectants (non-pesticide) via drone application to all of our pine trees across the property. We are in the experimental phases of drone spraying, but so far we are liking the ability to spray every tree on property in a matter of hours. At this time, we have not tracked how many pine trees we lose each year, but it is my initial contention that we are experiencing stronger pine tree health and resiliency since beginning the drone applications based on the fact that we have not had to schedule team members to cut dead trees with anywhere close to the frequency of previous years. We will begin looking at this in more detail, but needless to say drone spraying we believe is the future and for tree applications it is much safer and more efficient.

   

7. Added drainage to # 6 cartpath edge to clean up this stubborn wet area adjacent to the white tee.

Weather Update

Through August 6th, the golf course has received 32.74” of rain for the year with 7.57” in June and 6.22” in July. This is 32% more precipitation than we received through the same period in 2025. Keep in mind that we average about 58” per year in Vero Beach, so I would expect the rainy pattern we have experienced so far this month to continue. For 2025, our total rainfall fell well below average at only 46.94”.

Lakes Update

Much attention has been paid to our lake system in the last 60 days as we experienced tremendous algae growth this summer beginning in late June. Since June 23rd, we have treated the lakes chemically for algae growth six times with chelated copper sulfate. We have also applied a treatment to suppress native Vallisneria grass that is contributing to the algae problem. A local contractor was on site July 20 through the 22nd to physically remove unwanted plant growth from the narrow part of the lake between holes three and nine. We feel the lakes have improved, but there is still work to be done. For the next several weeks we will continue to treat the lake aggressively, while carefully monitoring dissolved oxygen levels to ensure the fish population remains healthy. As previously mentioned, we plan to stock 168 additional herbivore grass carp before the end of the year as a biological control measure to assist us in keeping the weed growth suppressed. We are exploring additional chemical and biological options to further reduce the Vallisneria population which we believe is a primary catalyst for the planktonic blooms we have experienced this summer. If you missed our update on the lakes from last month you can view it here.

Upcoming

This is an exciting time for our team as we have about 60 days to put the finishing touches on improvement projects and wrap up cultivation work to ensure the course is fully prepared for the active Member fall/winter season. This year provides additional energy and enthusiasm as we are set to host the South Florida PGA Section Championship September 15 - 17. Here is a snapshot of some of what we will be focusing on over the next 30 days -

1. The Covey course will be closed 8/10 thru 8/12 as we will be aerifying the putting greens, croquet lawn, and fairways.

2. The Champ course will be closed 8/24 thru 8/27 for aerification work. During this closure period our plan is as follows:

   1. Topdress putting greens followed by a 1/4” diameter hollow tine. The greens aerification of 1/4” tine on a 2.5” x 2” spacing is non aggressive has an expected recovery timetable of 7-10 days.

   2. Light verticut and topdressing of fairways. Fairway topdressing will be non aggressive at a planned rate of 10 tons/acre. In June, our fairway topdressing rate was 30 tons/acre.

   3. Begin drainage project on # 9 approach including the low area of rough in front of # 9 green. We have hydrowick drainage scheduled to come in on 8/31 to assist in drying up this area. We will be required to install a 4” header pipe at the western edge of # 9 approach running north to south and this will be exposed until 8/31 when we are scheduled to cut in the hydrowick. Upon tying in the hydrowick lines, we will bury and sod the header pipe trench. We have been very successful with this drainage method across the property over the last seven years.

   4. Light sand topdress and aerify tees and approaches.

3. Please expect to see us adding landscape plants in specific areas of the property. Including - adding wedilia to # 2, 10, and # 15 tee, adding green arboricola to planter triangle to the north of # 6 bathroom, adding angelwing jasmine to the clubhouse entry drive as well as mammy and petra crotons. This landscape is to replace plants that never recovered to satisfaction after the brutal freeze we experienced this year in February.

4. Spot aerification work on low areas of our champ putting greens. Many of our greens lack adequate surface drainage so removing organic buildup from these low areas is critical for plant survival. Most notably on the PG, and holes 3, 5, 6, 7, 12, 15.

We are currently in the middle of a very cloudy and stormy pattern with lightning alerts happening daily over the last seven days. We have suffered two lightning strikes to our oak trees in the last month, one on number five a few weeks ago, and this tree on # 10 unfortunately took a direct hit on August 4th and will not survive.

As always, thank you for your consistent support of our agronomic programs as we continually strive to make the golf course better. We appreciate your interest and enthusiasm in our management programs and are very excited to close out summer strong and embrace the cooler temperatures of fall. We are blessed with a dedicated and talented turf team all of whom are working tirelessly (especially during our closure periods) to ensure the golf course will be at its best now and into the future.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Most of what we accomplished during this year’s June closure is a variation of the specific processes explained in the 2023 post, with some nuance involved based on our most recent soil and water testing data. It is also important to mention that while this work is ongoing, our goal is to reopen the golf course in a better condition than the year before. We consider it paramount, that after our two week closure, the golf course be in a playable condition where Members and Guests can still expect to have a superb golfing experience despite recent turf cultivation. There is a trade off here, and its important to understand that our level of aggressiveness in combatting thatch and organic matter does have a direct result on how well the golf course plays, and drains throughout the active golfing season. Generally speaking, the more aggressive we cultivate, the longer the recovery time, however through various channels of learning through growing our professional network, attending industry trade shows and field days, we do make more informed decisions to achieve our agronomic goals and minimize recovery time.

One of those decisions this year was walk fraze mowing our collars. In years past we have used a sod cutter and physically removed a four to five foot section of collar, then allowed the turf to regenerate. The purpose of this was to remove accumulated organic matter and topdressing sand that creates a “collar dam” that inhibits water movement off the putting green as well as negatively affects short game playability. This year we choose to walk fraze mow the collars with the Wiedenmann STRAC 720:

Wiedenmann STRAC 720

This innovative machine allows us to effectively remove the collar dams with greatly improved recovery time and better safety to the turf.

Here is an overview of our other procedures accomplished during the two week closure -

• On the putting greens we began by verticutting two directions with a tractor mounted unit called a VC 40 by FirstProducts, then followed that up with lighter triplex verticutting to remove additional organic residue. Behing the verticutting we completed our annual drill n’ fill procedure which aerifies the green with a 1” drill bit that penetrates 10” deep and back fills the hole with a sand column.

  

• Behind the fraze mowing of collars and approaches we topdressed and aerified all of these areas with a 3/4” diameter hollow tine.

• We conducted similar procedures on the tees with VC 40 vertical mowing 2x, followed by aggressive scalping, sand topdressing, and hollow tine aerification work.

• Fairways were terra raked (a simple tractor mounted tool used to pull the grass upright), scalped down to .350”, vertical mowed one direction with a VC 60 implement made by FirstProducts, circle cut down to .350 again, topdressed heavily at a rate of 30 tons of sand per acre, and hollow tine aerified with a massive 1.25” diameter hollow tine.

• We also aerified several high traffic/wear areas in the rough throughout the golf course. This will benefit this turf that is vulnerable at certain times of the year due to soil compaction from cart traffic. We lowered rough height of cut to 1.50” and will remain there for the summer season.

• In addition to the cultivation work, we committed to eradicating the invasive zoysiagrass that has permeated the golf course. Thankfully, it is limited to the rough at this time. Failing to address this would result in this grass spreading further. Please excuse the large brown patches found throughout the rough. We will be removing this dead turf and sodding fresh bermudagrass over the next couple of weeks.

• We also have added two large oak trees and 60 15 gal green arboricola to reestablish a privacy buffer and hedge around our turf care complex. We lost large portions of this hedge from the cold weather in early February.

Upcoming

Cultivation work will be something we work on throughout the summer and we have another aerification planned for the week of July 20 - July 23rd. During this week, we will be DryJecting the putting greens. DryJect is a minimally invasive form of aerification where a sand column is shot into the green using a high pressure water system for propulsion. This procedure will aid in surface firmness, improve water movement through the soil, and improve plant health by optimizing air exchange and stimulating root growth. We also will conduct light vertical mowing on tees, fairways, collars and approaches with sand topdressing. Fairways will undergo a deep tine aerification on July 22nd that will greatly assist water movement and help keep our fairways firm and dry throughout the year. Lastly, we will be running the Shockwave deep aerifier/slicer in all of our high traffic/wear areas. This remarkable machine has been very beneficial for us in keeping these troublesome areas vibrant and full as we have employed this procedure for four years running. The work will be much less aggressive than our recent aerification procedures, and we expect the course to be in great shape upon reopening on July 24th.

On June 22nd and June 23rd we are planning a SandCat application to selective approaches to keep these areas firm, healthy, and as dry as possible. We did this last year on holes 3, 5, 7, 9, 15 and were very pleased with the results. I honestly feel the approaches on 3, 5, and 15 specifically were as firm and healthy as they have ever played and a large reason for that is the SandCat work. Please see the link below for a description and video about the SandCat -

SandCat

This summer we made a capital purchase for a new mini excavator that will allow us to handle more jobs in house and enable us to efficiently tackle tough jobs like plant removal, drainage, lake bank restoration, bunker modifications. Over the course of the summer we will be focusing on adding drainage to selective bunkers and troublesome wet areas such as # 9 approach, and # 6 cartpath adjacent to the green tee. Additionally, we plan to restore the lake bank on # 10 green tee where we suffered major wash from Hurricane Milton in 2024. We are also currently working on repairing washouts and drainage issues we are experiencing on the paver path to the north of Learning Center. Having this unit will help us transform and continue to improve the golf course.

To conclude, allow me to share a quick video we put together showing off some of the many cultural practices we employ to maintain and keep our facility first class. We are very blessed here at Quail Valley with a dedicated leadership team as well as highly skilled equipment managers and mechanics, equipment operators, and entry level course laborers. Thank you very much for the nice comments and unwavering support as we strive to keep Quail Valley best in class.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Record breaking cold temperatures (27, 27, 31 on Feb 1, 2, 3 respectively) coupled with extreme drought forcing local burn bans and dangerously low water tables through March 31 is now thankfully in the rear view mirror having received 5.1” of rain since April 1st. The golf course will undoubtedly benefit from this precipitation and expect playing conditions to be stellar as we roll towards our first summer aerification closure scheduled for June 1st. Our current rainfall accumulation for 2026 is 10.42”.

All putting greens will be needletine aerified on a 2.5” spacing during our delayed opening scheduled for April 13th. All putting greens were lightly sand topdressed on Monday April 6th ahead of the heavy downpours. We plan to begin light vertical mowing on all putting greens as early as this week. This will reduce grain and puffiness and improve green speed and smoothness. Careful consideration will be employed as we are fully aware of upcoming Member events and any cultural work will only be carried out if it results in better putting quality for our events.

Additional upcoming activities to include light sand topdressing to tees, collars, and approaches. During the warmer spring months thatch begins to accumulate negatively affecting playability and cut quality. Light layers of sand topdressing help to dilute the thatch and keep surfaces firm. We also plan to continue spiking traffic areas and other weak areas in the rough grass that were attacked by bermudagrass mites. We have sprayed 90 acres of turf this year for mite control as this pest continues to be a menace. We plan to do follow up treatments through the spring to keep turfgrass density at high quality. We have kept our primary playing surfaces tees, greens, fairways protected on a preventative schedule to the best of our ability, but there are some areas where mite damage has occurred even on the short cut turf such as the blue tee on # 9.

We are continuing to improve our bunker maintenance having held team trainings in order to clarify expectations and switching our staff maintenance rakes from the ParAide Accuform to the Cartesian rake made by Tacit golf. We believe this to be a superior rake for creating more “fluff” in the greenside bunkers that tend to play too firm and hold additional moisture due to irrigation and design. Furthermore, they have an improved ability to smooth bunker faces resulting in firmer slopes giving the golf ball a better opportunity to roll to the bottom of the bunker on shots that make direct contact to the face. Accuform rakes will remain on the course for member use, as they are suitable for quick raking of shots and footprints, while the Cartesian rake we believe will be superior for more intensive daily maintenance.

We have been demoing this rake for the last three weeks, and believe it will provide an improved playing experience and more consistent lies in the bunker. See the link below to learn more about this rake.

https://www.tacitgolf.com/products/p/cartesian-rake

A note about golf carts

Thank you for continuing to abide by signage and roped off areas around the course. This makes a huge difference in the aesthetics and playability of the course. Please know that we will continue to be diligent in adjusting cart traffic patterns to ensure the course looks and plays its best. We will also continue to sod and patch areas of worn turf on cartpath edges and high traffic areas as needed.

As always, thank you for your continued support as we strive daily to improve the golf course and create the best possible playing experience for you and your guests. We are excited to close out the active spring season and are actively preparing for summer aerification needs in order to keep our golf course playing its best into the future. I am always available to discuss course care should you ever have any questions or concerns. Wishing everyone a Happy Master’s Weekend!

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Cell: 617.501.6691

Email: dnaumann@quailvalleygolfclub.com

Temperature fluctuations were extreme with us recording 86 degrees on January 25th, then down to 27 seven days later. These significant temperature fluctuations can cause plant stress in the following ways -

• increased physiological stress that create stunted growth through reduced photosynthesis.

• increased disease pressure as soil borne pathogens gain a competitive advantage as natural plant resistance systems are weakened.

• plant adjustment from active growth to dormancy and back to active growth depletes stored carbohydrates resulting in less turfgrass vigor and root density.

