d2
"good morning chris welcome to atc office"
"hours thank you for joining me to"
"discuss the om246 report"
"yes uh thanks for inviting me micah good"
"evening to you i guess we're i think"
"13 hours apart maybe"
"i think so in in bangkok it's now eight"
"in the evening so um"
i
"i suppose it's a bit colder there than"
"it is here uh likely yep uh it was it"
"was um it for those who might be"
"watching around the world it's minus"
"nine degrees here and it's 16 degrees"
"fahrenheit so"
"kind of our coldest morning thus far"
"wow that's yeah i guess i i should be"
"able to tell that by looking at the"
"scarf and the"
headwear
"so we we had tried the atc office hours"
"on the atc turf discord server"
"um of"
"oh a month or so ago and i think you you"
"were just getting ready or you'd"
"collected the om246 samples but you"
"hadn't sent them to the lab yet and it"
"was actually your suggestion to say hey"
"maybe we could do one of these again"
"and and go through the report and"
actually
"i don't think we've talked in very much"
"detail about the report i sent it to you"
"you read it but you've also been pretty"
"busy with some end of season stuff"
"haven't you yep exactly yeah i mean we"
"had kind of decided that we were gonna"
"once we were wrapped up season wise we'd"
"go over this report in detail and do"
"something you know maybe a skype or"
"something of this nature together and"
"then we thought well"
"why not"
"why not make that something that people"
"could join in on and watch or you know"
"either live or recorded"
because
"i think as a superintendent when there's"
"any time there's something new"
"that you're gonna do like i'll go back"
to
"um september of 2016 when you were here"
"for the ryder cup"
"and we were talking about clipping"
volume
"and we're getting ready for this event"
"and i'll never forget how you were like"
"oh it would be really nice to know"
"to be measuring the clipping volume from"
"these greens this week"
"and all i could think as you know"
"getting ready for all this uh"
"for this event is i just can't like i"
can't
"make my brain think about that right now"
"and um you know i think over the years"
"that's that's an extreme example"
"um but i think over the years"
"um i have found that every time i want"
"to leap into something like this it's"
"hard to get over this this initial hump"
"of i i don't really understand this and"
"i don't really know what it's going to"
"do for me"
"but then once i jump into it and i do it"
and
"go and and start to see the results or"
"start to accumulate the data then i i"
"really feel good about the decision to"
"do it so my point being that i think"
"if there's anybody watching who has seen"
"a discussion on this om246 testing uh"
"they've seen the hashtag they followed"
"some discussions um they might think"
"you know hey"
"that sounds really interesting but ah"
"just something new and i don't know how"
"to get started so from my standpoint as"
"a superintendent i thought this would be"
"great um i think it was your thinking as"
"well micah let's expose some people to"
"sort of what this data can mean and what"
"this testing can show you"
"talk about how we then"
"change the way or"
"manage the course because of it um and"
"so hopefully that it will be valuable to"
"some people in that regard"
"i hope so and it's also"
"it's good because now you're"
"two or three years into this so we can"
"look at a time series and also talk a"
"little bit about some of the work that's"
"been done to achieve that time series of"
"organic matter change over time or or"
"static organic matter over time that"
"we're going to look at really soon"
"and and how that relates to playability"
"and how that relates to how much work is"
"required so i think"
"uh sometimes i get so close to this"
"because i've been working on it so much"
"and and looking at the data so much it's"
"nice to have this type of conversation"
just
"to talk about what we can really do with"
"this and i think the more people uh hear"
"about this and learn about it and once"
"you start collecting the data it"
"i mean"
"everybody's going to be like why was i"
"not doing this my entire career and yeah"
"and i'm"
"this is not something i invented i but"
"we're going to get started in the"
"looking at the report really soon but"
"here's something that almost uh"
"a very few people know"
"chris uh who who came up with the"
"om246 name"
"uh i"
"i did and i'll never forget i was"
"sitting right here um and i was sitting"
"right here at my desk and you were"
"sitting over there"
"to my right at a table that's in my"
"office and this was during the kpmg"
um
"women's pga championship in in june of"
"2019 which um"
"man that seems like a long time ago now"
"but um in some ways it does and in some"
"ways it seems not that long ago but a"
"lot has happened since then anyway um"
"this i recall that you were thinking"
"about this"
"you were talking a lot about this"
"testing i think we had not done it yet"
"here if i'm not mistaken i think our"
first
"sampling of this was that fall"
um
"and and you were talking about it and"
"you asked"
"a good what would be a good hashtag for"
"this testing"
"and um i think i thought about it for a"
"few moments and i came up with this and"
"so and you liked it so we went with it"
"and it it is pretty catchy so"
"you know if i have to pat myself on the"
"back a little bit and just i"
i
"i'm forever indebted to you for"
"for coming up with such a great hashtag"
"in only five characters and it expresses"
"uh it expresses this in a very pithy uh"
"in easy-to-remember way i think it is so"
"so that's good and but as i was saying"
"uh i didn't invent this um we i think we"
"came up with the hashtag but this is"
"something that turfgrass managers in new"
"zealand and the the new zealand sports"
"turf institute have been doing research"
"on this and uh testing since the early"
"2000s at least so this is let's say"
"we're looking at at almost 20 years at"
"least of of"
"people in that part of the world doing"
"this i think on a similar timeline in in"
"the uk because i know stri has been"
"doing this"
"all the all the open championship venues"
"will have this type of data for for"
"their surfaces and um charles henderson"
and
"specifically um who who's now uh not"
"with stri but when he was with stri and"
"then shortly after um he recommended to"
"me he he told me that i should be doing"
"this it would change the way i thought"
"about a lot of things and he just said"
"it would be a great thing to do i need"
"to get started with it and"
"as i am with some things i'm"
"very slow to"
"appreciate the value in that and"
"so it did take me quite a while and it"
"wasn't until 20"
"2016 2017 that i really started"
"doing some research into this and then"
by
"by the summer of 2019 i was"
"ready i'd already done enough research"
"that i was really comfortable with the"
"burn temperature with the sample size"
"with leaving the grass on the sample for"
"putting greens"
"and just ready to"
"do this and so that's why at the 2019"
"u.s open uh at pebble beach i was"
"talking people's ears off about this and"
"then the next week i was with you but"
"at the kpmg and and that's when we came"
"up with the hashtag so well um"
"yeah om246 was to the the 2019 kpmg what"
"clipping volume was to the 2016 ryder"
cup
yeah
"that's good golf tournaments are great"
"for talking about those kind of things"
"oh they sure are um they sure are and uh"
"yeah i mean you and i have had many of"
"those discussions over the years at"
"various tournaments so it's uh i'm sure"
"anybody who's who's followed you on"
"twitter or spent time with you at a golf"
"tournament will"
"can relate so"
"yeah and uh"
"speaking of twitter you can follow tr"
"chris on twitter at"
"ct underscore turf"
um
"all right chris should we should we jump"
"in and start uh looking at the report"
"yeah let's do it okay so"
uh
"i'm gonna share my screen"
and
"that pops us there i"
"how does this look"
"no it's it's bigger this way okay i'm"
gonna
"i'm gonna show it like this"
"and i'm gonna"
"scroll down to the first chart so"
"there's some"
"i put a table of contents and then i put"
"a lot of text that i'm not going to go"
"through the the details right now we may"
"flash back to that but let's just go to"
"what i think is the meat of the"
"of the report which is the"
um
the
"the actual results the"
"the time series"
so
"uh chris you actually had done a"
a
"tentative uh"
"like a research sample for me in in may"
"on may 15th of 2019. that's right i"
couldn't
"i couldn't remember that first date"
"and i i seem to recall it was that fall"
"but i forgot that we had done the"
"done the the"
"research sample um"
"early before that tournament yeah that's"
"right so"
"so you've got from spring of 2019 then"
"you've got uh so you kind of have a"
guess
"through that 2019 growing season then"
"you have a full set of data from"
"autumn of 2019 then you have all through"
"the 2020 season"
"another sampling and then another so"
"basically two"
"two full seasons and then that first"
"year we can"
"we have a limited amount of"
"data yep"
so
um
"i'm going to check in the chat i think"
"if anybody wants to chat i'm i'm i'm"
"i'm running this through restream this"
"might be live on twitter i'm not sure it"
"i think it's live on youtube"
"so i think if you leave comments"
"they are supposed to show up in my"
"restream here which i can see on my"
"screen so if anybody has questions or"
"comments that they want to leave"
"you can you can go ahead and"
"uh type them in and i'll try to answer"
them
"so chris the uh"
"the thing that i put these charts first"
"i think this is the most important is"
the
"ah tj thank you"
"tj says chat test i can the cool thing"
"we can we can even show this on the"
"screen if they're really that's cool so"
"that's big commitment from tj he's up"
"early here yeah i was thinking that's"
"like five in the morning for the guys on"
"the on the west coast"
"and where we i think our friends in new"
"zealand are hopefully asleep i don't"
"think they're up yet uh in the morning"
"but i'm glad that by"