• slow recovery from areas of intensive cart and foot traffic.

The rough has gone dormant as you can see in the photo above. We also suffered frost related damage to fairways which is less typical as the fairway cut turf resides much closer to the warmer soil. Holes # 9 and # 18 among others were affected most significantly.

The picture above represents the frost and desiccation that can occur with wind and extremely cold temperatures. The lower part of the fairway approaching the green contains higher soil organic matter resulting in warmer soil temperatures discouraging frost formation. The sandier soil in the foreground cools faster enabling frost to form for a significant duration forcing the plant into dormancy. We believe these areas will improve with consistent warm temperatures, but noticeable improvement will take a few weeks as plant metabolic pathways slowly return to normal. Rainfall would be a catalyst to this process, but as is the case over the last several months it has been scarce. As it stands currently, our rainfall since January 1st is only 1.18”.

Furthermore, we lost a host of ornamental plants at the clubhouse and comfort stations. The hibiscus and crotons were particularly affected. Beginning on Saturday 2/14 we will begin the process of replacing plants in many of these areas to maintain acceptable aesthetics in these focal areas.

The Last 30 days

Despite the weather related challenges our team continues to move the ball forward and care for this marvelous golf course to the best of our skills and abilities. Here is a snapshot of some of our activities over the last month:

• All putting greens were vented (needletine) on 1/12 and again on 2/9. Our monthly venting program ensures adequate air exchange and water movement through the soil on putting greens through the intensive golfing season.

• Putting greens were topdressed on 1/30 with dark green sand ahead of forecasted freezing temperatures. We believe the sand helped our greens successfully work through the cold by insulating and protecting the crown (growing point) of the turfgrass plants.

  

• We are grinding on detail work around the course to maintain and elevate conditioning standards. We have spent the last month raising drains, sodding worn cartpath edges, and raising irrigation heads.

  

• We suspect the cold temperatures were responsible for two irrigation breaks we experienced during the week of 2/2, as the soil cools and warms pipes experience variances in ground pressure. We had a 6” T gasket fail on nine tee and a 2.5” gasket fail in front of number nine green.

• Applied Specticle pre emergent herbicide to 85 acres of the rough. GPS sprayer control ensures a very high level of accuracy for this critical application. This product will prevent weed germination of a significant number of species for up to 90 days.

Bunker Thoughts

As you may or may not know, bunker maintenance has become an intensive area of focus second only to putting greens in labor hours and dollars. For the year ended 2025, 14% of our total labor hours goes into bunker maintenance. Striking a balance between relatively consistent play from bunker to bunker along with the acceptance that the bunker is a hazard that should present variability from day to day and shot to shot we believe is prudent. Here are five reasons published by the USGA why bunker play will never be perfectly consistent -

1. Sand Depth - The depth of sand on the bunker floor has a profound impact on playability. If the sand is too shallow, bunkers may be wet and firm. However, too much sand yields soft conditions that increase the probability of buried lies. Inconsistencies in bunker sand depth develop on a daily basis from events such as normal play, raking and wind exposure. The recommended depth for bunker sand is 4-6 inches but varies depending on factors such as the physical characteristics of the sand and the properties of the underlying material.

2. Sun Exposure - Bunkers that receive more sunlight will dry faster and play softer than those that receive less sunlight. For example, east- and southeast-facing bunkers dry faster in the morning than bunkers oriented to the west or the north, causing them to play softer.

3. Wind exposure – Bunkers facing the predominant wind direction will dry faster and play softer than bunkers that are shielded from the wind or face the opposite direction.

4. Play volume – Bunkers that receive more play will be softer and less consistent than bunkers with very little play. Why? Golf shots, foot traffic and raking disturb bunker sand and soften conditions.

5. Irrigation – Many golfers wonder if irrigation systems can be designed to avoid adding water to bunkers. Unfortunately, such a design is impractical due to the shape and strategic location of many bunkers. Uniformly irrigating irregularly shaped playing surfaces such as greens, green surrounds and even fairways often places adjacent bunkers in the line of fire of sprinklers. If bunker sand is shallow, contains fine materials such as fine sand, silt and clay, or has been contaminated with organic matter, bunkers will retain moisture. Wet sand plays firmer than dry sand, so bunkers that receive more irrigation and retain more moisture will likely play firmer than those that are well drained and out of the way of irrigation.

As it relates to irrigation, upon applying Specticle to our rough grass during the first week of February, it was necessary to lightly irrigate this product into the soil. Bunkers likely would have been slightly more moist through the weekend of February 7th and 8th because of this fact. Additionally, irrigated soil applications requiring a brief watering-in were made to protect the putting greens on Saturday 2/7 as well as Tuesday 2/10. Watering these applications in contributed to some increased bunker moisture on these days.

It is worth noting that over the last 45 days we have checked sand depth, redistributed sand accordingly and added sand where required to all of our 73 bunkers on the championship course. We strive for five to six inches of sand uniformly throughout the bunker. Additionally, we have compacted all bunker faces on the golf course as reported in last months update to reduce plugged lies and promote the golf ball rolling to the floor of the bunker. The two videos included below provide further detail on some of the challenges surrounding bunker play.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1984502295640835

Over the last week we have increased the frequency of SandPro work in the bunkers with a rake attachment that “fluffs” the sand more aggressively than our typical brush attachment. We balance SandPro work with hand raking as the SandPro’s tend to redistribute sand to low areas as well as entry and exit points of the bunker. Indiscriminate SandPro work in bunkers will create inconsistencies of sand depth if left unchecked. They are also hard on bunker edges especially at entry and exit points leading to excessive wear and turf loss negatively affecting aesthetics and playability.

As you can see, it is an ongoing process and conditions will be variable. We are highly mindful of the need to present well maintained bunkers with emphasis on proper sand depth and uniformity. As the days get longer and temperatures warm coupled with our maintenance practices I would expect bunker play to improve and the sand to dry down significantly.

Looking ahead

Valentines Day is here and with that typically brings consistently warmer temperatures. The extended forecast looks promising with many days of lows in the 60’s and highs in the 80’s. This will assist in greening up the golf course. We will incorporate this following action plan over the next one to two months to enhance the course aesthetically and maintain favorable playability

• Inject 20-0-5 fertility via our irrigation system to assist in course green up. We use this when nighttime temperatures are above 60 and the bermudagrass can actively absorb the nutrition.

• Spiking traffic areas to encourage new growth and turf density.

• Strict adherence to our fertility and plant protectant programs.

• Nematicide application to putting greens to protect the sensitive root system of our tifeagle greens. New tools are available for turf managers in our constant fight with plant parasitic nematodes (link below). I had the privilege of trialing this product in 2023 and can confirm that it is very effective with a long term residual for nematode control.

https://www.greencastonline.com/products/trefinti-nematicide-fungicide/turf

As always, thank you for your support and enthusiasm about the care of our golf club. We are excited about moving into our active event season and will do our absolute best to present the best golfing experience possible for you and your guests.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Team Building

We have some talented interns with us for the winter season and these guys are coming in strong and crushing it everyday. They have immersed themselves into our culture and work ethic and have been major contributors in significant ways such as -

• Course setup

• Hand watering greens

• Spray and fertilizer applications

• Sod work, general high level attention to detail

Additionally, all three of these gentlemen will be volunteering at the LPGA Hilton Tournament of Champions at Lake Nona (Jan 29 - Feb 1) as well as attending the Golf Course Superintendents Association (GCSAA) trade show in Orlando, Florida as they build their skills and career portfolios to better position themselves for future leadership roles. They will remain with us until early April 2026.

2025 Weather Update and Recap

Overall 2025 totaled 46.94” of rain which is 19% below our annual average for Vero Beach. Notably, we had zero named tropical storms affecting us in 2025 partially contributing to the below average accumulation. It was an odd year with October being our wettest month of 9.84”, and the typically dry February bringing us a touch more precipitation than rainy season June 3.59” to 3.49” respectively.

Since November 10th, we have been blessed with some truly fantastic golfing weather. We have touched 80 degrees or higher in 24 of the last 54 days. We have only been below 50 degrees in nine of the last 54 days, and have only had eight days in the last 54 with significantly reduced solar radiation aka “cloudy” days. 1.5” of rain in December with ample sunshine and overall friendly temperatures aided us greatly in keeping things looking and playing favorably. Although we are currently at the tail end of a cold snap with recorded lows of 36.8 (12/31), 35.9 (1/1 with heavy frost), 38.9 (1/2) next week looks fantastic with sun and mild temperatures - what a great place to live!

We will see a significant loss of color on the golf course after the heavy frost on New Year’s Day. Most of the frost was isolated to the rough turfgrass, with our lower cut turf mostly avoiding it due to its closer proximity to the warmer soil. Expect to see some browning out of the rough, that will provide a nice contrast to the tee and fairway turf which should largely maintain its vibrant green color. This brown bermudagrass turf has entered dormancy, but should break this cycle as temperatures are expected to warm into the mid 70’s next week.

The Last 30-45 days

Here is a snapshot of some of our activities on the course over as we finished up 2025

• Fertilized all oak trees along the main road, parking lot, and clubhouse.

• We are continuing to work on bunker sand redistribution and adding sand where necessary to improve playability and protect our investment into our three year old bunkers. This process is very labor intensive, but results in more consistent bunker playability and significant reduction in embedded lies.

• Took advantage of the warm temperatures and went out and sliced worn out cart traffic areas across the golf course on December 5th. We followed this up with targeted fertility applications on 12/22 and compost topdressing with COMAND on 12/23.

The slicing is very beneficial as it reduces compaction allowing turfgrass roots to breathe as well as promoting air loving (aerobic) microbes that release nutrients through the decomposition of organic matter. These microbes are only active in temperatures over 55 degrees, so if we have warm temperatures forecasted its a great time to break out the slicer! Please do your part by following posted cart signage and avoiding roped off areas so that we can keep conditions pristine.

• Five semi truck loads (8,084 bales) of pinestraw installed throughout the property on Dec 2nd and 3rd.

• Clubhouse lawns overseeded on December 1st.

• Soil/water/nematode/disease sampling conducted on putting greens, tees and fairways. Physical and chemical properties sampled to develop strong fertility programs for 2026.

• Lightly sand topdressed approaches to promote firmness and improved playability.

• Sand topdressed putting greens November 24th and again December 29th.

• Hunting billbug larvae outbreak discovered on the Covey golf course roughs and also in select areas of the rough on the 18 hole course. We are now seeing up to four generations of this destructive insect each year. With warmer than normal temperatures in December the larvae were in the mood to eat! The billbug undergoes a complete metamorphosis from egg to adult with the larvae stage being the most destructive to the turf. We were forced to spray numerous acres of insecticide to control this unwanted pest.

• Specticle (Indaziflam) pre-emergent herbicide applied to 90 acres of rough to prevent weed germination. GPS guided sprayers allow this to be possible at a significant cost savings over a granular application. Dimension (dithiopyr) pre-emergent herbicide applied to tees and fairways for weed prevention. Specticle herbicide can be phytotoxic (harmful to desirable plants) to turf growing on soils with low organic matter and being that our fairways and tees are below 8% OM, we opt to use this product in the rough grass only.

• Sprayed out and plugged undesirable grasses on Covey # 7 and the Croquet lawn that had migrated into the putting green.

Upcoming

Bunker work will be focused on intensively over the next thirty days as a continuation of bunker detailing, compaction, and sand redistribution primarily on the front nine bunkers as the back nine is nearly complete. To better protect the bunkers, we have reduced our machine raking with SandPro’s significantly over the last thirty days. While the SandPro is an efficient and effective way to maintain bunkers, they create areas of heavy sand concentration as well as damage edges when entering and exiting bunkers. Please expect to see us doing more targeted hand raking in an effort to present a bunker that plays and looks better than before.

We also intend to improve our irrigation efficiency by auditing the system to correct minor issues and identify ways to save water. We used 5.2% more water in 2025 versus 2024. This was mostly due to weather as we received 10.09” (21%) more rain in 2024. We have made investments into new irrigation software which will help us further reduce our water usage as we work on making simple changes that add up to thousands of gallons saved each month.

Our playing surfaces spray programs will continue to be aggressive as we navigate the winter months that are typically very challenging to maintaining warm season bermudagrasses. Relying on historical precedents, plus the advent of new products and materials we feel confident in our programs and look forward to executing. Although the weather looks great next week, January typically brings some challenges with stalled cold fronts that can limit sunshine. Our proactive approach will be critical in keeping playing conditions consistent.

We hope that you enjoyed learning a bit about a few of the maintenance practices employed and as always thank you for your support and curiosity. Happy New Year to all and looking forward to an exciting 2026 season.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Since my last report the main challenge we’ve contended with is a familiar foe and one that we are limited in our ability to overcome - weather! Since September 19th we have received 12.75” of rain. That’s 28% of our YTD total in 49 days. We are still on the dry side for the year as our total precipitation sits at 45.32” still well below our annual average of 60”. All this considered, God smiled on us occasionally during this stretch and brought us seven straight days of steady sunshine leading into our Collegiate Championship allowing us to present the golf course in a most favorable way. By all accounts the event was a huge success. A huge thank you to all of our Members for their support of this annual event that only seems to be getting better each year!