"by doing this uh on youtube this will be"
"recorded so people can"
"watch it"
"in the"
"in the future"
"all right thanks tj"
"all right everybody thank you antonio"
we've
we've
"see that okay also awesome so this pops"
"right up cool so"
these
"i think"
"we don't have to worry so much about the"
"exact number okay i'm"
i'm
"uh i'm seeing that you had 4.9 percent"
"organic matter that means"
"uh by weight there were 49 grams of"
"material burned off which we assume"
"would be"
"organic matter"
"49 grams of of material burned off per"
"1 kilogram of soil material so that's"
"4.9 percent that's what what you are at"
"on the samples taken in october"
2021
"and it was exactly the same"
"in october of 2020. so"
"when you got these results and saw that"
"at the the zero to two centimeter depth"
"that it was the same year after year"
"were you pleased with that chris i was"
"and so um"
"you know last year was the first time in"
"which we went over these results"
"and and you sort of gave a prescribed"
"prescribed amount of sand to apply for"
"the next 12-month cycle and"
"12-month cycle would be from the time i"
"take one test to the time i take the"
"next test so basically october"
"of 2020 to october of 2021 so that cycle"
"would include any top dressing that"
"we're applying getting ready for winter"
"and then anything that we apply in"
"season um so"
"with last year's report we had talked"
"about an amount of sand to put down"
"to maintain that level because you're"
"right that has been our discussion is"
"not say okay we're at 4.9 let's try to"
"get to 2.5 percent"
but
"that we're at 4.9 now"
"you say to me tell me how did the"
"surfaces perform can you get the green"
"speed you want"
"um is the firmness the way you'd like it"
"are you getting infiltration the way you"
"would want it are you having"
"any sort of issues with anything else"
"and my answers are really to those"
"questions no so then you say back to me"
"okay that seems like you've got a great"
"surface surface that is producing what"
"you want so let's keep it there"
"and then the amount of sand prescribed"
"is meant to keep it at that level"
"rather than try to drop it to some level"
um
"and and"
"i think that accurately describes it"
"that's that's what i think every golf"
"course should be looking at first is how"
"their surfaces are performing"
"and how the organic matter is changing"
"over time and because we're concerned"
"about how the mo the rollers on a mower"
"roll across"
a
"roll across the surface and don't sink"
"in we're concerned about"
"how the golf ball reacts when it when it"
"lands and hits the surface"
"so if we want those to be satisfactory"
"and that could be satisfactory at two at"
"three at seven at 12 it could be"
"satisfactory at a number of different"
"organic matter levels"
"now in the next chart that we look at"
"the the second chart that i show on the"
"report we we sort of compare to what's"
"normal for that particular species but i"
think
"rather than than first looking at what's"
"normal for a particular species i want"
"to consider how the turf is performing"
"how the surface is performing"
"and look at whether"
"there is effective"
um
"how should we say it if if the work"
"that's being done has been effective in"
"in creating that surface and moving the"
"organic matter or keeping the organic"
"matter the way that you want it"
"so um i think i think that's"
"that's um a key to all of this is that"
um
if
"if i were to just say"
[Music]
"you have to have other metrics to tell"
"you that you're"
"you're happy with"
4.9
"and so um"
"mike i think can i just go ahead and"
"share my screen here for a moment"
yeah
um
"let me let me do that and let me show"
"you just kind of our green our green um"
speed
data
"yes please i hope you can share"
"i hope you're able to share the screen"
"uh let's hold on"
"i should be able to but let me just"
"adjust a few things here okay"
okay
"here it comes"
[Music]
okay
"i see it and i'm gonna i'm gonna now add"
"that screen to"
"make that live okay okay"
"there's okay chris's"
"google sheets"
"so um this is"
"a this is all of the green speed data"
"for the year"
"that i record most of the time this is"
"me sometimes it's the assistance you can"
"see most days it's the whole numbers are"
"going across from the left to the right"
"so you can see there's just"
"i take a lot of green speeds on a lot of"
"days throughout the course of the season"
"now here's here's what i want to share"
"is the"
"the graph um showing these speeds and"
"the seven day average of these speeds"
"and i think that this is really"
"important because if if i were looking"
"at because this tells me is 4.9 percent"
"this is one of the data points that"
"tells me is 4.9"
"um getting us the results that we want"
"and so if we look at this"
"this is about the middle of june"
um
"and you can see"
"our average speed kind of climbs above"
12
"and stays there until we did a"
"an air fine event in the beginning of"
"august and then it falls down as as one"
"would expect"
but
so
"the point is is that through the middle"
"of the summer the peak summer season"
"here at hazeltine"
um
"we're able to maintain a green speed"
"that our members desire and and the"
"point isn't"
"that same it should you should be above"
"this number it's it's this is going to"
"be course specific but if you're"
"maintaining the level of"
"speed that you and and smoothness"
"smoothness is another thing that goes"
"with this let me show you those data"
"so here is uh"
"data from a um a smoothness rating that"
"i do every day the stri"
"smoothness rating michael we can maybe"
"talk a little bit more about that i know"
"you blogged about a little bit maybe you"
"could share links or something so"
"yeah i i actually have one of your"
"bauble test charts kind of queued up to"
"share later possibly great"
"so this is just that data and i take"
"that every time i stamp and i watch how"
"the ball rolls"
"and um i don't have a chart that goes"
"with this but this is just the data so"
"we'll talk about that but to me"
"when you look at green speed"
"um plus the smoothness is is telling me"
"are we getting what we want from these"
"surfaces so that's a that's a quick way"
"to just check"
"um that you're so"
"let's go okay i can stop sharing now"
"like i we'll go back to your your charts"
um
"the the point in showing that is is you"
"have to know"
"you have to have a a metric or data"
"points i think that are telling you if"
"you're if you're meeting the goals of"
your
"your clientele in our case our members"
"and you know public course it's the it's"
"the case of the people who are"
"coming and paying green fees so then we"
"can go back to 4.9 percent organic"
"matter in the top two centimeters"
"and say yep that's"
"that's a number that we can stay at and"
"we'll be happy with"
"awesome thank you thank you chris um"
i
i
um
"i agree completely and i just i i guess"
"i've done a blog post about this also"
"where i said uh"
"i i noticed something as as more and"
"more people do this test um for the for"
"the first time a lot of people get"
"results that are like"
"7 8 9"
"10 11"
"organic matter right at the surface and"
"and yet the"
"the surfaces are performing well and if"
"you look at different greens on the"
"property the healthiest grains always"
"have the most organic matter so"
"guys will get like uh seven percent"
"eight percent nine percent"
"on on their samples you know they'll"
"submit six samples get a range like that"
and
"instantly the reaction or the response"
"to me is"
"i want to reduce this by two percent or"
"reduce this by three percent but i look"
"at i'm like wait a second which is your"
"healthiest green out there uh and it's"
"often the healthiest green almost always"
"the healthiest green has the"
"the most uh organic matter so then it's"
"like wait a second why"
"why do you want all the organic matter"
"to go down to the level of your worst"
"grain so let's let's think about what"
"we're doing and think about maybe just"
"keeping it stable"
"so things don't get softer so they don't"
"hold too much water at the surface yep"
"so this is"
"in this in this chart"
"as you say that"
these
"outlined circles"
are
"the individual measurements"
"um and and i would say and i know this"
"it's not the way that we look at this"
"data but i know which ones are which and"
"i know that our healthiest green is this"
"top circle"
"the highest oh and the two in the two"
"centimeters and our our least"
"green that struggles the most is the"
"lowest there's there's that's a hundred"
"percent true and i sample those two"
greens
"uh purposely to be able to look at that"
"chris that this uh"
"this would be a good time to answer a"
"question from tj"
"um eric i see"
"eric i see your questions uh and i'm"
"gonna answer those later but tj was just"
"asking about the average uh"
"he said how many greens are you sampling"
"to determine that average number"
"and uh"
"chris i'll answer for you uh"
"you did"
"what what we're looking at here the"
"average number at the om"
"2 depth the zero to two centimeter depth"
"that's six greens"
um
"if i remember correctly and then uh"
"that's great definitely the the two to"
"four centimeter depth and the four to"
"six centimeter depth those are"
"um three greens because"
"it tends to be a lot more consistent"
"at the"
"once you go just the tiniest bit below"
"the surface it's it's more consistent"
"and i don't think it's necessary to pay"
"lab fees to just keep getting the same"
"number over and over so we i recommend"
"spend a little bit of extra money to"
"sample a few more at the surface that's"
"where the ball is reacting that's where"
"the mower is rolling and that's where i"
"think we we need to be a little bit more"
precise
"yep eric and then eric asks the same a"
"similar question so the way that the"
"question that he asked are you sampling"
"three at two four six and more at zero"
"to two and that's exactly it yep that's"
right
"six screens are in the two centimeter"
average
"zero to two and then three greens in the"
"others yep that's that's what we're"
"doing so i generally recommend uh"