Other than shifting and pivoting our application and mowing schedules, we came through the rainy season relatively well. We obviously are thankful that we were not impacted this year by any major named storms. We did suffer one drainage infrastructure concern that revealed itself as the golf course digested all the water. The parking lot catch basins drain through a 24” ADS pipe that runs under # 18 approach and to the lake just east of number 10 tees. We have had multiple issues with this pipe over the years requiring repairs in 2017, and again extensive repairs after Hurricane Milton in 2024. A sinkhole opened up adjacent to the cartpath east of the 18th green and upon excavation we discovered a drainage pipe failure due to cracking and joint separation.

Insect pest pressure also was a primary concern in the aftermath of the heavy rains. We sustained sod webworm damage and hunting billbug damage in many turf areas around the course. We were able to get all areas successfully treated and recovered.

The rainy days also did allow us to tackle projects that otherwise would be challenging to accomplish if we were involved in daily setup, mowing, spraying and more routine detail work. It also foreshadowed future drainage projects we intend to address next summer as wet areas have certainly revealed themselves - some we knew about, and others that revealed themselves. Additionally, we were able to install 1,700 bales of pinestraw touch-up work prior to our collegiate event. Finally, we added irrigation and landscaping to entrance of the Covey course to make this area more attractive.

Brief Update on Playing Surfaces

Putting greens are currently in a strong state of health exhibiting consistent rooting, draining well, and responding favorably to inputs. Our daily stimp speeds are between 11 and 11’6”. Tournament speeds have stimped at 12’ to 12’6”. We are currently mowing at 0.110” with greens topdressing on a loose two to three week schedule and greens needletine aerifications strictly scheduled every 30 days. We expect the greens to be in outstanding condition though the season and see no reason currently why that won’t be the case.

We have cut the rough back to 2.0” as the 2.25” height of cut was creating some challenging playability issues and the occasional lost ball. Our philosophy is that the rough should be a penalty, especially during our most active playing months, but we are not in favor of lost balls under any circumstances.

Fairways are being cut at 0.425” with transformer brushes. Fairways have isolated areas requiring additional attention consistently due to overly sandy soils and high nematode pressure. To address this we apply a variety of fertilizers and soil stimulants to aid and assist the turf health.

I absolutely love the transformer brushing system and feel that our fairways have never been better. The texture of the turf is much improved as well as the overall cut quality. Members should experience outstanding lies in fairway turf currently with ball roll improving as we continue to dry out from the October rains. For those that may be curious about the transformer brushes please check out the link below -

Transformer Brushes

We are considering adding the transformer brushes to our greens and tee mowers as well.

Tees/Collars/Approaches are in a good place heading into season and are being cut at 0.350. We have nematode pressure on a few select tee tops that we are working on daily - most notably number 8 white, 12 blue, 15 gold, 16 green. Expect to see us actively working to improve these tees over the next thirty days.

It is important to note that all of these areas underwent significant cultivation work over the summer to ensure they would perform well through the winter season. Based on the work we put in over the summer we feel the playing surfaces will remain outstanding through the season.

Upcoming

We have solidified our team for the upcoming season brining in two new international interns through the Ohio State Turfgrass program. We will share some details about these individuals in next month’s report, but we are excited to have this new energy on our team.

As most are aware, from November through April, we won’t be doing any major projects that would significantly impact the golf course playability. It is time to play golf and enjoy the beauty of the course! One exception is we will continually address irrigation areas that need improvement over this time, but with high sensitivity to how this may impact golf course playability. We have many heads that need to be moved in order to improve the turfgrass quality and reduce water usage and the winter is a good time to address these areas. The majority of our focus over the next thirty days will be putting green management to ensure turf health and performance as we move into a very challenging time of year with the days being short, often times cloudy and cool. Additionally, we will be working in the bunkers redistributing sand to ensure the most consistent bunker playability possible. Sand will be added where needed, but mostly redistributed as gravity and water pull sand to low areas and away from faces.

Thank you for your interest in our management practices and we look forward to seeing everyone enjoying the course!

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Rain, I don’t mind

We continue to work through a very dry year and as of today (9/19) our yearly precipitation total sits at 32.5”. Only 3.69” so far in September and 11.88” since August 1st. We toiled through some soggy weather that resulted in cart restrictions the week of September 8th, but the accumulation has been modest overall especially when compared to previous years. Its been great for productivity, keeping our team on the course, on task, with minimal delays to projects. Dry years do inspire innovation as our team deals with higher levels of plant stress requiring increased vigilance, trying new plant/soil application solutions, leaving us stronger and wiser and better equipped to handle future challenges related to drought stress. A strong local superintendent network is also important as we frequently collaborate and share ideas - all with the goal of continually improving golf course conditions.

The Last 30

• Completed a DryJect Maximus application to the putting greens on 8/18. We incorporated 650 lbs of sand per 1000 square feet into the upper soil profile of all putting greens. The benefits of this procedure are numerous, but most notably will result in improved drainage and surface firmness. The Covey greens also received a DryJect application, with a lesser amount of sand incorporated due to less organic matter accumulation in these newer greens.

• Verticut and topdressed all tee surfaces during week of 8/18. Tees are being maintained at a height of cut of 0.375”.

• Verticut and circle cut all fairways during week of 8/18. Fairways are being maintained at a height of cut of 0.400”.

• Expanded fairway lines closer to bunkers to improve risk/reward shot making possibilities.

• Added hydrowick drainage to # 11 fairway, # 6 fairway, and rough/collar behind # 8 green. Hydrowick drainage is a constant system that is always pulling water through capillary action in the soil. The water is then transported through the tube via gravity to a header pipe and/or catch basin. It is minimally invasive to the turf grass playing surface and very efficient. Number 11 required the installation of a header pipe in order to “daylight” the hydrowick tubes. The header pipe is then tied into a catch basin transporting the excess water away. We have been using this system for six years with much success and have this system installed in over a dozen formally wet areas around the golf course.

• Installed anti-slip pedestrian matting to all of our new bridges.

• Rebuilt the lake bank on hole # 9. This lake bank was partially destroyed during Hurricane Milton in October 2024. We were able to procure some nice cap rock at very low cost that was excavated from our project on 41st street. We rented a hydraulic hammer attachment to break this rock into manageable pieces, then it was placed on # 9 lake for stability. We also removed the odd rock basin to the west of # 12 green and backfilled this with soil and turf. These rocks were then repurposed to # 9 lake bank. All in all a very rewarding and productive project that greatly improves the golf course aesthetics while protecting this golf hole from further erosion.

• As part of the croquet expansion project we had some Tifeagle sod remaining. We thought that we should probably use that to pull some more celebration out of the edges of our putting greens. This sod was installed on # 10 to further remove encroachment. We feel this was a nice improvement for this green.

Upcoming

• We will be working on updating the landscape surrounding the entrance to the Covey golf course. Please expect to see some disruption in this area as we work to beautify this further and improve the presentation.

• We also continue to work on low areas of weak turf on the Covey golf course specifically in front of holes 5 and 7 greens. We intend to have full grass coverage in these areas by mid October.

• Mulch work to the clubhouse beds and parking lot areas.

• Growth regulator application to the wedelia beds that stabilize our hillsides and lake banks.

• Croquet Update: As I write this report, Island Awning has completed the 16x48 foot canopy at the croquet complex. This will provide relief from the elements and allow players to relax in the shade in between practice sessions and matches.

  

• During our three day closure next week we intend to work on the following:

  • Light verticut/pencil tine (solid, no core removed) greens/sand topdressing followed with 5-7-5 fertility.

  • Light verticut and topdress to all tee surfaces.

  • Solid tine and topdress collars and approaches.

  • Circle mow fairways followed by 3-3-3 Everlizer organic fertilizer to dry/sandy soil areas.

  • The Covey course will be closed all week and we will conduct sand topdressing to collars and approaches as well as one final aerification to the Covey greens. The aerification will be a 1/4” hollow tine that will be a seven to ten day recovery period.

  • Pinestraw installation to select landscape beds ahead of October tournaments.

  • Sod work to worn cartpath edges, areas damaged by construction traffic from summer projects.

On behalf of my hard working team we are grateful to contribute our skills and talents to such a wonderful and supportive club. I firmly believe that we continue to get better in our methods and procedures as it pertains to managing the course, and it is our primary goal that this is reflected in the conditions you experience each day. We have had an incredible summer on the course and accomplished a great deal with a high level of productivity. The golf course is well positioned for another successful season and we will keep improving the properly in spite of the many challenges that come mostly from Mother Nature. Thank you as always for your support and we look forward to a fantastic fall/winter season.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Beyond interest, for those of us in the grass growing business this has real implications. Keeping these simple records gives us a deeper understanding of why turf conditions are a certain way, and gets us proactively thinking about the steps we need to consider to ensure we are exceeding expectations despite the climate related challenges. Capital investments in a new irrigation pumping station in 2018 (200k) and the most up to date irrigation software from Rainbird in 2024 (20k) are demonstrating their value as we navigate these challenges.

Lack of precipitation has increased productivity and we are finishing jobs and projects faster than they otherwise would happen. Below is a quick review of our 2025 golf course capital projects:

Bridge Replacement

This job was estimated to take 75 working days and we completed it in 56. I did request our contractor to return to cut some of the old piles (large telephone pole style supports that anchor in the lake bed) so that we no longer see them, even when the lakes are low. They are scheduled to handle that task before the end of the month and should only take two to three days.

Croquet Court

The croquet court expansion project is underway and we are scheduled to grass the expanded area on Tuesday 8/19. We also plan to pour a 16x50 concrete pad to the north of the court that will serve as a hardscape floor for an awning style shelter. After the concrete work is completed we will have Island Awning come to install the shelter. We should be finished with this project by the end of the month.

The Last 30

As always, it has been very active through the summer with your agronomy team. The dedication of our team members never stops impressing me especially in the summer months of heat and humidity. Here are some of the main items we have been working on over the last month:

• During the closure period of July 21 - 24 we were able to triplex verticut the putting greens followed by a 5/8” hollow tine aerification and heavy sand topdress.

We also sand topdressed all tees, collars and approaches. 3/4 solid tine aerification to all collars and approaches and 9/16” depth vertical mowing on all tee boxes. 40 acres of fairways were deep tined aerified (7-8 inches depth).

• Removed problem soil and re installed PC drainage to some problem areas on the Covey course specifically number 7 and number 5. This course presents some drainage challenges due to its low elevation.

• Added drainage to the east of the ladies tee on number five

• Removed grass dams from cartpath edges on # 5, # 1, and # 5 waste bunker. This should release the water from holding off the cart paths. In the instance of # 5 waste bunker, we are attempting to smooth the transition from driving out of the waste bunker into the turf. We will let the grass regenerate in these areas.

• Demoed a newer cultivation tool called the SandCat on approaches # 3, 5, 7, 9, and 15. This tool cuts a sand channel eight inches into the ground which will aid turf grass rooting and vigor, improve surface firmness and drainage. It is a very slow process, but we will bring this tool back if we are happy with the results.

• Performed cultivation practices on the Covey course during the days 8/11 - 8/14. During this time we were able to triplex verticut all the greens, 5/8” hollow tine aerification with sand topdressing added, 3/4” hollow tine aerification on all green surrounds, 3/4” hollow tine aerification on fairways 1-5, 8 and 9. We will finish remaining fairways six and seven on Monday 8/18. This work will greatly improve playability around these fun and interesting greens complexes!

• We are continually working on the natural areas on holes 1, 3, 13, 15, and 18. These areas require a fair amount of maintenance in the summer growing season, but this reduces significantly upon cooler temperatures. We are spraying growth regulator in addition to regular trimming in order to keep these areas looking “natural” while reducing lost ball incidents.

• Relocated and added additional irrigation heads to the hillside to the south of 17 green complex to improve this weak turf area. We plan to patch the cut out cartpath before the end of the month.

Upcoming

• Please note that we do have a course closure scheduled for 8/18 thru 8/21. During this closure we will be verticutting and DryJecting all putting greens. The DryJect is a minimally invasive procedure that is playable the same day. We conduct this process each year as a way to aerify the greens and improve water movement through the soil. We will inject 60 tons of sand across all of our greens including the Covey course. Click below for additional information:

  DryJect Service

• In addition to the greens work, we will be lightly verticutting fairways, collars and approaches. Collars and approaches will receive sand topdressing behind verticutting. This is essential for us to maintain firm and fast conditions and keep our approaches mowed tightly. Finally, all tees will be hollow tine aerified with a 3/4” diameter tine and topdressed. For those keeping score at home, upon the conclusion of this upcoming aerification week we will have competed the following this summer to the primary playing surfaces:

  • Greens - VC 40 heavy verticutting (June), 1” drill n fill (June), 3/4 solid tine aerification (June), 5/8” hollow tine aerification (July), DryJect (August). Greens are also verticut every Monday (weather permitting).

  • Tees - VC 40 heavy verticutting (June), 3/4 hollow tine aerification (June), heavy sand topdress (June), VC 40 heavy verticutting (July), heavy sand topdress (July) 3/4 hollow tine aerification (August), heavy sand topdress (August).

  • Fairways - VC 60 heavy verticutting (June), 3/4” deep aerification (June), sand topdress at 25 tons/acre, 1” deep tine aerification (July), light vertical mowing (August).