"to do zero to two two to four four to"
"six centimeter depth on three greens and"
"then do an additional three greens uh"
"just at the zero to two centimeter depth"
that
"that's generally what i would recommend"
"and it should i think we're going to"
"move on from this chart micah but before"
"we do i think um just a statement to"
"those watching like"
"we're not you and i aren't really"
"discussing the two to four and the four"
"to six"
"um we look at that nice to have good to"
"have that information see if anything's"
"changing dramatically but there's no"
"real intent to use those numbers to"
"change anything at this time that's"
right
"i i"
"i would suggest to everybody to look at"
"the two to four centimeter depth and see"
"how that hasn't changed over time and"
yet
"if i you did a dry jet this year last"
"year i don't think you did any"
"uh last year was a it was a solid time"
"filled with sand"
okay
so
"just doing"
"what we would call relatively minimal"
"amount of of holes and and getting sand"
"down below the surface and it's still"
"staying pretty flat and then"
"it is coming up at the four to six"
"centimeter depth but we'll look at the"
"next chart um and see that that's"
"nothing to be concerned about and in"
"fact i mean organic matter is a good"
"thing so we could say that's just the"
"root zone's getting better and better"
"for for grass to grow yeah that's you"
"know these are usga greens i don't think"
"we've talked about that they were built"
"in 2010 so they're they're 10 years old"
"um you know a usga green some people"
"consider that to have about a 20-year"
"lifespan 25 maybe 30 maybe so we're you"
"know approaching one-third to one-half"
"of what many would think would be the"
"lifespan of a usga green"
"and and one thing that i i have noticed"
"um not to get too far off track but"
"micah talks about organic matter being a"
"good thing is you know in a usga green"
"you don't see this this tremendous"
"rooting depth we have three greens"
"on a"
"south uh chipping area practice area"
"that are not usga and when you pull a"
"plug out from a cup the whole thing the"
"root mass is the whole plug but when you"
"pull a plug out from"
"a usga green you have really great"
"rooting up in the top but let's say in"
"the two to the zero to six centimeter"
"range but below that there's really"
"nothing and i think that that probably"
"has a lot to do with the amount of"
"organic matter that's down there so yeah"
"i would say building it up a little bit"
"in the two to four and the four to six"
"is not going to be a"
"a long term problem"
very
"very good um"
"and eric has another comment here which"
"i agree with i'll show that comment uh"
"he thinks that more samples at the zero"
"to two centimeter depth"
uh
"given that the two to six centimeter"
"depth remains largely unchanged in his"
"sampling so eric's at uh chambers bay in"
"in the state of washington and uh"
i
"i've done this type of sampling at uh"
"different continents different countries"
"different grass types"
"and it's pretty consistent that that you"
"tend to see very little change over time"
"at the"
"at the depths below two centimeters"
"which i think there's there's all kinds"
"of implications for that but the obvious"
"one is"
"uh how necessary is it to punch holes"
"and get and remove material from from"
"down below"
"or how necessary is it to"
"punch holes and put sand down into those"
holes
um
"at that depth below the surface"
"for the purpose of managing organic"
"matter now there may be some other"
"reasons for doing it but for the purpose"
"of managing organic matter it would seem"
"that it may not not be necessary can i"
"uh let's go down to the the fancy chart"
"tj's favorite"
"all right so"
"i i get to make these reports and i get"
"to put the ones that i think are most"
"important at the top but this is the"
"prettiest one and the fanciest one and"
"tj thought this was pretty interesting"
um
"this is my favorite one we we're showing"
"some density curves"
of
"all samples of that particular species"
"and then we're showing percentiles"
"of how your most recent samples"
"compare to"
"what's normal for those particular s"
"for that particular species so here"
"we're looking at bank grass greens"
"creeping bank grass greens"
"do you think micah that"
"again getting to the the idea that"
"let me ask i'm trying to think of how to"
"ask this question"
"it's been it's been easy for me to"
"understand the fact that i don't want to"
chase
"some low number so when i look at these"
"charts and i look at 0 to 2 and i see"
"that we're at 4.9 and that uh 29"
"of golf courses are below us it would be"
"easy maybe to think oh"
"like that is a number"
"that we need to get to we need to get to"
"the point where only 10 percent are"
"below us and i need to chase this 2.4"
"this absolute do you"
um
"do you find and maybe not maybe people"
"that you work with understand sort of"
"the idea of keeping it in a range that's"
"good for that particular course but do"
"you fight fight that with anybody you"
"work with where they want to chase this"
"low number or you know how do we we"
"talked about a little bit but i wonder"
"how we get away from that idea"
"um fortunately i haven't had to deal"
"with that particular issue yet um"
"and and if somebody did want to go that"
"low i would say"
"that that's"
"i i don't recommend it because"
um
"once you start going to the the tails"
um
"we've talked about whether the word"
margin
"should be used or tails but this type of"
"curve i would call it a tail when we go"
"to the left or go to the right"
"once we start going there you realize"
"there's not there's not very many"
"bank grass greens at 2.4 percent so that"
"means there's not very many good"
"performing bank grass greens at 2.4"
"percent so then it's like"
uh
[Music]
"no i"
"so so that's the type of thing that i"
"would try to explain to people and just"
"say uh please"
"please try to keep it closer to the"
"middle i mean"
"that's what i would be trying to do so"
"now that"
"i mean i kind of assumed that everybody"
"knows what this test is and why we're"
"getting a number like 4.9 percent and"
"saying there's only 29 of bank grass"
"greens are expected to be below that um"
"this is"
"is a test where we're not we're not"
"measuring soil organic matter the way"
that
"testing for soil organic matter is"
"defined um soil organic matter is"
"defined by the soils to science soil"
"science society of america in their"
glossary
as
"the organic material in the soil"
that
"excludes any living or dead undecomposed"
"plant material now"
"um that that becomes problematic when"
"you start looking at samples that might"
"have thatch or mat in it and on a golf"
"course putting green we want to know"
"what's happening with the thatch and mat"
"because that's what so much of the top"
"dressing is done to manage that's what"
"so much of the coring verticating dry"
"ejecting and so on is done to to manage"
and
"the problem is conventional testing is"
"is more for soil nutrients for the humic"
"material in the soil and it it removes"
"all of the thatch and mat before testing"
it
"what the om246 test does is measures"
"everything and that's why we get a"
"number like 4.9 percent and think yeah"
"that's relatively low if it was if this"
"was a"
"typical soil organic matter test we'd be"
"thinking that it would be something like"
"1.5 percent but but we're measuring here"
"everything which i think is one of the"
"beautiful things of this test"
"yeah and you know somebody might ask i'm"
just
"uh looking quickly"
"to look at our soil nutrient report"
"and see because if somebody out there is"
"watching this and thinking well what"
"does how does that translate to the"
"uh the soil"
"organic matter as as"
"i won't say normally that might"
"as as people would normally hear it so"
"soil organic matter"
"from a normal soil nutrient analysis"
test
"one average of 1.5"
"1.5 that's"
"that's very normal and when we did the"
"uh global soil survey which had 100"
"samples from putting greens from"
"explicitly good performing"
"putting greens from all over the world"
"the average value for organic matter in"
"that which goes down to a zero to 10"
"centimeter depth and screens off"
"all of the"
"the undecomposed living and dead plant"
"material the average there was 1.6 for"
"putting greens so"
"the those"
"that's one kind of organic matter this"
"is something different this is total i i"
"say organic matter sometimes and"
"sometimes i say total organic material"
so
that's
"that's awesome like"
"uh hazeltine national golf club is a"
"tournament venue and uh i know it's"
"renowned for having a"
"a very active"
"uh golfing membership with really"
"competitive and fine players and so i"
"think it's kind of normal for me to say"
"yeah i kind of like you"
"in the lower percentile because that"
"means you should be able to"
"dry the greens down and get a nice"
"firmness and be able to control the"
"moisture and so on so i look at that"
"number and it's just like yeah that's"
nice
"and then we try to figure out what work"
"should be done to"
"keep it that way"
yep
"should we should we would it be worth"
"touching on because one of the things i"
"think you you and i have both heard and"
"is um"
"a focus"
"when it comes to putting surfaces on"
"on um"
"infiltration rate and there may be"
"people watching who who are wondering"
"about that"
"and wondering you know if we look at"
"that or how this might relate to that"
"should we touch on that"
"yeah i'm happy to i"
"i did a blog post um"
"earlier this year so if you if you go to"
asianturfgrass.com
"and search for infiltration rate uh you"
"can find my comments uh about that and"
"citing some research articles that said"
"it's it's something that you may not"
"need to worry about so much"
um
obviously
"uh that is critical"
"uh to having a good performing putting"
"surface because"
"if your infiltration rate is not"
"rapid enough then your surfaces are"
"going to be too wet"
"i think"
"that that's something you can see with"
"your eyes when it rains or when you"
irrigate
"and the other thing is you can measure"
"soil moisture over time and if you"
"consistently see that after"
"saturating rain events"
"or after"
[Music]
"irrigation events that fill the soil to"
"field capacity if if the field capacity"
"number that you're measuring with soil"
"moisture meters keeps going up and up"
"that to me tells me you have a problem"
"with infiltration rate or if you see"
"puddling or something"
but
"i'm just i don't worry about measuring"
"it because i think it's quite difficult"
"to measure and it's like chasing after"
"numbers that seem meaningless to me i"
"mean that's my that's my thought about"
"it so i"
"i'm like"
"obviously it's critically important yep"
"but i don't want to measure it i i want"
to
"see it and feel it right and to me it's"
"a part of that that group of there may"
"be no data i don't have a chart that"
"shows it"
"because we don't really measure it but"
"all of the things you just said you know"
"our observations are telling us whether"
"that is something that's a problem"
"and it and i don't see that it is you"
"know we we can get"
"lots of rain and while the greens might"
"puddle or um"
"you know become"
"have surface water on them initially"
"like in a downpour"
"um as soon as the rain slows or it stops"
"um it goes away very quickly i mean in"
"the amount of let's say in the amount of"
"time that it would take let's say"
"there's a downpour that stops play um"
"we're going to have the u.s amateur in"
"2024. so let's say"
"the the"
"the players are out there and a"
"lightning comes in"
"and the players are removed from the"
"course and we get a"
"downpour and in the course of an hour"
"and a half we get two inches of rain"
"there may be um"
"water that"
"come that shows up on the surface there"
"may be some brief but by the time the"
"players would"
"go back out to the course play that"
"would be all gone and um you know i mean"
"to me that's that's playing i don't need"
"a hundred some inches per hour or"
"whatever the you know usga green is"
"built at um because that's just"
"you know almost"
"obscene and um unnecessary for for you"
"know the way that golf is played"
"yeah so"
"yeah this is a a question that some"
"people have about infiltration rate so"
"thank you for for bringing that up i"
um
"and it's"
"to me it's not really related to this"
"because here we're just looking at"
"organic matter and i"
um
"i'm assuming that the more organic"
"matter the more organic material we have"
"in the surf in the in the soil the more"
"water it's going to be able to hold"
"and based on how much water it can hold"
"that's also going to have an effect on"
"how firm the surfaces are so i'm i'm"
"looking at the criteria here being"
"how firm or soft the surfaces are and"
"how much water it's holding and i think"
"infiltration rate"
"if the surfaces are constantly too wet"
"the infiltration rate is not fast enough"
"it seems obvious to me so i'm just like"
"let's let's solve the problem that way"
"let's solve it the easy way"
"and uh"
"not try to inflate some kind of numbers"
if
"you know i i wonder"
"um i'm gonna share my screen one more"
"time micah cool and um"
"and talk because i do measure firmness"
"as well"
"and um"
"that's something we're measuring on a a"
"weekly basis and measuring on three of"
"the greens in which we"
um
"we do our our 246 sampling"
so
"here we can see this is a"
"a scatter plot"
"of uh"
"we use a clegg hammer"
"okay i'm gonna share i'm gonna i just"
"see that there we go"
"okay so here this is a a scatter plot um"
"and the the firmness is over here on"
"this side"
"um and this is the the number that comes"
"up on the particular cleg that we use"
"we've been using uh it was uh"
"i'm borrowing it from from doug soldat"
"in wisconsin"
"and then the this is the"
moisture
"average moisture so i go out to these"
"greens these three greens and i take"
"nine spots"
"i take the moisture and then i take the"
"firmness from the exact spot that the"
"moisture was taking and i read it down"
"and then i input that data over here on"
"the left so you can see that so this is"
"this is the average the scatter plot is"
"the average of 883 different"
samples
"during the course of the year on these"
"three across these three greens"
"this is a scatter plot uh where did it"
"go right here of every single"
"measurement just that gets to be a"
"little blobby but nonetheless so these"
"are the averages"
"so each day that i would go out and take"
"these measurements which ended up being"
"27 per day nine per"
"per green on three greens this would be"
"the average"
"and so again this is another"
"data point that's telling us if the"
"organic matter that we have in that top"
"two centimeters is something that is"
acceptable
um
"you know if this if this line were"
um
"my god you want to talk about your your"
"your uh knowledge of charts and such is"
"far greater than mine so if you want"
"right so that that chart uh"
"is showing that there's not a"
"perfect relationship um between soil"
"moisture and"
"uh how firm the surfaces are but with"
"that particular meter the the higher the"
"firmness level the um"
"the more firm the greens are the higher"
"the number will be"
"and what you see because that line goes"
"down from left to right through those"
"data and actually your your other chart"
"is even more clear about that if you if"
"you scroll up to the the jump like the"
"jumble of points"
"you you can see that it's not"
"all the points don't fall on a line"
"there's a lot of scatter around the line"
"which means"
"you can have greens that are a little"
"bit drier and soft you could have greens"
"that are a little bit wider and firm but"
"in general what that's showing is that"
the
"the surfaces are more firm when it's dry"
and
"and then they they soften up a little"
"bit as it gets closer to field capacity"
but
"it it also shows that it never gets so"
"wet that the firmness gets too"
"that it gets too soft so it's it's what"
"you'd expect for a for a place like"
hazeltine
"now it'll be interesting as this data"
"gets collected year after year"
"you know i would come back to these"
"charts and tell me if i'm wrong micah"
"but i'd look at it and i would say is"
"there some sort of like drift that takes"
place
"you know does does uh you know and and"
"one would think that as you get to like"
"if you can stay around 4.9 to 5 or"
"somewhere in that region you're going to"
"get similar results year after year"
"but you know"
"knowing having this info it will tell us"
"is there some sort of you know are we"
"drifting to to firmer or are we drifting"
to
"wetter drier firmer softer"
"we'll we'll have that info"
"yeah i"
i
"should have andrew mcdaniel on here"
"sometime um"
and
"hopefully he will join me"
"and we can look at an even longer time"
"series of this type of data from okay a"
"golf club in japan where we have data on"
"firmness and soil moisture and some"
other
"playability parameters from 2013 up"
"until the present and it's interesting"
"it it i never would have thought that it"
"would be so valuable to have these data"
"and look at it year after year um and"
"for andrew it's for a professional"
"tournament that they have the last week"
"of august every year"
"and um"
"so he doesn't have the full set of data"
"for the entire year but he has it for"
"just one week just one week in august"
for
"the past uh nine years or so and it's"
"tremendously helpful to be able to"
um
"to adjust the maintenance work to"
"prepare the surfaces for the tournament"
"year after year and and to see that"
"firmness keep going up and to see the"
"green speed uh reaching the target level"
"and then just staying there year after"
"year it's was pretty cool"
and
"and um a lot of the om246 stuff came"
"because he re and what andrew realized"
"on those zoysia greens was they they"
"grow so slow that they don't really"
"recover well from the type of intensive"
"maintenance work that that i was"
"recommending i was telling him they have"
"too much organic matter you need to make"
"it firmer you should be punching holes"
"putting sand punching holes putting sand"
"but if he did that"
"uh he's got a tournament the last week"
"of august he couldn't really have the"
"recovery time that he wanted and be able"
"to slow down the"
"growth of the grass to get the green"
"speeds at the"
"at that time of year and so"
"he kind of moved away from top dressing"
"so much moved away from punching holes"
"and i supported that"
"because the surfaces kept getting better"
"and better and the fewer holes he"
"punched the firmer it got but at the"
"same time i was quite concerned this is"
"in uh"
"2015 2016 going into 2017 that time"
"frame it's like man"
"we need to be really careful that"
"there's not something happening under"
"the surface with organic matter"
"accumulation that we're not catching"
and
"because it could be all of a sudden it"
"rains during the tournament and"
"everything was all perfect and then all"
"of a sudden your mowers sink in and"
"scalp and it's like oh i guess we"
"weren't making such a good decision"
"about skipping all of this work that"
"that the textbooks say that we should be"
"doing and that's when i turned to the"
"om246 testing and was like i really need"
"to do this because i realized that the"
"testing that we were doing"
"otherwise just for nutrients was"
"discarding this material that we wanted"
"to measure"
"it seems to me"
"that anytime there's a discussion"
"when it comes to golf um"
maintenance
"a maintenance of golf course putting"
"services that the fear that any manager"
"golf course turf manager has"
in
"reducing what they're doing no matter"
"what it is no matter whether it's"
"some kind of cultural practice"
"some kind of watering some kind of"
um
"nutrient application you know potassium"
"it the fear is"
"of some sort of"
"unintended consequence you know some"
"sort of um"
"you know uh i remember i was i was"
"talking about our our lack of potassium"
"applications at gis a number of years"
"ago i mean this is five six seven eight"
"years ago or so it was in orlando"
"a number of cycles ago and and one of"
"the questions that somebody from the"