  • Approaches - VC 40 heavy verticutting (June), 3/4” hollow tine aerification (June), heavy sand topdress (June), 3/4” solid tine aerification (July), heavy sand topdress (July), VC 40 heavy verticutting (August), heavy sand topdressing (August).

We most certainly appreciate everyone’s understanding as we carry out these agronomic practices. I assure you that these efforts are not in vein and will result in firmer, faster, more enjoyable playing conditions throughout the year. Additionally, an aggressive cultivation program extends the life of the golf course allowing more time between renovations.

• We plan to install 100 pine trees over the next few weeks. We have lost 200+ pines in the last year to the invasive pine boring beetle. An active replacement program is necessary to keep the course identity. We will be installing pines on holes number 4/5 close to the rain shelter as this area has been decimated by the beetles. We also plan to add pines behind 12 green and in the beds to the south of 14 fairway. We do have beetle traps on property which help to slow these insects down. There are limited chemical treatments that are effective that can be safely applied with approved label rates. The beetles are drawn to stressed trees and no doubt the reduction in annual rainfall over the last several years has increased their activity. We have had good success with pine tree plantings over the last three years to holes 1, 4, 6, 7, 13, 18. When the trees are planted as a juvenile they have adapted well to the environment with a high survival rate. Transplanted trees on golf courses are always a challenge as they are away from their natural environment (vis a vis the forest) and subjected to frequent irrigation. Their root systems are also subjected to high levels of compaction and damage from routine golf maintenance machinery.

• The Chinese fan palms on Covey # 1 are scheduled to be trimmed back this month to open up sight lines from tee to green.

• Drainage work in progress on hole 11 right side fairway. We also intend to address drainage related problems between the gold and black tee on 11. These areas took a tremendous amount of wear and tear from construction traffic as we built the bridge leaving 10 green

As always, many thanks to our Membership for your patience and understanding as we move through an active summer. Continuing to make the golf course better each day remains our primary objective and that drives our decision making when we undertake aggressive projects and cultivation work. We are pleased with the progress we have made this summer and expect fantastic conditions through the remaining summer months and into the fall/winter season. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Bridge Construction Update

As many are aware, on June 2 we began the process of demolishing our existing bridges and rebuilding them in-kind. We have over 700 feet of bridges and the decision was made to replace them due to significant weathering and deterioration. As of today, the timber portion of the bridges on hole three (cart only), hole four, and hole nine are complete. We are scheduled to pour concrete transitions on the high bridge on number four on Monday June 30. Concrete work on hole three, small bridge on four, and nine is complete. We are currently working on hole number 10 and are expecting to finish that bridge in the first week of July. Upon completion of the long bridge on 10, we will move to the short bridge behind the green. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we will have this golf hole closed for a few more weeks.

We have three separate contractors (timber demo and construction, irrigation, concrete prep and pour) working on this project and the coordination has been very successful. The original timeline for this project was 75 working days and we are currently at working day 24. If we continue at a similar rate of progress we believe we can finish this project in 50-55 working days which would put us on or around August 11. That said, we have had minimal weather delays thus far and setbacks can occasionally happen on major projects, but overall we are very pleased with the dedication of the assembled teams and their commitment to quality and efficiency.

Construction is Fun - - but what about the golf course?!

Not to worry, we also had a productive month on the turfgrass! Our aerification process was aided by great weather where we only received 0.4” of rain during the two week course closure. Below is an overview broken down by area of some of the procedures we completed:

• Greens: 2x VC 40 verticut at 3/8” depth, scalp to 0.90, drill n fill procedure, 3/4” solid tine aerification, heavy topdress. Currently mowing greens at 0.125 with nice recovery. Additional rain will help. Drill n Fill video below:

  

• Tees: 1x VC 40 verticut at 3/4” depth, scalped tees to .200, 3/4” hollow tine aerification, sand topdress, re-alignment work, recovery. We also fraze mowed the driving range Tees for smoothness and thatch removal. The short video below shows the fraze mower in action on the LC tee. We prefer this procedure on the driving range tees because it removes several months of wash board like imperfections created by divot wear. The turf is cut down to soil level then we regrow it. The regrowth process takes about 30 days under typical weather conditions.

• Fairways: circle mow scalp to .325, 1x verticut with VC 60 at 3/4” depth, circle mow scalp, topdress and hollow tine aerify with 3/4” tines, drag, recovery. Additionally, fairways were topdressed at 25 tons/acre. This procedure is critical to keep the fairways firm and dry with enhanced ball roll.

• Collars and Approaches: same procedures as tees minus realignment work. The video below shows the aerification process on collars/approaches. We prefer to aerify behind the sand topdressing to encourage as much sand as possible to fill the aerification channel.

Additional Projects over the Last 30 Days

• Redistributing and adding bunker sand where necessary to encourage consistent sand depth in all of our bunkers and protect our Better Billy Bunker system. We will work on this again in September/October just prior to our more active golfing season. Due to weathering and mechanical raking, bunker sand will migrate to low areas of the bunker leaving faces light with sand. This requires us to check depth and adjust accordingly. Where needed faces will be compacted to discourage “fried egg” lies. Perfect lies in bunkers are never guaranteed, but we strive to maintain as much consistency as possible across all of our bunkers.

• Added drainage to the west end of the putting green rough. Water run off from the slope to the west of this green creates agronomic challenges in keeping this green healthy year round. The addition of this drainage we believe will intercept a significant amount of this run off and keep it off the putting green. Additionally, the entire area should dry up nicely making for a more favorable practice/chipping area.

  A base of gravel is added to the bottom of the trench prior to installing a 6” perforated drainage pipe. The pipe is then covered with gravel. We are scheduled to finish this up with fresh bermudagrass sod on Tuesday 7/1.

• We continue to address undesirable celebration bermudagrass that has encroached into our putting greens. We are working on the main putting green currently. This process will continue throughout the summer as we strive to purify our greens to the desirable Tifeagle ultradwarf bermudagrass. Celebration is an awesome turf type for tees and fairways, but around greens it does present the significant challenge of lateral movement into the putting greens due to its robust system of rhizomes.

We are appreciative of the supportive feedback to our June cultural practices. While at times inconvenient, please keep in mind that the broad purpose of this work is to extend the life of the golf course and ensure optimal playing conditions throughout the year. By successfully completing these procedures, we are positioning the course for consistent success and strengthening it to better handle adverse weather conditions.

Upcoming

• Please note the Covey golf course will be closed June 30 thru July 2, reopening on July 3. During this closure we will aerify the greens with a 1/4” diameter tine and topdress. This is a light aerification and should create only minor disruption to the playing surface. We also intend to topdress all collars and approaches to improve firmness and drainage.

• On July 28, we will begin a project to enlarge our croquet lawn. We are working with Total Golf construction to complete this work and expect it to take about three weeks.

• The 18 hole course will be closed July 21 - July 24. During this closure we will hollow tine aerify all putting greens with a 5/8” diameter tine. Additionally, we will lightly verticut fairways as well as solid tine aerify tees, collars, and approaches.

A Note on Summer Conditions

We strive to present the best possible golf course for our Members and Guests each and every day, whether it is mid July or mid February. That said there are some factors, both environmental and man made, that create disparities related to day to day course conditions. For those that play the course year round, some of these may be apparent. Here are a few examples of things that you may experience in summer conditions that would not otherwise be thought about in the months of October - May:

• Accumulation of heavy grass clippings in the roughs. During the summer months we cut our roughs down to 1.25” or lower to enhance leaf blade surface area. This scalping of the rough is critical to allow the golf ball to “stand up” on the bermudagrass as opposed to dropping down into the canopy. The big picture result is better lies in the rough throughout the year. We always clean the clippings from the rough grass, but this process cannot be done to standards when the grass is wet, therefore if we are mowing in the morning there may be a few holes with heavy grass clippings as you play your morning round. Rest assured that it is cleaned up daily, and remember this process when you have favorable rough lies throughout the year.

• Playing surfaces will be softer and turfgrass rooting will have less density. The result of intense vertical mowing, aerification, and topdressing creates an infusion of air and sand into the upper soil profile. This is good, and ultimately results in healthier plants with less organic matter in the upper profile coupled with improved drainage. Upon being verticut, fraze mowed, scalped, and topdressed we are essentially regrowing the turfgrass plants from the ground up. This new growth takes time to mature and plants may seem shallow rooted and juvenile. With expertise from the turf team and assistance from mother nature these young, juvenile plants will flourish into a strong, robust system capable of withstanding the stressors of cool and cloudy winter conditions. It’s all about trusting the process to achieve the long term positive results.

• Green speeds will typically run a bit slower during the summer as the intense heat and humidity of the Florida season creates larger and more succulent leaf tissue resulting in more friction on the golf ball. It is helpful to remember that with bermudagrass there is an inverse relationship between temperature and humidity and green speed - cooler/dry air = faster greens while hot/humid air = slower greens. Additionally, applied nitrogen fertility is slightly increased as we work to encourage recovery from aerification and verticutting practices. An inverse relationship also exists with applied N and green speeds. Rest assured that this is controlled very carefully and with the utmost care. Lastly, more frequent and heavier rainfall will naturally cleanse the soil of toxins resulting in explosions of growth. This is a great thing agronomically, but can result in softer conditions and green speeds that will play a touch slower.

As always, we appreciate Members taking an interest in our course care practices. I am always available and happy to answer any inquiries you may have as it relates to course work. Thank you for your support and wishing everyone a Happy Fourth of July as we celebrate the best nation ever conceived.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Not surprisingly temperatures have risen dramatically with an average temperature for May of 79.5. Our high for the month was 96.5 on May 21 and our low was 65.5 on the morning of May 5. The result of all the rain and warmth is aggressive bermudagrass growth that we will spend our summer managing while still striving to maintain the best possible playing conditions for our active Membership. Long term viability and optimal playing conditions is the purpose of cultivation work - the work we do truly extends the life of the golf course, and ultimately results in a better product for Members and Guests. We will begin our first aerification procedures on Monday June 2 with the course reopening on Tuesday June 17.

The Last 30

Here is snapshot of some of the more significant turf maintenance practices that were employed over the last month -

• We are working hard on removing pockets of Celebration bermudagrass that has encroached into the middle of some of our putting greens. Currently we have areas plugged on holes 1, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18. Removing this undesirable grass from our greens will extend the life of the putting greens and keep our surfaces pure. Completing this prior to our aerification season is beneficial as it will aid tremendously in allowing these plugs to seamlessly blend into the existing putting surface. Our expectation is that once we are through the summer these areas will no longer be noticeable.

• We got after the Covey course the week of May 19. During this closure all surfaces were scalped down - TifTuf fwys/tees/collars to 0.325” Tifeagle greens to 0.095”, intensively vertical mowed, circle mowed, hollow tine aerified, topdressed heavily with sand, and shockwaved the fairway turf. We had a terrific cultivation with the weather mostly staying sunny and dry allowing our team to achieve all of our goals for this closure. The course is in recovery mode, but expect it to improve each day. This work will undoubtedly benefit the Covey course and significantly improve playability.

• Water management, while always a critical element of turfgrass management, becomes especially important during the drought conditions experienced until late May. Our irrigation tech - Mario Castaneda - has been very active adding irrigation heads, adjusting heads and times, moving heads out of landscape beds to better irrigate turf areas needing attention. Over the last month Mario has added several heads including additional zones of irrigation around the Learning Center, # 13 rough, # 11 rough. This is all in addition to his responsibilities related to the daily repairs and maintenance needed to our 25 year old system. This behind the scenes work too often goes unnoticed, but without this attention to detail our golf course would not be what it is today! Big tip of the cap to Mario for the fantastic work he continues to do to keep the course looking great. Mario is talented, dedicated, proactive, and a positive minded person - all characteristics any superintendent would desire. We are fortunate to have him and am proud to work alongside Mario.

• ChipCo Choice insecticide applied to 94 acres of rough on May 19. This application gives us control of mole crickets and imported fire ants for one full year.

• Needletine aerified all putting greens on the championship course on May 19.

Upcoming

• Remember the golf course is closed June 2 - June 16. During this time we will be working 12 hour days cultivating all turfgrass areas across the property except the Covey course. All of the short grass will be vertical mowed/scalped/aerified aggressively/and sand topdressed. We will also apply Ronstar (Oxadiazon) pre emergent herbicide after these practices are complete in order to control unwanted weed germination. Florida is a weed factory especially in the summer months. Controlling weeds preventatively is critical to keeping the golf course clean on a consistent basis.

• We will be conducting a drill and fill procedure on our putting greens on June 5 and 6. Darren Davis, superintendent at Olde Florida Golf Club in Naples, and past president of the GCSAA does a great job explaining this procedure:

  As our greens age it is imperative that we maintain drainage channels of sand that penetrate through the organic matter accumulation above the original USGA root zone greens mix. The grass will continue to build this organic matter and without careful management will create soft and wet greens unable to survive on a long term basis. We measured the physical properties of our greens in March through intensive diagnostic testing and found that in the top 3” of our greens our water infiltration rates ranged from 4.1” to 6.5” per hour - not great but within range of acceptability. For comparisons sake, we measured the Covey greens as well (built in spring 2022) and the infiltration rates on these newer greens was in excess of 10” per hour in the top 3”. We expect the drill and fill procedure as well as our additional summer aerifications to improve this number and ultimately result in firmer, faster, and truer rolling surfaces into the future. Next spring, we will test again to see how much we moved the needle.

• As previously communicated, we are rebuilding our bridges this summer and will begin this project on June 2. We will start this project on hole number three and work to complete the front nine bridges prior to heading to number 10. We expect this project to take around 75 working days. We will include updates and photos of the progress in next month’s report.

In conclusion, we would like to express our sincere gratitude for the support and positive comments from Members and Guests on their golfing experiences at Quail Valley. It was a terrific winter/spring season and we are excited about continuing the momentum into the summer. Please feel free to reach out if you ever have any questions or concerns related to the turfgrass cultural practices we will be conducting during the summer closures. Keep in mind that everything we do related to surface disruption is only done to polish the gem and make sure she continues to shine for many years into the future. Additionally, while the course will need time to recover after our aerification procedures, our goal is to ensure we open the golf course to an acceptable standard of playability with the understanding that it will continue to improve each day. Mother nature has a big hand in this as rainfall, while beneficial, can sometimes delay the work we are engaged in resulting in schedules and timetables that have to be adjusted. We will communicate any of these pertinent details accordingly so that all Members have an understanding of what to expect upon reopening. Wishing all a prosperous summer season and many fun days ahead on the course.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

As for course conditioning, there are challenges as always, but what may be surprising is the weather data, specifically precipitation. Did you know that this is the driest year we have had (Jan 1 - April 26) going back to 2019 when I first started keeping detailed records? Check out the data:

Jan 1 - April 26 rainfall data year to year:

2019: 10.3”

2020: 7.56”

2021: 9.39”

2022: 9.12”

2023: 7.46”

2024: 8.61”

2025: 7.05”

Additionally, we have only received 1.52” of precipitation since March 1st. Long way to go for us to reach our 60” per year average. I think God was having a good laugh at me on March 25th when rain was forecasted, but all we got was hail! We did accumulate a trace of precipitation that day, which I maintain was hail that melted in the gauge.

All this considered, we are pleased with the overall conditions of the golf course and feel that we are in better condition for late April than in any of the previous six years. I cannot emphasize enough that with over thirty people on staff our success is a total team effort! Our mission is simple - work to get better every day and good things will happen. The three individuals below deserve special recognition:

Please take time to acknowledge Matt, Nick, and Todd when you see them on the course. All three of these professionals are highly committed to our success and dedicate themselves tirelessly to improving our operation. Navigating through this drought coupled with very high play levels, all while keeping our playing surfaces pristine is no small feat, and I am very blessed to work alongside these fellow leaders. These are the “boots on the ground” leaders that deserve significant credit for keeping the golf course maintained on a world class level each and every day.

The Last 30

• Greens

  • We are mowing greens daily at 0.100 inches with grooved (Wiley rollers) rollers (more aggressive cut). We are double cutting as needed for increased speed and smoothness. Temperatures are still on the cool side - five days in April with AM temperatures below 60 including 52 on April 13th and April 17th - so the turf is not yet growing vigorously to warrant frequent double cutting.

  • Greens are sprayed weekly with foliar nutrition varying between 0.08 to 0.12 pounds of nitrogen/1000 sq feet. Growth regulator is being applied weekly at adjustable rates that is dependent on temperature and growing degree days.

  • Greens were sprayed with Velista (fairy ring control) and Divanem (nematode control) on April 7th.

  • Greens were maintenance topdressed on April 14th. It has taken more time than desired for the sand to move into the thatch layer, mostly due to lack of precipitation. Our next scheduled maintenance topdressing is May 5th. Please note this date is tentative and may change based on environmental conditions.

  • Greens were needletine aerified on 2.5” x 2.0” spacing on April 21st, then followed with 0-0-25 (potassium) fertility to mitigate sodium stress and encourage robust root development.

  • Greens are exhibiting signs of sodium stress as we continue to irrigate frequently due to absence of rainfall. The numbers vary, but our most recent irrigation water test (March 2025) showed 170 ppm sodium - not terrible, but when applied frequently in the absence of flushing rainfall can be detrimental.

• Fairways

  • Fairways are being mowed three times per week at .450 inches with grooved rollers and front brushes.

  • We have stepped up our intensity to our fairway turf striving to improve and combat areas of poor soil and nematode pressure that typically weaken this time of year. We have adjusted our wetting agent program to favor chemistries that are truly wetting the sandy soil as opposed to merely breaking surface tension. We have made modest adjustments to our fertility programs to boost turf health and more specifically soil microbial populations. We are topdressing weak areas to boost recovery and increasing the amounts of humic acid and organic fertilizer to awaken soil microbial life, retain moisture, and increase nutrient holding capacity. Please do your part to protect our fairways by complying with all ropes and signage especially around greens complexes.

• Completed intensive soil sampling across the golf course to monitor chemical and physical properties of our soils on greens, tees, and fairways. We write and adjust our fertility and topdressing programs based on these results. This is an annual program carried out each spring.

• Applied 6-4-0 Milorganite organic fertilizer to all bunker faces.

• Sprayed all bunker faces with Acelepryn insecticide to control turf damaging worms, billbugs, chinch bugs, and grubs.

• Deep root fertilized all oak trees along main entry road, front clubhouse, and parking lot.

• Applied 10-0-0 plus calcium sulfate to all high golf cart traffic areas.

• Applied 15-1-15 plus Oxadiazon (Ronstar) weed preventer to 12 acres of tees, fairways, and roughs on the Covey course.

• Detail Work - edged/cleaned all bunkers, raised several drains and irrigation heads, sodded areas damaged by insects or machinery on holes 4, 5, 7, 8, 17.

• Applied Cutless Quickstop growth regulator to all Wedilia groundcover on holes 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15. This application will suppress growth for three months greatly reducing labor intensive trimming work.

Upcoming

• One of the most critical upcoming projects we intend to start next week is the removal of undesirable non-greens type bermudagrass into our greens. This procedure will involve plugging these areas out of our putting greens.

  • The purpose of this work is to extend the life of our greens. Neglecting this responsibility will allow this undesirable turfgrass to proliferate creating non homogenous putting surfaces that will negatively affect playability in addition to being unpleasing aesthetically. We have completed this work in phases over the last five seasons and have improved the quality of our putting greens as a result. It is beneficial to begin before aerification allowing the new plugs to undergo cultural practices that will aid their survival and mend nicely into the existing putting green. We will start this process on April 30, with hole number 1. Each green has been carefully mapped so we are prepared to move efficiently.

  • Members can expect to see small areas (basketball size or smaller) plugged with turf from our nursery green. We will be hand topdressing these areas and carefully watering and cultivating these after installation. The playability impact will be minimal and the benefits will be pure greens that we can continue to maintain at a high level.

• The Covey Golf Course is scheduled to be closed May 19 - May 25. During this closure we intend to -

  • Verticut, topdress, and core aerify all greens, tees, and fairways.

  • Apply oxadiazon (Ronstar) pre-emergent to all tees and fairways to prevent week germination post topdressing.

  • Apply 3-3-4 Everlizer organic fertilizer to all tees, and fairways post topdressing.

  • We will not be aerifying or verticutting the croquet lawn or hole # 9 on the Covey until the broader course closure beginning on June 2nd. All other greens on the Covey will be cultivated during this week of May 19th.

Looking forward to another stellar month of golfing for everyone. It is very rewarding for our entire team to see so many Members and Guests out enjoying the golf course. Thank you as always for your support and understanding of our maintenance practices and please feel free to always reach out with any questions or concerns.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

• Sam email: samsbusiso21@icloud.com

• Dennis email: dennismwirigimwiti.1@gmail.com

• Lindo email: mbokazi0524@gmail.com

Thembinkosi (Sam) has been with us for a full year, Lindo and Dennis each completed six months of training at QV after completing summer internships at Hyde Park Golf & CC and Double Eagle Club respectively.

Moving into Spring

It’s always a good feeling to close out February and enjoy the benefits of longer spring days. Overall, mother nature has blessed us with favorable patterns lately. Since February 8th (43 days) we’ve had an average temperature of 67 degrees, and only eight days of significant cloud cover. We’re currently in the midst of a late season cold front with Saturday’s (3/22) temperature dropping to 42 degrees. Prior to today our lowest temperature since 2/8 was 43 degrees on 2/21 which was day 1 of our Men’s Invitational Event. Any sweaters required for Friday’s round were quickly packed away as the low temperature for Saturday’s final round had jumped all the way to 61 degrees. Our highest temperature recorded during this stretch was 88 degrees on 3/16 and we have received 3.84 inches of rainfall bringing our total precipitation for 2025 to 5.78”.

A Winter Recap

Here are some of our more significant activities over the last 45 days.

• Needletined all putting greens on 2/10 and again on 3/17. Many of you are likely familiar with the benefits of this process. The link below from the USGA Green Section provides some simple explanations.

  • Needletine Aerification

• Compacted all bunker faces to reduce the incidences of plugged lies.

• Completed drainage jobs on holes 14 by comfort station, 7 east of tees, 10 cartpath to the east of 11 tournament tee.

• Applied organic fertilizer Earthworks 5-4-5 to all tees/collars/approaches. Applied impact humate and 6-4-0 Milorganite to specific areas in fairways. Our team took advantage of a cold and cloudy day on 3/10 to complete these applications with minimal play on the golf course.

• Applied 21-7-14 Ammonium Nitrate/Sulfate blend to specific fairway turf areas needing additional inputs. This is a “hot” application requiring immediate irrigation, but the benefits of this application are significant.

• Sprayed 100 acres of Specticle pre-emergent herbicide in the roughs and driving range. With our GPS guided sprayers we can now feasibly precision spray the roughs enhancing our weed control and while reducing costs.

• Applied Ronstar pre-emergent herbicide plus fertilizer to 40 acres of fairways and tees to feed the turf and provide weed prevention.

• Sprayed 15 acres of bermudagrass mite control. This troublesome pest continues to wreak havoc across golf courses in Florida and beyond. The attached article is a bit dated, but I can attest from my experience that the pressure from this pest has only grown in the last several years.

  • Bermudagrass Mites

• Continuing to raise irrigation heads and drains across the course. These structures naturally sink from topdressing and organic matter buildup. Over the last few weeks we have addressed holes 10, 11, and 17 and many drains mostly in rough areas. At this point the vast majority of our heads and drains have been raised appropriately.

  

• Continued trimming and adding pinestraw to fakahatchee grass beds across the course. This native grass benefits from annual trimming allowing it to display a more robost growth habit with improved color and health.

• Rebuilt the lake bank that had washed out the cartpath to the south of 9 green.

• Nematicide control applied to putting greens and selective fairway and tee areas. Plant parasitic nematodes are at their most active in spring and fall - February through April and October through November for southeast Florida.

• Completed soil sampling and data collection on putting greens, fairways, and tees. This year we are doing broad testing on the physical properties of our putting greens to ensure satisfactory water penetration and drainage. Additionally, putting greens, tees, and fairways are sampled each year for chemical analysis to assist us in creating our fertility, aerification, and topdressing programs for the year.

• Borrowed a stump grinder to grind over 85 stumps across the propety.

• Completed greens drainage flushing on all of our putting greens to ensure integrity of our subsurface drainage tile.

Looking Ahead

• Please expect biweekly light maintenance topdressing to putting greens through April and May. Topdressing is critical to keep our aging greens rolling smooth and true. As a reminder to many - the purpose of topdressing is multifaceted, but includes -

  • dilution of surface organic matter the buildup of which negatively affects putting quality by making greens soft and puffy.

  • promoting firmness as the result of thatch dilution.

  • improving water penetration and drainage.

  • leveling the putting green to promote smoothness.

  • improving turf health and speeding recovery from ballmarks and traffic damage.

• Needletine putting greens scheduled for April 21st.

• Ronstar plus fertilizer application will be scheduled for April on the Covey Course - date TBD.

• Continued spraying for bermudagrass mite control primarily in the roughs.

• Continued fairway correction and alignment work. We have painted fairway lines in yellow on several holes that have lost their shape. This happens naturally as mow patterns become difficult to keep consistent especially in the winter months when the grass is not always growing actively.

  

• We are exploring the use of USGA GS3 ball to capture data and assist us in our goal of continuously improving putting green quality. This is an exciting technological development that I personally believe will be a significant tool for us to improve daily putting green conditioning. Stay tuned as we gather more information and experiment with this new offering. See the link below if interested in learning more about the GS3.

  • USGA GS3 Ball

We appreciate your support and looking forward to a fantastic spring golfing season.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

As a reminder for many of you, the bermudagrass we manage is at its best under full sun - 6-8 hours of direct sunlight per day - and 80-85 degree daytime temperatures. This does not mean that the grass will die when conditions are not meeting this criteria, but it performs poorly. Think of a marathon runner on his last mile that didn’t hydrate well or eat enough carbohydrates the night before. Simply put - it’s merely surviving and at times doesn’t look its best in this weakened state. It’s also more vulnerable to attack by a host of pathogens - fungus, nematodes, insects - as it’s carbohydrate reserves and defensive proteins are depleted from lack of sunlight and reduced photosynthesis.

The week of January 20th through January 26th 2025, will be remembered in the Florida grass growing annals as the worst weather week of all time (until next year). During this week, the temperature never reached 70 degrees. The average low temperature was 47. We received 1.87” of rain. Solar radiation averaged 28.99 Langley’s (0 is dark, 65+ is full mid-day sun). Our turfgrass essentially did not see the sunshine for a full week and it was doused with rain and cold. Now you can see I wasn’t kidding!