"back of the room asked was aren't you"
"don't you fear that you're gonna your"
"turf is is is"
"is moving towards"
"uh imminent collapse or something of"
"that nature and that you know at some"
"point there was just going to be this i"
"was going to walk in you know one leave"
"one night and the golf course was going"
"to be great come in the next morning the"
"golf course was going to be dead"
"i don't think any of these things work"
"in that way um and and that to me is the"
"key if you look at data you think about"
"collecting data and i know when people"
"hear about it who aren't doing it they"
"think oh my gosh what a hurdle to get"
"over and what am i going to do with this"
"but um what it's doing is it's"
confirming
"and allowing for us"
"a reduction of um"
"some of the things that we thought"
"were necessary to maintain a good golf"
"course we've been able to reduce those"
uh
items
"minimize them do do them the least"
"amount possible"
"and and have the data to tell us that"
"you know we're not in any danger here"
"we're not creating undo harm"
"chris i think this would be this would"
"be a great time to to uh"
"answer tj's question he said uh"
"can you talk about"
"the practices that allow you to sustain"
"these levels and speeds and smoothness"
"and then"
"he said specifically like uh"
"top dressing events"
"annual dabs needle tining things like"
"that yeah"
"so let's um"
"i'll stop sharing mine like i don't know"
"if we we'll go back to your charts let's"
"go back i think those will be more"
"relevant to what i will um"
"you want me to bring up the chart of the"
"smoothness that has your yeah the top"
"right that's a good one that's a good"
"one yes"
"okay so i think"
"i can stop sharing this screen"
"and then i think"
"i can"
"share a different one"
right
um
"so now here's our our bobble test chart"
"and uh"
"so i think so this will be great for"
"this discussion so this was"
"uh this one was only updated through"
"like early september um but you didn't"
"do any more events until the end of the"
"season so this allows you to show what"
"you did this year yep yep"
um
so
"let me try to explain how i've thought"
"about uh"
"course maintenance and cultural"
"practices over the last you know in"
"general i've always felt as a"
"superintendent i want to do the least"
"possible to the golf course to get the"
"the best possible results so"
"i want to our results and what we desire"
"are at a high level and then to do that"
"i i think okay what what is the least"
"amount i can do to to get to that level"
"and not do anything that that isn't"
necessary
"and so"
um
"a story from the the 2019 kpmg this is"
"when i started to sort of realize let's"
"use top dressing as an example okay"
"it's very"
um
[Music]
"normal in this industry to top dress on"
"a regular basis"
"every week"
"every two weeks every month and now let"
"me just disclaim this by saying"
"i'm not suggesting that this will work"
"in every situation but it works for us"
"and this is this is just how we think"
"about it so i'm not telling you"
"if you're managing ultra dwarf bermuda"
"this is going to work for you or if"
"you're managing poa this is going to"
"work for you but this is what i've found"
"works well for us so"
"put that filter on this information and"
then
"use it"
"to your advantage"
"okay so"
"in in 2019 we come out of winter"
"the the kpmg the women's pga is the"
"third week of june we come out of winter"
"we had a tough winter with a lot of ice"
"that year and our greens were a little"
"bit um"
"we had suffered i don't even want to"
"call it a little maybe a little winter"
"kill on some north facing slopes where"
"we had some ice this is even on bent"
grass
"and so we come out and it's it's the the"
"turf is slow to recover and then we had"
"a really cool"
"i would call it cold spring leading up"
"to that event we have a4 bent grass"
"which anybody who has it in a northern"
"region will know it's it grows and"
"greens up very slowly in the spring"
"so we had all those sort of things"
"working against us so the pj of america"
"gets here"
"and we start working on getting the"
"course ready we're about 10 days out"
"and there the greens are just a little"
bit
"bumpy a little bit um not"
"as smooth as we'd like so we decided to"
"top dress"
"and it's a little bit closer to a"
"tournament than a person would typically"
"top dress but that was the right call at"
"the time it really did improve the"
"greens and then we actually did it one"
"more time i think just three days before"
"the the practice runs started"
"and that was all fine the greens were"
"great michael was there we were you know"
"he was he was helping us stimp and we"
"were looking at smoothness and the"
"greens were really fantastic um"
"but we were mowing and rolling double"
"cutting on turf that was just sort of"
"like really waking up really hadn't"
"gotten uh a chance to sort of um grow"
"and and"
"form a great surface early in this early"
"in the year before we started doing all"
"that work plus there's this sand on"
"there that we're constantly rolling and"
"mowing over the top of"
"then we go into our normal season and"
"about a month after the event three"
"weeks after the event we're going to"
"host our invitational and i decide as i"
"normally would about 10 days before that"
"we're going to top dress because that's"
"kind of the routine and we did and then"
"it got really hot and we had our event"
"and we did a lot of mowing and rolling"
"during that event and the greens just"
"declined after that event"
"and a lot of it was just this i could"
"looking at them this was physical damage"
"to the leaf"
"that um i mean those of you who who"
"maintain bent grass in a you know in"
"during the summer we'll know if you"
"damage bent grass or get any kind of"
"like physical damage to the leaf tissue"
"the plant just declines really quickly"
"um it's not very traffic tolerant is i"
"guess my so"
"then we go into 2020 which is of course"
"a pandemic year and for various reasons"
"uh short staff"
"you know this this whole top dressing"
"and decline of the turf in the back of"
"my head"
"we come into the spring and you know it"
"gets to be to the first the first time"
"of the year where we're going to top"
"dress and"
"i think you know what if we just skip"
"that this year so we skip it we have a"
"tournament greens are great collecting"
"all this data collecting speed"
"you know green speed clipping volume all"
"that and everything's great okay"
"then we get to our next tournament event"
"and it's we're ready to topdress and i"
"think let's let's not do it the greens"
"are great they look the smoothness is"
"great the speed is great let's not top"
"dress so we go through the whole golf"
season
"never putting any sand down"
"ahead of events there was no bi-weekly"
"top dressing monthly weekly whatever it"
"was we just we just lived with the sand"
"we had put down going into winter"
"until we got to our verification date"
"which is at the beginning of august and"
"the greens were great we verified we"
"grew out of that and we didn't put sand"
"down again until we were closed for the"
year
"so this got me to thinking i i that i"
"think we don't"
"you know the"
"this was these were the best screens"
"we'd had since i'd been here and it was"
"the least amount of sand i put down in"
"season so"
um
"now my mind is thinking okay there's"
"some amount of sand we need to put down"
but
"let's think about"
"what the windows are going to look like"
"for putting that sand down and what is"
"the actual"
"real amount of sand we need to put down"
"not just some arbitrary you know light"
"dusting two times a week two times a"
"week and it builds up to whatever it is"
"but let's find out what that amount"
"really is and then put it in the"
"smallest number of windows possible so"
"that our golfers and our surfaces are"
"impacted the least as as little as"
"possible by that sand because"
"i've seen and you can see now we're"
"going to get to this uh this chart of"
"the the bobble test and the smoothness"
rating
"i've seen when you put sand down that"
"there is a decline in the smoothness of"
"the surface and the quality of the"
"surface and over the years just sort of"
"anecdotally i have heard that from our"
"membership who"
"who didn't like the sort of roller"
"coaster of"
"of surface quality that took place when"
"we would top dress"
"and then build back up and then top"
"dress and build back up um they didn't"
"enjoy that so you know i'm really trying"
"to create a surface that replicates a"
"championship event for our members for"
"as many days as possible during the"
"course of the season"
"and because we're closed in the winter"
"we open about april 15th and we close"
"just about halloween you know that that"
"period of time is quite small"
"um relative to places that are open for"
"longer or open all year long so"
"you know that that's our goal that's"
"sort of the overriding goal that and"
"experience that i want to give our"
"membership so"
"if you look at this chart maybe micah do"
"you want to just explain this chart a"
"little bit again your explanation of"
"charts is far better than mine so all"
"right so this is another one that's on"
"my website if you search bobble test"
b-o-b-b-l-e
"search that on my website you can pull"
"up this post and read about it and"
"and study the chart at your leisure"
"this is quite an interesting one i"
i
"don't remember if i recommended to chris"
"to start measuring bubble tests this"
"year or"
he
"told me that he was going to i think"
"maybe i was thinking we came to the same"
"conclusion it would be a useful"
"measurement to have yeah i think"
"somewhere there was a discussion"
"involving you potentially jason haynes"
"um about this"
"test and we talked about it"
"and and we thought this this seems like"
"a good combination with green speed and"
"it's it's easy to do i'll let i'll let"
"my kicks well i can explain how how i"
"take the test"
"um it's essentially this is a visual"
rating
um
and
"when i stimp the green i watch the ball"
"roll across the green and i give it a"
rating
"on a"
"on a scale of 1 to 10."