There were some consequences to this most notably -

1. Algae development on some putting greens most visible on holes 1, 4, 5, 6, 7. Algae is mainly a result of crummy weather, but also is correlated to fertility. We manage our greens intentionally under very low nitrogen fertility in an effort to create firm, true rolling, consistently fast greens with minimal grain development. It is a trade off to some extent - we can encourage the algae to disappear by increasing N fertility giving our Tifeagle bermudagrass a competitive advantage, but at the risk of compromising firmness and ball roll. I generally am not willing to do that, and choose to live with a little algae knowing that it will diminish upon the arrival of sunlight and more favorable weather patterns. Algae is not a parasite and does not infect plant tissue, it is itself a plant and makes itself at home in the micro-open spaces of the turf canopy; living, breathing, and competing for sunlight, water, and nutrients. Corrective action is mainly through needletine aerification (scheduled for February 10), sand topdressing, and certain plant protectant fungicides can assist in drying it out and preventing it from spreading.

   

2. Large patch disease has been more prevalent than years past. We treat all short grass on a preventative schedule and have not seen large patch in these areas. We have seen it attacking our rough and are taking corrective measures such as spot spraying and 1/4 aerification to improve air exchange and encouraging aerobic microbial activity to out compete the fungus.

   

3. Wetter than normal conditions. Even small amounts of rain are keeping the soil saturated for long periods of time as the plant’s metabolism has stopped and is therefore not taking in water through its root system.

   

   And now for the good news. The weather has improved considerably since January 27th with ten days of temperatures over 75 degrees and currently riding a six day “hot” streak with temperatures hitting 80 or higher! The course is already reflecting this in its color, vibrancy, growth, and recovery of weak areas. Average solar radiation over this time period was 57.82 Langley’s. Other than some stubborn morning fog over the last five consecutive days, we are looking pretty darn good as of late.

The Last 30 Days

• We’ve been working hard on the bunkers. You have likely seen us out there and allow me to clarify the goals of what we are addressing since I know there have been some less than desirable lies lately. Sand depth is a constant maintenance item and after a summer of rainfall including a hurricane our sand depths had become inconsistent. Gravity and water wash had pulled the sand to the low areas where we were seeing 60-70% more sand in low areas than on the faces. It became necessary for us to correct this by redistributing sand back to the faces. This also serves to protect our investment in the Better Billy Bunker system installed in about half of our bunkers. It is important to note - we have not needed to add much sand - about 20 tons in total across the entire course - which may sound like a lot but that is only one dump truck load. Currently we are working diligently on compacting faces and expect all bunkers to have significantly improved playability over the next one to two weeks.

• Aerified all diseased areas in the rough to stimulate recovery

• Added irrigation zone to # 12 rough

• Trimming up Fakahatchee grass across the property. We do this once/year to improve the growth habit and color of this Florida native. It also aids in preventing disease development.

• Repaired major washouts from Hurricane Milton on hole 16 tees and on hole 9 right rough. This was a five day job requiring four loads of backfill material and 1,000 fakahatchee grasses to stabalize the bank. We also added catch basins and tied them into our drainage system to prevent this happening in the future.

• 11,500 bales of pinestraw installed to our landscape beds

• Mulched the parking lot and all clubhouse beds

• Using the SandMan 850 to clean rocks out of bunkers. This tool works great, but only when the sand is dry. You may see us doing this in the afternoon hours.

  (Video)

• We put a lot of hours into divot and ballmark repair this time of year (21 labor hours in the last 30 days). Please, please, please I implore all Members and Guests to sand their divots and repair ballmarks on putting greens. It is very important to keeping our course conditioning first class, and demonstrates proper golf course etiquette. It also serves as an example to your Guests that may not know to do so. We certainly will continue to diligently address this, but these hours can be reallocated to other priorities - ultimately ending up in a better golf course with higher attention to detail.

Moving Forward

• We are in the process of sand redistribution work on the Covey course and will complete this over the next one to two weeks. We will also compact these faces upon completion.

• Greens height of cut is currently at .115 and overall we are happy with the consistency of the ball roll. Green speeds have varied lately and have come in anywhere from 10’4” to 12’8” over the last two weeks. Much of this variability is due to weather patterns. A good monitoring tool that we use is relative humidity. When nighttime temperatures are in the mid 60’s or higher and relative humidity is 90% or greater, this will have a tendency to slow green speeds slightly as the result is a wetter surface with fatter, more succulent leaf blades that create additional friction on the golf ball.

• Light aerification and sand topdressing work to encourage recovery in a few fairway areas that have weaker turf density than desired - 2, 5, 7, 11. This should be minimally invasive to playbility. Our goal is to boost these areas leading into upcoming Member/Guest events.

• Bi-weekly greens topdressing - our next greens topdressing is scheduled for February 10th in conjuction with our needletine procedure. Consistent sand topdressing is critical to maintain the trueness of roll we all love.

Thank you to all Members and Guests that have been out enjoying the course. We are grateful for the better weather, but please know that we always plan for the worst and take a proactive approach to protecting our playing surfaces at all costs. We appreciate your interest in our course care practices and please feel free to contact me if you ever desire further information or have any questions or concerns. Looking forward to a great spring season.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

We are fortunate to report that the golf course did not suffer major damage as a result of the storm. We did receive about 6.5” of rainfall, which created some drainage issues and washout problems, but all very manageable. We received a total of 12.4” of rain in October, then only 2.17” of rain in November, bringing our annual total to 52.72”. This is 13% less precipitation than we received in 2023 through November 30th. All in all, a slightly dry year as we will most likely be under the 58” average annual rainfall for Vero Beach.

This weather bodes well for the golf course as it allows us to keep the conditions firm with shots and putts rolling out, adding increased distance and making the game more enjoyable around the greens complexes.

Highlights since mid October

• Two J1 interns have joined our team from Africa. Lindo Mbokazi, from Stanger, South Africa and Dennis Mwiti from Nairobi, Kenya

  Dennis joins us after spending his summer at Double Eagle Club in Columbus, Ohio and Lindo comes to us after completing his summer work at Hyde Park Golf and Country Club in Cincinnati. Both of these gentlemen have hit the ground running and are making significant contributions each day. They will be with us until mid 2025.

• Corrected major drainage pipe breaks as a result of Hurricane Milton. A 24” pipe split directly in front of 18 green and several 8” and 6” breaks occurred in 3 fairway.

• Finished up valve replacement work to our 24 year old irrigation mainlines. Many of our isolation valves in our mainline network no longer function due to age and weathering. Replacing these provides increased control and the ability to isolate specific areas of the course when needing to do repairs or improvements. In total, we replaced nine mainline valves this year. All of these valves are designed to remain in place when the time arrives for us to upgrade our irrigation network to a superior HDPE pipe.

• Sodded 1,500 square feet of Tifeagle to our Croquet/Nursery green. We will carefully regrow this sod so we have sufficient turf to plug out celebration contamination into oputting greens, while still providing ample room for croquet play. We have cleaned up about 80% of celebration contamination in the last five years across the golf course putting greens.

• Replenished Covey cartpath with concrete screenings on holes 1-4 after excessive washout from Hurricane Milton.

• Detail Maintenance - - raising drains across the property and continual sodding of worn cartpath edges.

• Added irrigation zones to the east Learning Center teaching tee to boost turf performance in this challenging area.

• Continual topdressing/fertility required on low areas of the Covey course. The TifTuf turfgrass we planted on the Covey course received a true test of endurance after Hurricane Milton with many areas sitting under water for 48 hours of more. I was disappointed in its performance under these conditions and believe it substantially underperforms turfgrasses in its class (Celebration, Bimini, 419) as it relates to recuperative potential under wet conditions. The lack of rhizome density reduces this grass’s ability to recover when emerging from a stressful situation.

• Planted over 100 pine trees across the golf course specifically on holes 1, 4, and 18. We have lost hundreds of pines this year due to the parasitic pine borer beetle. An active replenishment program is needed in order to keep our pine landscape from looking barren. As for the beetles, we do have active beetle traps across the property that are effective in trapping the pest. We also have the ability to do targeted pesticide sprays when necessary to suppress the beetles and reduce the number of pines lost.

• Treated for billbug damage on our fairways/tees/collars and approaches for the fourth time in 2024. We are seeing multiple generations of this insect as it continues to increase its significance. Thankfully, they are somewhat easy to control, but diligence is required throughout the year. We are working with Syngenta to trap billbugs so their lifecycle can be studied and broader control methods can ultimately be developed. We have trapped hundreds of billbugs in the traps installed on hole # 1.

Upcoming

In addition to our routine tasks, please expect to see us working on the following during the month of December:

• Mulch work is scheduled for the parking lot, front and back clubhouse, and front entrance on Monday December 16th.

• Dimension on fertilizer application scheduled for 130 acres the morning of Monday December 16th. This application provides 90 day slow release fertility on a polymer coated particle, plus the added benefit of pre emergent weed control.

• Pinestraw application scheduled for all of our landscape beds to begin on Tuesday December 17th. It will take four to five days and six trailers of pinestraw to complete the job.

• Needletining of our putting surfaces scheduled for Monday December 16th. This vital procedure allows for air exchange and a healthier root system through the busy winter season.

• Needletining of our Covey greens scheduled for Tuesday December 10th.

• Repairing the washout on # 16 hillside adjacent to the tee boxes. This will require fill dirt and Bahiagrass to stabilize this problem zone. This hillside is void of vegetation and irrigation pipe is now exposed. Our plan will be to access this from the west end, remove all the stones, backfill and compact with clean fill, then plant bahiagrass to stabilize the hillside.

  

  In conclusion, a quick word on how you can help take care of the golf course. If every player could please make an effort to:

  • Sand all divots with the green sand provided on your carts. No need to “replace” the divot as it will not root substantially before the next mowing and typically gets pulled away by the fairway and tee mowers. Sanding divots is the preferred option. Please remind your guests to help us with this process as well. It helps more than most may assume!

  • Repair all ballmarks on greens - yes, we do send team members out regularly to repair ballmarks, but you can help us with this! Your assistance reduces our time spent on this task allowing our staff to focus on other course priorities.

  • Abide by traffic control signs and ropes and keep golf carts a minimum of 30 yards from greens. We take pride in keeping our collars and approaches low cut, firm, and fast. It makes the playing experience more enjoyable for all. Cart traffic in these areas will deteriorate turfgrass health negatively affecting the aesthetics and playability of the course.

  We love the course as much as you and these simple measures will make a huge impact in keeping our course healthy and beautiful through the winter/spring season. A sincere thank you to all for your support and interest in our course care practices. Happy Holidays to everyone and may you have a blessed 2025. Looking forward to a great year ahead.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Weather Update

Back and forth we go always battling the elements. All we can do is prepare for what’s in store from Mother Nature, and by early August we strongly suspected that rain was coming. As of August 1st we were only at 19.26” of rain with a lot of make up rain needed for us to hit our yearly average of 60”. Over the last 65 days we have received 20.31” and had a measurable rain on 47 of the last 65 days. We are grateful that Hurricane Helene largely spared us, as we only received slightly over an inch of rain and 20-30 mph winds. No major infrastructure damage to report as a result of the storm.

The good news is that none of this is surprising, so we attempt to effectively plan, and many of our cultural and maintenance practices derive from the need to manage the significant precipitation we receive each year.

The last 60 days

• Putting Greens - conducted a drill and fill procedure on August 18th. Hugely beneficial process for water movement and air exchange in our soil profile. As our greens age, more aggressive cultivation is required to ensure they remain draining and possess adequate air exchange. While softer initially, this procedure will ultimately result in firmer and drier playing surfaces that are well drained. 60 tons of sand were used to complete this process across three acres of greens on our regulation golf course. We did not complete this procedure on our Covey greens because they are less than three years old, low in organic matter, and maintain adequate soil porosity and drainage.

• Putting Greens - dryjected all putting greens including the Covey course on September 24th. Less aggressive than the drill and fill, this procedure injects a sand column into the green. It is non invasive and the green is playable the same day. With the exception of monthly needletining, this will be our last greens aerification until next June 2025.

• Tees - our tees, collars, and approaches were verticut three times this summer, hollow tined aerified (5/8 diameter) twice, and solid tined one time. Tees and approaches were topdressed 1x/month through the summer for smoothness, firmness, and turf health.

• Fairways - our fairways were verticut three times this summer and hollow tined aerified twice. They were heavily topdressed in June.

Drainage - Asst. Super Nick Campbell led the charge on a large scale drainage improvement on hole 15. The short cut area behind the front green side bunker was persistently wet so we took steps to correct this. The area was completely excavated out and fresh sand was added. Drainage pipe and two catch basins were also added. I think you will find the area much improved from a playability standpoint.

• Pest control - mole cricket activity has been high as have billbug and chinch bugs. We have billbug traps on property assisting our friends at Syngenta develop control strategies. We are catching 25-50 every week. We have treated all short grass for these pests with a product called Acelepryn that will protect us for 60-75 days. We are seeing up to three generations of these destructive pests/year.

• Applied Oxadiazon (Ronstar) pre emergent herbicide to 140 acres of golf course turn on September 30th. This application aids us in weed control by preventing weed germination of many species for up to 90 days. Our next scheduled application for pre emergent weed control is scheduled for December 16th. These applications are critical to keep our golf course clean and free of unsightly turfgrass weeds.

• Installed a total of ten irrigation valves on both sides of bridges on holes 3, 9, 10, 11, 14. Each of these bridge crossings has mainline irrigation (4” diameter or greater) running underneath. Installing these valves provides us the ability to fully irrigate the golf course when we are rebuilding the bridges in the summer of 2025. During this process the old pipe will be cut out up to the newly installed valve, and fused HDPE pipe will be mounted under the new bridge. HDPE pipe has longer life expectancy than PVC, and also contains no gasketed joints greatly reducing the likelihood of leaks. In the future when we rebuild our irrigation system, HDPE would be the pipe of choice. We will not need to disturb the HDPE pipe under the bridge when conducting this project at a later time.

  In addition to this work, Leibold irrigation has replaced six isolation valves that were no longer functional. We have asked them to tackle three more for a total of nine while they are on property. While this work is soon covered up and unseen by Members, it is nonetheless critical to maintaining functionality of our 24 year old system.

It truly has been a very productive summer for our team. Now our attention shifts to detail work and golf course performance. Our goal remains to continue improving the golf course each day we show up for work. We have made good decisions this year and executed our tasks well and as always it is a total team effort of more than 30 people to achieve our goals during the summer so that the golf course is positioned well for the busy season.

We are very much looking forward to hosting our Collegiate Championship followed by Member/Member events at the end of the month. The forecast indicates that we still have some weather challenges ahead. We will remain proactive to defend ourselves against the will of Mother Nature to the best of our ability. We can always prepare for the worst, and perhaps make some of our own good luck in the process. Thank you for your support and for taking an interest in our golf course agronomic practices.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Many of these folks are astonished to experience what our team completes in the summer months with respect to turf care cultivation. I recall it being a learning experience for me as well when I first started in this industry. The message that must get through if one is to have success as a superintendent is: we grow crops to perform, sometimes at the expense of health. Yield, NDVI (color), growth is secondary and could be argued has an inverse relationship to the playability of a golf course. We are not growing bananas and corn where maximum yield is the goal. The playability of the golf course is the top priority, and the performance of the crop is more important than the health. A healthy green is required, but if the green is grainy and rolling 7’ the argument that the green is healthy and green doesn’t hold up.

Allow me a brief example. Take sand for instance - we use a lot of sand. We build new greens from sand. We topdress our tees/fairways/greens heavily in the summer months with straight sand. Why do we insist on growing in sand? The answer to the question is compaction. Even under maximum compaction sand will still provide adequate air space in the soil to sustain plant growth, facilitate drainage, and allow roots to live. Agriculture crops typically don’t have this issue. Golf courses? You better believe it. Quail Valley does 30,000+ rounds of golf/year. I think we can all agree that results in significant soil compaction each year.

As you play your rounds in the summer months and you see evidence of our work in the form of sand topdressing, reduced thatch, holes on greens filled with sand, verticut lines on tees/fairways and greens please know that the work is completed strictly to extend the life of the golf course so the turfgrass can perform long term. The superintendent job in southern Florida is a balancing act - positioning the turf for extended success through cultivation while still presenting a golf course that plays to an acceptable level based on the demands of Members and Guests. We certainly appreciate your understanding and support as we navigate cultivation season and strong levels of Member play.

What happened to “it rains everyday in Florida?”

While it may be raining at your house, it remains dry at Quail Valley GC. I assure you our rain gauges are not broken (I have double checked). Through 7/31 our rain accumulation total is 19.26 and we had 3.78” for July. Over the last decade our average rainfall through 7/31 is 27.15”. This weather pattern has kept recovery slower than normal coming out of aerification and verticutting. August and September are historically wet months so if we are to reach our average annual total of 60” we should expect some wet days ahead.

The Last 30 days

• The rough grass has been cut down to 1.5 inches. There is a lot of scalping around the course, but with consecutive mowings the turf will adjust to the new height and provide preferential lies over the next 30 days. Recall the rough was at 3.0 inches for the state amateur, in June we dropped to 2.0 inches and now we plan to remain at 1.5 inches. It is quite the process to achieve this over 130 acres of turf as you can see in the video below.

• We have moved into our new maintenance storage buildings and are very proud of this great improvement to our facility. These upgrades help keep Quail Valley a first class facility and a desired place to work!

  We are now a fully recycled water facility as our ESD systems reuse the wash water and our chemical mix load center will utilize a rinsate system where no excess water or spills will ever enter a waterbody. A testament to golf courses being stewards of the environment - not polluters.

• Completed aerification work in July. Aerified greens and approaches followed with and topdressing. Lightly verticut all tees and fairways followed by circle cutting fairways.

• Added Clusia hedge and five live oaks behind our covered material bins to reconnect the hedge and provide cover and aesthetics to this area post construction.

• Completed drainage work to # 18 approach. Removed poor soil and added sand to attempt to keep this high play area firm. We will evaluate this area throughout the winter/spring season and if necessary add extensive drainage in 2025.

• We have spent a lot of time removing celebration bermudagrass encroachment from putting greens 12, 13, 14, 15. Our goal is to complete 16 and 10 this year as well. The addition of our turf nursery/croquet lawn has allowed us to make significant progress on this project. After this summer we feel that we will have cleaned up about 80% of the celebration encroachment into the edges. While labor intensive and time consuming, completing this every summer extends the life of our greens and helps them maintain their original shape. We edge the greens/collars weekly to keep celebration from returning.

Over the next 30 days

• We are scheduled to verticut and aerify the Covey golf course the week of August 12. We will impact all playing surfaces on this course during this time.

• We are scheduled to demo a nano-bubble oxygen system to treat our irrigation water. Water quality has always been a variable that we have limited control over. The injection of nano bubble oxygen into our irrigation water has the potential to dramatically improve our turfgrass. These systems will improve soil health by increasing beneficial microorganism populations reducing disease pressure, strengthens roots, and reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers as aerobic microorganism populations release nutrients especially nitrogen. Several clubs have already begun implementing these systems including Jupiter Hills, McArthur Golf Club, Union League, Lake Nona, Timuquana CC. The superintendents I have spoken with regarding these systems have praised the results they are witnessing. See link below:

  https://nanooxygensystems.com/

• Scheduled to drill n fill putting greens on 18 hole course on August 19, 20

• Scheduled to deep tine fairways on 18 hole course on August 19, 20

Thank you as always for your questions and support of our programs. It has been a challenging summer, but we are still very pleased with where the course course is positioned as we inch closer to our active fall season. Please reach out with any questions or concerns. We appreciate you making Quail Valley your course of choice.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

For starters, there were 170 different jobs assigned and completed during the month. Greens were our most intensively managed group occupying about 21% of all labor. We didn’t lose much productivity due to weather during the course closure, as the heavy downpours stayed south of Vero. Our monthly rain total as of today sits at 5.49” bringing our yearly total to 15.45” still well below average six months into the year.

Highlights over the last 30 days

• Hosted the Florida State Amateur Championship June 6 - June 9. A fantastic experience for all involved and we are pleased to report that the feedback we received from players was overwhelmingly positive. The course played firm and fast and the weather cooperated fully. Jimmy Ellis from Atlantic Beach, Florida shot a final round 64 to claim the title at -16. An incredible score considering the course was setup at over 7,400 yards.

  

• Greens: all putting surfaces were fertilized, verticut two directions, topdressed, aerified, brush rolled, and topdressed and rolled some more. Current height of cut is .135 as we carefully monitor recovery. We will gradually lower heights over the next couple of weeks to tighten up texture and improve green speeds.

• Tees: similar procedures were completed on tees. We verticut the tees very aggressively followed by topdressing and a hollow tine aerification. We have about 3 acres of tees where this was completed. Recovery on tees has been positive and we are happy with their current health. Height of cut on tees is at .350

• Fairways: in order to achieve desired playability on fairways we attempt to pull as much organic residue (thatch) out as possible. This year we employed a variety of processes that looked like this:

  • Terra Rake fairways

    

  • Circle mow fairways down to .400

  • Verticut fairways with a large scale Verticutter called a VC 90 (VC 40 is what you see in the video above used for greens/tees - the 90 is a similar tool just with larger blades, wider spacing, and more power).

  • Vacuum thatch from fairways.

  • Circle mow fairways a second time.

  • Terra Rake fairways a second time followed by another circle mow.

  • Topdress fairways. This year we used 860 tons of topdressing sand across 35 acres of fairways.

  • Aerify fairways behind sand with a 3/4 inch hollow tine. Drag fairways and irrigate with a 20-0-5 liquid fertilizer injected into irrigation.

• Collars/Approaches: similar procedures were conducted on our collars and approaches, except we did fraze mow the collars about 1 meter out from our greens. We do this annually to remove “collar dams” which build up from topdressing operations. Without this removal water can become trapped on greens, and also “turtle humps” begin to form at the transition of collar to green negatively affecting playability. We appreciate your understanding as these areas continue to recover.

• Other work completed includes:

  • Removed about 25 dead viburnum from the parking lot. Added additional irrigation to parking lot to prevent plants from dying. Added 25 new viburnum to replace dead shrubs

  • Verticut and topdressed clubhouse lawns

  • Applied COMAND compost to dry/weak fairway trouble spots

  • Fraze mowed and core aerified the driving range tees to remove thatch and obtain smoothness to these high play areas. Fraze mower video below -

  • Core aerified the driving range fairway and target greens as well as our cart staging area.

  • Began plugging contamination in putting greens on number 3, 9, 12. Continually plugging areas where we sustained minor mechanical damage during aerification/verticutting. We had a complication with our ProCore 648 on number 1 and sustained some light damage to the front of the green. Expect this area to be fully recovered within the next 3-4 weeks.

  • Applied Ronstar plus fertilizer to 155 acres of turf behind our cultural practices. This application will feed our turfgrass, while providing 90 days of preventative weed suppression.

    

  • Slit injected ChipCo Choice (Fipronil) across 40 acres of tees, fairways, approaches. This will control mole crickets and fire ants in these areas for two years

    

  • Sprayed out natural areas on holes 1, 3, 13, 15, 18. Added sand to number 1 natural area.

  • String trimmed and cleaned all bunkers. Still some cleaning left of a few bunkers we will be working on removing weeds and grass from bunkers over the next two weeks.

  • Edged and cleaned all drains, fairway and greens irrigation heads.

  • Conducted a host of fertility and pesticide applications to greens/tees/fairways to protect these areas from biotic and abiotic stress, and to stimulate growth for recovery.

  • Sprayed out over 15 acres of torpedograss invasion across the property. Torpedograss is a perennial weed that is troublesome to control. Each year we engage in an aggressive suppression program to slow the spread of this challenging pest. Over the last five years we have significantly reduced the population of this weed, but it requires multiple bi weekly applications.

  • Hosted a demonstration for an autonomous fairway mower. I believe this will be the future of mowing in golf course maintenance and have personally seen much reduction in the limitations of these machines over the last five years. We currently use GPS guided manned sprayers and are looking to move to AI mowers in the future for a portion of our turfgrass under management. This unit is an unmanned fairway mower that we tried on our par 3 course. The cost of the machine is $160,000

Over the course of the next 30 days expect to see our team working on a host of maintenance projects including -

• Spraying out and resodding areas of invasive St. Augustine and Zoysiagrass in various locations around the property.

• Removing Celebration bermudagrass that has heavily encroached on our putting greens specifically on holes number 12, 13, 14, 15.

• COMAND topdressing to weak/overly sandy soil areas in the fairways

• Continual cleaning/spraying/raking of natural areas on holes 1, 3, 13, 15, 18 to keep overgrowth to a minimum.

• A lot of spot spraying of troublesome weeds including goosegrass, tropical signalgrass to keep weed growth out! Even with protection from pre emergent herbicides we will still get breakthrough.

• A quick recognition for golf course equipment manager Todd Frazier and our assistant equipment manager Fortino Vargas. They are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of our $2.8 million fleet of vehicles and specialty equipment. Additionally, during the course closure our cutting units (reels) undergo tremendous stress and wear from circle mowing and mowing over areas that have been verticut/topdressed/and aerified. We have over 60 cutting units that have to be carefully ground and maintained regularly. It is not an exaggeration to say that without the hard work of these two individuals our operation simply would not be able to succeed.

• Our next course closure is scheduled for July 22 - 25. During this closure we will verticut and aerify the putting greens a second time. Lightly verticut the tees and fairways. Solid tine aerify collars and approaches with light topdressing.

Thank you for checking out our operation, and for all of the nice comments related to the golf course. We are blessed with a dedicated team of 30 individuals committed to keeping our club well conditioned and successful. If you have any questions or thoughts related to our golf course maintenance practices please feel free to reach out to me at any time.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

The drought continues

Over the last 13 years of data we average 8.75” of rainfall in the combined months April and May. This year we have only received 1.94”. Fun fact - in 2018 we received a whopping 19.06” rainfall in combined April and May. In the 13 years of weather data I have personally recorded, 2024 is 58% drier than the previous driest April/May (4.66” 2017).