and
"i give it a scale a rating on a scale of"
"one to ten as the ball rolls across and"
"i watch for the ball chattering across"
"the surface i watch for any big bobbles"
"that the ball might take across the"
"surface and i watch for any sort of"
"snaking that the ball might do so as the"
"ball rolls and you"
"will roll three balls as we stimp um"
"i'll i'll rate each one"
and
"and then i'll i'll add those numbers up"
"so if it's three nines it's a 27 if it's"
"3 8 it's a 24"
"and and that's how i get this rating so"
"then i put it in my spreadsheet which i"
"shared before as a as a 27 a 26 a 25"
"whatever that"
"those three ratings would be added up"
"and then"
"the spreadsheet i have a formula that"
"that averages it all out to give"
a
"bobble test score across all of the"
"greens that were stimped"
"that particular day so that's where this"
"number comes from so"
"you can see"
"even though it's a scale one to ten we"
"really we had a six in here that was"
"right after we had dry ejected and there"
"was a lot of sand and a lot of so you"
"can see in a in a northern climate"
"during the season"
"you're really not going to go below six"
"but um"
"you know"
we've
"so mike and i have talked about it and"
"he has this dotted line across eight"
"eight is is really when a golfer puts a"
"ball if you have an eight"
"the golfer is going to deem that to be"
"nearly perfect"
"eight is a really good score right so"
"this is showing through the season uh"
"starting in early april at the first"
"mowing uh"
"so this"
uh
"the first asterisk down there by april"
"1st that's the first mole of the season"
"which was on"
"april the 6th this year"
and
"it started off a little bit below 8 but"
"quickly with mowing uh and a little bit"
"of rolling the that average every day"
"got up above eight and it stayed there"
"until a heavy sand top dressing on may"
11th
"and on on may 11th that's the second"
"asterisk so that was a top dressing of"
"about uh 0.8 millimeters which"
"would have been that's about uh"
"three cubic feet"
"that's about three cubic feet per"
"thousand square feet if i sort of deemed"
"that when i put down that point eight"
"millimeters in may um that was with no"
"holes so that was just sand on top um"
"dragged in to me that was about the"
"limit of for for our situation of sand"
"that i would want to put on without"
"having any holes or anywhere for the"
"sand to go that was pretty heavy on a on"
"a surface to then send golfers out to"
"play on"
"and then"
"and then after you do that you can't"
"roll as much as you want to because you"
"would just beat up the grass so then"
"it's it's"
"it's keeping the value down a little bit"
"so it took a couple weeks"
"to get back up to nine where it was"
"before the top dressing and then it's it"
"got so good where it was above nine"
"every day that you just stopped"
"measuring it and you were you were only"
"going to flag it if something happened"
"right so you went for"
"all through the peak season up until"
"early august"
um
"right up"
"above nine which is basically perfect"
"and then then you did the dry checked in"
"early august and after that it it took a"
"couple weeks to get back uh"
"up above eight consistently"
"yep and this chart stops in about"
"mid-september but uh it it does go"
"i don't know if my pointer shows up on"
"the screen but it does go up above nine"
"right after this and then stays above"
"nine for the rest of the season until we"
closed
"so this is the kind of thing that chris"
"said it very well this may not work"
"everywhere but um"
"you know i i'd always been using the"
"example of k a golf club and what andrew"
"was doing and achieving with those core"
"eye greens with basically two top"
"dressings a year and not punching holes"
and
"i think it's intriguing and i always say"
"okay it may not work"
"everywhere but it certainly works at"
"this place and"
"to see"
"this type of thing happen at hazeltine"
also
"uh where you're you basically in season"
"put sand two times this year"
"and have spectacular results i"
"i think it's exciting because it"
"suggests that now there's two courses in"
"the world that can do this and i i know"
"there's a lot of other people out there"
"that are that are doing this getting"
"great results and"
"they know that we haven't discovered"
"anything new because they already know"
"this but definitely there's a mainstream"
uh
"type of management style that i used to"
"teach in seminars i used to write"
"articles about it and tell people they"
"needed to put more sand out and i know"
"there's there's a lot of people that"
"kind of teach what the standard way"
"should be and and what you're doing is"
"is not quite the standard way and so"
"that's why it's always risky"
"to do things in the non-standard way and"
"i think that's where there's a"
"tremendous value in the om 246 testing"
"to measure what's going on and not only"
"does it tell you that maybe you don't"
"have to do so much"
"if you're not doing enough it's going to"
"tell you that too and in fact i i um"
"answered some questions today about an"
"om26 om246 report for for somebody who'd"
"done it for the first time and and i"
"recommended trying to bring the numbers"
"down a little bit so i calculated how"
"much sand should be applied next year"
"and said"
"that's what i would recommend for next"
"year let's see if we can drop this a"
"little bit yeah"
"and we you know even even our report"
"which we we hadn't gone over and i don't"
"know that we need to but we have i had"
"mentioned earlier these three greens"
"that are on the south end of the the our"
"practice area they're practice greens"
"they're not usg greens they don't have"
"the same construction as our coarse"
"greens but our members have asked that"
"they represent or are more similar to"
"when the ball lands are the greens that"
"we have on the golf course and so"
"we tested them this year and they were"
"part of our"
"testing regime and then"
"we you gave a recommendation mike on"
"what you think we need to do to those"
"greens next year over the next few years"
"to get them back into the range"
"uh or get them closer to the range that"
"the coarse greens are at so and those if"
"i were if i remember right they needed a"
"couple more millimeters of sand i think"
"we talked about three potentially i"
"think your recommendation might have"
"been three times the sand depth that"
"we're going to do on the greens on the"
"course so"
"something like that"
um
"there's a there's a question from carl"
"yeah let's let's let's answer all the"
"questions now and then talk about how"
"our time's going and if you want to"
"continue um"
"why don't you answer carl's and then"
"we'll answer eric's from a while ago"
sure
"so i think just to um"
"can you put there we go um"
"so i i spoke a little bit about this but"
"it is a good point um"
"the perceived risk of not doing things"
"that are normal or not doing things that"
"are traditional"
"and the idea that if we don't do those"
"bad things can happen so i think one way"
"to think about that is and i don't want"
"to say anything that's going to be"
"offensive to any of our members but look"
members
"vote with their"
"feet you might say or they vote with"
"their eyes"
"in that what i mean by that is that"
"members vote by the conditions they they"
"you know if the conditions are good"
"that's really"
"all they care about um"
"i've not yet met a member in my 15 years"
"as a superintendent"
"who really cares"
"what practices you're doing to get to"
"those conditions"
"they care what it is when they go out"
"and play is it good"
"if it was good today is it going to be"
"good tomorrow it's going to be good the"
"next time i play or you know i come out"
"and play on a i played on a"
"i played last friday"
"golf course was great perfect in in my"
mind
"now i play next wednesday is it going to"
"be the same as it was last friday or is"
"it some diminished version of what i"
"played on friday because they did some"
"maintenance on monday"
"that has now reduced the quality of the"
"surface to some amount and and now we"
"have to build it back up and that that"
"was one thing i i did hear from our"
"members it was in a green committee"
"meeting and"
"and they were were saying you know i"
"just feel like the course is sort of"
"consistent inconsistent and i said okay"
"we'll we'll focus in on that because i"
"need more information so that i can"
"do a better job of of changing that"
"what's inconsistent well the greens okay"
"well what is it about the greens is it"
"well it's the sand okay so then we talk"
"about it and that was during a time when"
"i was regularly"
"top dressing every two weeks"
"and we would top dress oftentimes on a"
"sunday evening"
"then we wouldn't mow on a monday maybe"
"we wouldn't mow on a tuesday"
"mow and roll on wednesday and okay so"
"for that weekend the the quality of the"
"greens start to come back"
"and then by the second weekend the"
"quality is is great so let's say"
"somebody plays on that second weekend"
"friday saturday"
"and they're the greens are awesome then"
"they play the next wednesday they bring"
"a guest out and they tell their guest"
"wow gosh i played this weekend and the"
"course was the greens were spectacular"
"now since they last played we've"
"topdressed we've skipped a couple days"
"of mowing"
"maybe skipped a day of rolling"
"and they come out with guests on a"
"wednesday and it's just not the same and"
"maybe they play early in the morning and"
"their ball is accumulating because"
"there's moisture on the greens and"
"there's sand a little bit of sand on the"
ball
"and this was"
"and i totally understand this look a lot"
"of superintendents might say well hey"
"that's what we need to do to have the"
"course be great"
tomorrow
"but i i can relate to a person who is a"
"member at a club and wants to have these"
"great conditions every single day"
"uh that if that was me and i wasn't"
"growing the grass and i was just playing"
"the golf"
"i can i can see where that would be"
irritating
"so that is sort of one of the things"
"that got me to thinking you know how can"
"we have more days of"
"great conditions and not ride this sort"
"of roller coaster"
"of conditions"
"which largely in my mind were coming"
"because of top dressing"
"so that that um"
"carl i don't know that i'm answering"
"your question but"
"no member that at our at this club is"
"going to say well shouldn't you be top"
"dressing more shouldn't you be top"
"dressing every other every other week"
"they're just they don't care about that"
"what they care is that the conditions"
"are good every day that they play and of"
"course they want the conditions to be"
"good or better the next year so that i"
"think is why all of this testing and"
"data accumulation is is has become so"
"important to what we do here"
"is because that is telling me are we"
"meeting the goals that they have are we"
"losing ground in any way"
"you know i i like to i just i just"
"recorded a seminar for the virtual for"
"virtual gis this year"
"and i i said you know this is no"
"different than a person who records"
"their weight"
"every morning or recruit records their"
"blood pressure on a regular basis you"
"know looking out for potential um"
"hiccups you know if if you"
"um if you don't record your weight every"
"morning let's say and you"
"have a a week of holiday eating and"
"you feel like"
"um nothing has changed but you have"
"gained 10 pounds and then sort of in"
"your mind that 10 pounds becomes that's"
"the new normal and you're not paying"
"attention to it and then let's say the"
"next thanksgiving and then christmas and"
"maybe christmas week you gain another 10"
"pounds um i'm sorry i'm not trying to to"
"to uh i'm just giving an example here"
"that isn't golf course related um now"
"all of a sudden you're 20 pounds from"
"where you think you should be and you"
"you're not aware of that because the"
"change has sort of happened slowly and"
"you haven't noticed it and then all of a"
"sudden you're like well geez something's"
"not right here and you step on a scale"
"and you're like wow so if you're looking"
"at these numbers every day or what at"
"whatever interval makes sense you know"
"om246 it only makes sense to to me and"
"to micah to do it once a year but green"
"speed every day smoothness every day"
"firmness once a week whatever that that"
"amount of time is it's it's it's telling"
"you if something's going wrong if"
"something's happening that is unintended"
"based on what your"
"your goals are um so"
"yeah i i don't know"
"if that answers your question or not"
"carl i think that um you know some of"
"the the feedback i get on this from from"
"colleagues is you know this thing of"
"concern it's easy to continue doing what"
"we've always done"
"when we know that we're getting the"
"results we want but i think and this has"
"been something mike and i have talked"
"about a lot over the years and and even"
"um you know i teach the bent grass"
"course with doug sold at gis i've heard"
"doug talk about it doug just did a great"
"uh podcast with joe golotti um in which"
"they talked about this subject"
"i think we're doing too much"
"i think we're doing you know this monday"
"maintenance thing has become this this"
"big thing and i and i get it like we"
need
"members need to know that the course"
"needs to be maintained there's no doubt"
"about that i'm not saying that we"
"shouldn't um"
"be telling our members we're not doing"
"but you should know if you're going to"
"do something to your golf course you"
"should know that you absolutely need to"
"be doing it and that's that's what all"
"of this is about for for me is knowing"
"yes i need to be applying this amount of"
"sand um yes i need to be doing uh this"
"amount of rolling this amount of mowing"
"um yes i need to be applying this amount"
"of potassium or not applying this amount"
"of potassium somebody on twitter just"
"retweeted it"
"i think mike had actually micah did it"
"and then there was some commentary on it"
"a picture of"
"two of our guys"
"let's say uh eight years ago or so"
"applying uh granular potassium after a"
"rain event and i sort of chuckled with"
"him and we"
"we went back and forth a little bit um"
"about my response to his question what"
"are you replacing and i said uh you know"
"something potassium that's washed away"
"with the rain"
"you know i just didn't know that i had"
"some consultant that i worked with had"
"told me that that was a thing to do and"
"you know i wasn't knowledgeable enough"
"in that area to realize that maybe we"
"don't or we shouldn't and i hadn't"
"learned enough about it and um so we"
"were doing it and you know it was it was"
"a wasteful process yes a few bags of"
"potassium fertilizer don't cost that"
"much but you know it was two guys to"
"apply it and we had to figure out the"
"timing and then you put this granular on"
"the surface that could affect play for a"
"day or two and um you know it just we"
"just didn't need to be doing it and uh"
"we're not and"
"you know soil nutrient analysis tells us"
"that we're not having any sort of issues"
"because of it"
so
"hopefully carl that that speaks to that"
"um that idea but um"
"yeah and again you know we're not doing"
"nothing we'll talk we can you know we"
"still are applying top dressing if if"
"someone were to walk on our greens right"
now
"um they would they would think"
"they'd say oh yeah this is this is not"
"nothing as far as sand i mean they are"
"quite uh quite heavy right now but"
"that's half the sand that we're going to"
"apply for the course of the 12-month"
"cycle so"
"um there's another another question from"
"tj that i think gets to this point a"
"little bit too micah yeah let's let's"
"answer all the questions right now this"
"is awesome this"
uh
"this is"
"exactly what i wanted the office hours"
"to be is"
"something where we can talk about a"
"technical subject a little bit"
but
"also to have these kind of excellent"
"questions so i'll show tj's question um"
"he's asking about layering um which is"
"an excellent question"
"yep i i i'm glad he asked that because"
um
"you know my"
"my old way of thinking before we did"
"this would have"
been
"would have found that to be concerning"
"too and that would have been the reason"
"i'd say okay i want to put these out on"
"a regular basis um to reduce layering"
"you know visibly i don't see any issues"
"with layering i i haven't i haven't seen"
"that with this you know i guess maybe if"
"i'm really being critical i could look"
"at it and be like okay here's the here's"
"the pre excuse me here's the pre-winter"
"sand um you know here's the may sand it"
"maybe maybe but you know again"
"let's go back to the data we're i'm i'm"
"working to control to grow the least"
"amount of grass possible so that gets"
"into clipping volume and"
"you know rates of pgrs and that sort of"
"thing um amount of nitrogen and and"
"paying attention to to"
"growth potential and not applying"
"you know applying nitrogen based on"
"growth potential"
"and that"
"it is my belief that that controls the"
"growth to a point that we don't um"
"have we're not worrying about a layer so"
"i mean that's a simple way of saying it"
"but again you know it's combining data"
"with visual"
"observations and and saying i i don't"
"think there's a layering problem here"
"and and"
"micah um can you you know comment on on"
"layering a little bit or some of your"
"thoughts on layering and if that how you"
"feel about it because we have had that"
"discussion just a bit"
um
i
"have seen more"
"layering issues where the turf is great"
"then i've seen bad turf"
"that's caused by layering issues so it's"
"obviously layers are something that"
"people should rightly be concerned about"
"but it doesn't necessarily mean that it"
"would be an issue and anybody"
"um i'm not going to bring up your tweet"
"right now where you shared the pictures"
"of those cores when you"
"when you collected the samples on"
"october 11th i think but those were"
"beautiful and uh you know there's roots"
"there's uh consistent coloring through"
"there there's you know it it looks nice"
"uh and it doesn't look like layering so"
just
"i would encourage people just to monitor"
"it but"
"don't be"
"afraid of imaginary"
"things that may not have caused a"
"problem yet"
"i'm here micah do you want me to just i"
"mean yeah can you share you i'm gonna"
"answer you bring you bring that up on"
"your screen i'm gonna answer chris's uh"
"sorry uh eric's question from a long"
"time ago"
"uh eric asked value in spring and fall"
testing
"for courses that are open year-round"
"and when"
"when they're doing cultural practices"
"year-round i"
"you know even in a tropical environment"
"i think only the really high-end courses"
"would need to"
i
"would get a value in in measuring twice"
"a year i"
"i think doing this once a year"
"uh this type of testing is is sufficient"
"because otherwise i think you're you"
"might start chasing numbers and and"
um
"i want to give some time for things to"
"stabilize for the sand that you've"
"applied to"
have
"whatever effect it has for the organic"
"matter accumulation rate to"
"happen uh for for organic matter to"
"develop for organic matter to mineralize"
"that's what i'm looking for um so i like"
"doing this once a year if people want to"
"do it more often that's fine but i don't"
"know that it's absolutely necessary"
"especially if your surfaces are"
"performing well"
"because then you just"
"you can calculate once you start doing"
"this as a time series you can calculate"
"what you need to do for the next year"
"whether you have a year-round growing"
"season and you're doing maintenance"
"year-round or whether you have a"
"a shorter season"
so
"my answer is"
"i don't really see a huge value in it"
"but for high-end courses that really"
"want to know"
"what what the results of your work in"
"the last three or four months have been"
"then you can check that"
"if you want to i think as people do this"
more
"they will"
"come to agree with me that doing it"
"annually is is sufficient"
"all right chris did you"
"i have it ready to go oh sweet"
that's
"that's beautiful"
um
"how do i"
"oh look at that"
"very minimal layering i would say yep"
"yep so so just to answer tj's question"