There are a host of effects resulting from severe drought, but our biggest challenge is the over dependency on our poor quality irrigation water. For the last three weeks we are running our artesian wells to replenish our supply - recall from the last report I touched on the poor water quality from these sources. This has a huge impact on turfgrass health as we are essentially irrigating with brackish water at this point. Our wells are running at significantly reduced flow (about 400 GPM compared with max flow capacity of 800 GPM) as the subsurface aquifer is so low we are experiencing a reduction in head pressure. Total rain for 2024 stands at 9.81”. Long way to go to reach our 60”/year average.

Course work over the last 30 days

• May 6th - - very busy day. Triplex verticut/needletine aerfication/topdressed putting greens. Applied ChipCo choice to 120 acres of rough grass to control mole crickets and imported fire ants for a full year.

• Verticut tees on 5/1 and 5/2 followed by light sand topdressing. Topdressed tees a second time on 5/22. These applications are to keep tees firm and tight and prevent scalping at our low height of cut of .350 of an inch.

• Sand topdressed collars and approaches on 5/6 and again on 5/22. We are topdressing and rolling collars and approaches to maintain firmness and championship level playability in lead up to Florida State Amateur.

• Circle cut fairways 5/6, 5/14, and 5/22. Circle mowing reduces grain in the fairways and promotes upright growth habit of the leaf blades. The result is a tighter surface with improved fairway lies and better ball roll.

• Completed full soil cultivation to the Covey Golf Course during the week of May 13. During this week we verticut/aerified/sand topdressed the entire course from tee to green. Behind these procedures we applied 20-0-20 90 day polymer coated fertilizer with Ronstar pre emergent herbicide to suppress undesirable weed growth while feeding our Tiftuf bermudagrass. We are very pleased with the recovery of this course despite the lack of rainfall.

• Edged and applied 500 bales of pinestraw to high profile landscape beds around the golf course

• Added irrigation zone to the east of 13 green to boost turf health between the pine tree bed and the green. Relocated heads behind 15 green and behind 18 green to get more irrigation on these green surrounds. These heads were too far away and being blocked by trees and fakahatchee grasses.

• While on the subject of irrigation, there are so many deserving individuals on our team that deserve recognition, but this month a special shout out goes to Mario Castaneda. Mario has been with us for nine years and is currently our irrigation technician. Not only has Mario been working his tail off keeping our system operating at full capacity during the worst drought in decades - but he is identifying and making major improvements as well by adding irrigation zones and moving heads to maximize water use efficiency. Round of applause for Mario. The course would not be where it is without his efforts.

• Made several applications of wetting agents to fairways to reduce hydrophobic nature of our sandy soils. Also made an application of 0-0-22 high Potassium/Magnesium to help offset sodium related stress derived from irrigation water. Strategically pumping wetting agents through our irrigation system to aid in water penetration and more efficiently apply our irrigation.

• Adding sand to natural area on # 15. Our goal is to have this natural area better replicate the look we have on holes 3, 13, 18

• We have purchased a new tool called the SandMan 850. We deal with a lot of gravel in our sand traps due to the repurposing of the old bunker sand that had gravel contamination from previous drainage work conducted many years ago. I have been searching for a way to remove this without having to rebuild the bunker and we are pleased with this tool. The SandMan 850 removes the rocks effectively - it is a time consuming process, but we at least have a tool that can assist us in presenting a cleaner, more professionally maintained bunker. Expect to see our team using this in the afternoons when the sand is dry. Pics/video below.

Upcoming

• June 6-9 we are hosting the Florida State Amateur Championship. In preparation for this tournament we are doing some things differently such as growing out our rough and increasing the frequency of growth regulator to putting greens. We are also keeping nitrogen fertility to a minimum on the greens to keep speeds elevated. Our rough is currently being mown at 3.0” and our green speeds are running 12 - 12’6” daily. We want the course to be a fair challenge for these highly talented players.

• When we wrap up the tournament our team will immediately move into our two week course closure where we will be -

  • Aerifying/verticutting/topdressing all tees, fairways, collars/approaches, and greens. Fraze mowing collars to eliminate collar dams as well as fraze mowing our primary driving range tees to recapture smoothness from a year of heavy play.

  • Please note that due to the stress we are placing on the putting greens in preparation for the Amateur, we will not aerify the greens until at least Thursday of the first week of the closure. In previous years, we would work on the greens first to provide as much time as possible to recover before reopening. The practice of aerifying and verticutting greens under stress is very risky and can do long term damage. To prevent this, we will aggressively fertilize and water the greens immediately following the event and let them “rest” for at least three days. During this time we will go after our collars and approaches. Completing the collars and approaches first will also lower the risk of our celebration bermudagrass contaminating the Tifeagle bermudagrass on the putting surfaces. Please understand that due to this timing, the putting greens may not be fully recovered upon reopening the course on June 25.

  • With respect to greens contamination - this summer we intend to work on holes 13, 14, 15 as a starting point in cleaning up the contamination/encroachment into our greens. We have made significant progress on this issue and intend carry on. We are happy with the results achieved on many of our greens and have the front 9 significantly improved. Most of our efforts this year will focus on the back 9 and holes 13, 14, 15 are in the most need of attention.

  • We will lightly topdress fairways this year to aid in dilution of organic matter, improved drainage, and better firmness and ball roll. The drawback to topdressing is that in drought times the fairways exhibit advanced localized dry spots. Our philosophy here is that we would rather deal with drought stress than have soft/puffy fairways that lack adequate firmness and drainage due to elevated organic matter.

  • We will apply COMAND compost as a topdressing medium to our sandier areas in fairways to aid and assist long term water and nutrient retention.

  • Ronstar pre emergent herbicide and ChipCo Choice mole cricket and fire ant prevention will be applied to the golf course during our closure. This particular ChipCo Choice application will be only to our tees/fairways/collars and approaches and will be “slit injected” providing two years of control.

Thank you as always for your support. We appreciate the opportunity to be caretakers of this unique golf course and are grateful to have a Membership that provides the resources for us to produce world class conditions. Please feel free to reach out to me at any time with any questions, thoughts, concerns about our course care practices. Best of luck to the Members competing in this week’s Amateur.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent

Good morning QV Members and thank you for your interest in our golf course maintenance practices. We strive to communicate openly and do our best to reduce any uncertainty as it relates to our work that directly impacts your golfing experience. In return - we continually ask that you fix your ballmarks, rake your footprints from bunkers, and keep golf carts off the collars and approaches - important to sneak that into the beginning of all superintendent newsletters! Anyway, we hope these reports will help explain the “why” behind some of the actions you witness us performing on the course.

State of the Course

We are deep into the dry season having only received 2.1” of rain since February 20th. We also have seen high temperatures of 93 degrees twice over the last 14 days. Additionally, the week of April 8th we saw wind gusts over 40 MPH (April 11th) with sustained winds over 20 MPH two days that week. A blueprint for dry turf!

Here is a brief overview of some of our actions to keep the course strong despite the less than favorable conditions for plant growth.

1. Daily hand watering of greens/tees/approaches/fairways, newly planted trees and ornamentals. We have spent over 400 man hours hand watering since 3/1

2. Frequent applications of calcium to mitigate sodium related stress derived from poor quality irrigation water high in sodium and chloride.

3. Application of wetting agents to the entire property pumped through our irrigation system. These products aid and assist uniform distribution of applied water especially in sandy soils.

4. Supplemental hotspot watering programs running concurrently with broader irrigation cycles of tees/fairways/roughs.

Keep in mind that our goal is a firm and fast golf course. Overwatering is a cardinal sin that will negatively affect playability. We prefer dry over wet. Undoubtedly, the summer rains will arrive, and the course will green up immediately. We are seeing no other significant turf stressors on the property currently other than drought related stress and localized dry spots.

A Note on Lake Levels

As you play the course, you may notice that the lake levels are quite low. This is from the obvious lack of rain and is exacerbated by greater volume of applied irrigation. Our irrigation water is pulled directly from the lake adjacent to # 1 fairway and marked with a white buoy.

We have the ability to fill the lakes through two permitted artesian wells. An artesian well is a very deep well that is under natural pressure. The drawback with an artesian well is the water quality is typically very poor, especially in Florida. In our case, the PPM (parts per million) of sodium is over 400 and chloride is over 1,000 ppm. This is essentially table salt and it is toxic to bermudagrass. These levels are considered “extremely harmful” to bermudagrass growth based on current university tested tolerance thresholds. Making matters worse, our wells outfall is directly next to the irrigation intake. This means the water has virtually no chance to dilute and disperse before being immediately pumped onto our turfgrass during nightly irrigation cycles. By comparison, the sodium and chloride PPM of our current standing lake water (recently tested 3/31/24) is 104 and 308 respectively. Considering this data, we do not turn on the wells unless we are in danger of running out of water - control what you can control.

The consequences of a lower than normal lake level are primarily aesthetic in nature. It has little effect on the fish population as the spawning tilapia and bass simply move their pools further off the shelf. Interestingly, tilapia mothers keep their eggs in their mouths to protect from predators so we don’t anticipate a decline in the fish population at this time. If the drought persists, we could see stress to our desirable aquatic vegetation of arrowheads and pickerelweed, but as of now the soil is still moist enough to promote growth. Long term we feel the summer rains will replenish the lakes providing us with an influx of clean water that should improve the quality of our irrigation supply. Remember that we typically receive 60” of rain per year, as of today we have received only 8.46” for 2024. As the sun will rise tomorrow, the rains will return to south Florida.

Our work since 3/1

• Applied 20-0-20 plus Dimension/Acelepryn to all roughs, tees, driving range, and Covey turf areas. This application will feed the turf, prevent weed germination, and provide residual insect control of billbugs/grubs/leaf feeding worms/chinch bugs for 90 days.

  

• Re-aligned all tees to ensure proper detail in these areas. We have all tee corners permanently marked to easily make corrections when mow patterns naturally evolve and tees lose their integrity.

• Lowered greens HOC to .100 in conjunction with longer days, warmer temperatures, abundant sunshine. We are mowing the clean up rings at .125 with a smooth front roller to keep these difficult to maintain areas healthy.

• Treated several acres with Suprado insect growth regulator to control bermudagrass mites. Bermudagrass mites have become a serious pest with limited control options. Suprado, originally marketed to control annual bluegrass weevil in cool season turf, has shown promise as a miticide. We are optimistic based on the results we are seeing and it is expected to control mites for 45-60 days.

• Needletined/aerified/triplex verticut/topdressed the Covey and chipping greens on April 22nd.

  

• Flushed several mole cricket colonies around the property. Brandon Gibbons, our spray tech has killed hundreds of mole crickets through an environmentally safe mixture of Dawn dish soap and water. The dawn suffocates the insect forcing them out of their subterranean habitat. A great way to determine the status of your current population while preparing for broader control measures.

  

• Continually raising irrigation heads across the property primarily on the back 9 fairways and Covey course currently.

• Continually sodding/topdressing wears areas in fairways and roughs. We have set a goal to sod all bare areas prior to the FL State Amateur beginning June 6th.

Upcoming

• Topdress Championship Course greens on Monday April 29th

• Monday May 6th will be a busy day as we will plan to needletine the putting greens and also apply ChipCo Choice to all roughs, driving range, and tee surfaces. This product will be applied by certified applicators and will control mole crickets and fire ants for a full year.

• Beginning May 13th the Covey Course will be closed for one week for aerification work. During this time we will aggressively verticut/scalp/circle cut/topdress/aerify all of the turfgrass areas on the Covey. We will keep the chipping green adjacent to the Learning Center available for Member use and will aerify this area during our course closure beginning June 10th.

• Bunker work - while we are generally happy with our bunkers and certainly feel they are a massive improvement in several ways over our previous bunkers, we feel we can improve upon the following -

  • Moderately trimming down the vertical walls and using growth regulator to keep the turf on these edges from getting too puffy. We realize that occasionally this results in lost balls and that is not desirable. We have aggressively trimmed down the edges on the chipping green bunkers and are experimenting with fertility/PGR sprays where we can achieve the goal of an unkempt edge, and still allowing the ball to hit this turf and release to the bottom of the bunker. We do not want embedded balls! We will begin aggressively trimming the bunkers on the championship course beginning June 10th.

  • Removing stones and unwanted debris. Many of our bunkers are contaminated with gravel left over from the removal of the old drainage system and repurposing the material in order to construct the new bunker efficiently and affordably. Unfortunately, much of the old gravel has migrated to sand surface. Our goal is to trial run a tool called the SandMan 850 to see if we can efficiently remove these particles - (Video link below). This will be an ongoing process and not necessarily a quick turnaround, but a steady improvement project.

  SandMan 850 Video

• Addition of two new international hires - Sam Mthethwa - J1 Student Visa from the African Turf Academy in South Africa. Sam is an accomplished player (4 handicap) that will be with us for a one year term so he can learn advanced turf management practices to better help his country in maintaining golf courses.

  

• Gian Marco Murillo from Costa Rica, graduate of Earth University in Costa Rica. Gina Marco previously interned with us in the summer of 2022 and has returned in a full time position. Gian Marco has dual citizenship with Costa Rica and the US having been born in New Jersey. We are very excited that he had the opportunity to return.

  

Overall we feel good about where we are this time of year and believe we are providing a solid golf course for everyone’s enjoyment. In the end, we are blessed with several individuals that are never satisfied and always striving to improve the course. We hope that you see the results and that it adds to your enjoyment of the club. Feel free to reach out anytime with any questions/concerns about anything you see on the course or to discuss any of our maintenance programs.

Dustin Naumann

GC Superintendent