"you know that that's a plug that"
"last saw sand and that was about the"
"beginning let's say october 10th i took"
this
"and then um you know the last sand prior"
"to that was august um"
third
"and now it has a lot more sand on it but"
"you know nowhere in there could you know"
"maybe if someone's being super critical"
"they could say well that might be you"
"know but i just i just don't think you"
see
"i don't think there's a layering and"
"certainly nothing that's concerning you"
"know another thing"
"that that i i think i've come to uh"
"maybe think of and this is totally"
"anecdotal but something i think um"
"that happens is"
"if you are constantly building sand up"
"on the surface"
"i i think that the you know i see a lot"
"of over top dressing to improve the"
"firmness of the greens and i think that"
"that probably is true"
"to some extent but i also think that in"
"order to really do that that sand needs"
to
"needs to have some"
"amount of"
"organic matter or plant material growing"
"in and amongst it so if you just have a"
"layer of sand sitting up here on the top"
"that that is you know"
"being constantly built throughout the"
"season i wonder if that surface isn't"
"going to be a little bit"
softer
"than if you put down a bunch of sand"
"and then"
"the plants all grow up and through it"
"and the roots and the everything all"
"that plant material um"
"all that plant material become part of"
"there's this matrix of organic material"
"and sand and i think my my feeling is"
that's
"that's firmer than if it's just you know"
"fresh sand always being on top of the of"
"the surface again that's completely"
"anecdotal but but that's um something"
i've
"sort of noticed as as we've gone through"
"these two years of no real in season top"
"dressing is i think the greens are"
"firmer because of that"
"very good chris thank you um"
"let's see we still have a couple more"
"questions i uh"
"youtuber 49 asks about"
"the uh"
"whether the usga profile will be"
"replaced by something better or if it's"
"still a good construction method i'm"
"going to also recommend doug soldat's um"
"uh podcast with"
"the talking green keeper with"
"joe galadi"
"and they've they talked about that they"
"talked about the new greens at marion"
"some innovative construction methods"
"the usga method"
"those recommendations are a standard"
"it doesn't mean it's the best way but"
"everybody knows that it can work"
"i mean my my experience has been and now"
"nine years of managing these usga greens"
"that were pretty new when i got here and"
"and um i think still perform at the at a"
"extremely high level"
"um i think if if you are on top of"
"everything you need to be on top of"
"they're they're quite good um"
"you know but but there's and there's"
"been lots of talk dan dinelli has talked"
"about this the idea that once you start"
"top dressing"
"uh a usga green"
um
"you're sort of leaving the the root zone"
"behind i think we can see that a little"
"bit micah in the testing the the the"
"various you know zero to two two to four"
"and four to six that four to six is just"
"sort of you know it's it's everything's"
"moving down"
"you know what"
"next year when we test part of what was"
"zero to two this year will be two to"
"four next year so there's obviously"
"going to be this movement down"
um
but
"i think if you're staying on top of"
"everything you need to do a usga green"
"is quite"
"quite good and performs the way a person"
"would want it but it does seem to me"
"that i keep looking at the picture of"
"the core here that's why my head is"
"going to that direction but um"
"it it seems to me that if a person would"
um
"not a per but if a system the usga"
"system and it is a system is not being"
"maintained properly or isn't having the"
"right kind of things done to it let's"
"say of course let's just let's just say"
"um a course builds usga greens and then"
"they have some sort of um"
"issue with"
"you know they they don't have the funds"
"then to do the things that need to be"
"done to maintain them properly whatever"
"those things might be"
"i think they will get to be pretty bad"
"quite quickly you know an organic matter"
"would would build up quite quickly on"
"the top if if a situation with a lot of"
"you know over fertilizing let's say"
"over watering and if you get a really"
"heavy layer of organic matter on the top"
"of the usg green that system is not"
"going to perform very well"
um
"so i think it can be"
"quite good but can get"
"can get into trouble quickly too if it's"
"not if it's not um managed properly so"
"um you know it's it's"
"whether it's the best system or not um"
"i don't i don't have that answer but uh"
"you know it's it's here's something i've"
"always thought is interesting"
"if you were to let a course go fallow"
"for a year i think micah you've maybe"
"written about this or shown pictures of"
"courses you go find a course that isn't"
"doesn't exist anymore and has gone away"
"if it all the native soil areas are"
"probably after a year or more are going"
"to be generally okay that turf is going"
"to be alive"
"you could maybe let's say one year of"
"not maintaining that course go back and"
"start to mow the fairways"
and
"you know"
"get a reasonably good product after you"
"know with some work"
"but the greens like a usga green"
"especially if it's usga green is"
"probably they're probably going to be"
dead
"because i there's just no sustainability"
"there like that needs the hand of a turf"
"manager constantly all the time to"
"survive and to be the type of surface"
"that they need to be so in that regard"
"i don't think they're very"
self-sustaining
"but that doesn't mean they don't produce"
"great turf"
"so that that's"
"i guess my"
"way of sitting on the fence on it a"
"little bit maybe"
"yeah i think that's that's really the"
"only way to be about that because"
"there are"
"a lot of different ways to build greens"
"and uh"
"you're right i again"
"there's always uh stuff on my website"
"i'll i'll recommend that again i i think"
"if you search my website you can"
"probably find some pictures of some"
"abandoned golf courses where the putting"
"green is dead"
um
"look for ecology if you search for"
"turfgrass ecology"
"i'm not sure if those are on my new on"
my
"current site but"
"they might be there's i think there's"
"over 500"
"maybe close to"
"i think there's more than 500 posts that"
"are searchable on the news site now i"
"aren't not new it was new a year ago"
current
um
[Music]
"awesome we still have more questions"
"this is unbelievable uh"
"eric's asking again about in the pacific"
"northwest annual bluegrass that can grow"
"november to march in the off season"
"if it's something that that someone is"
"interested in and really wants to know"
"the number and how it changes season by"
season
"i think that could be"
um
"then you can certainly test and measure"
"it i just i always want to simplify i"
"people might think that i like to make"
"things complicated by all this data but"
"i'm really"
"um trying to make things as simple as"
"possible which maybe i don't always"
"convey that but"
"for me sampling once a year now we"
"combine what happens in the"
"in the winter when it's growing we"
"combine what happened during the summer"
"when it's growing and we just look at it"
"every october for example"
"for me"
"that answers all the questions"
"i don't feel like i need to know what it"
"is in june and"
"and again what it is in"
"in october but i think yeah i mean"
"eric's from a tournament venue major"
"championship venue i think"
"um for that kind of facility"
"maybe you do spend a few hundred dollars"
"and do the testing twice a year"
"and then you really know but i'm often"
"thinking more"
"for the average facility i don't know"
"that it's necessary to measure twice a"
year
um
"and john"
"john's asked about native soils fairways"
"and teas"
"that is a"
"a great question whether the om 246"
"testing is applicable to these i know"
"chris you did"
"fairways and approaches this year yep um"
"yes it it's applicable i just i think"
"the most value is on"
"is on putting greens because those are"
"the most intensively maintained surfaces"
"uh but if you're concerned about ball"
"bounce and if you're doing things to"
"manage organic matter on"
"uh i mean i i think teas and approaches"
"fairways yeah it just depends"
"if if you want good surfaces that people"
"are gonna"
"uh stand on when they're teeing off"
"and and especially if it's uh"
"it's like a tournament type of venue"
"then it would make sense to me to to"
"measure this"
"i think and we we talked about that in"
"fact in our report this year you"
"basically said i'm not going to give any"
"recommendations i'm not even going to do"
"any charts because it's one year of"
"information i don't have enough"
"i don't"
"have enough uh"
"background date on this to to give you"
"any kind of recommendation but here's"
"the data now next year we'll have two"
"years and we can start to put it into a"
"time series so it's uh and that's that's"
"something i think you told me"
"uh well you've questioned sometimes"
whether
"you can uh just pull up the cores on"
"fairways right and then spread the sand"
"over the top and and you want them and"
"that's a big operation"
"and that's a lot of sand if you're"
"putting fresh sand or if you're just"
"recycling the sand and"
"and uh"
"it does make sense in that case i think"
"to to measure this a little bit and"
"that's part of the reason i want to do"
"it we're sort of making this transition"
"where i think that our routine's gonna"
"we've top dress fairways out here for"
"many many years there's enough sand"
"built up in the profile of the fairways"
"to pull a plug that is basically"
completely
"uh sandy root zone and then"
"so i want to know okay we're at the"
"beginning of that now"
"if we do that for a couple years how is"
"that impacting uh the"
"the organic matter in the fairways so"
"that's that's kind of why we started"
"doing it so"
"awesome how's your time chris"
"it's interesting anytime i've collected"
"any of this data and i've started doing"
"it and i've gotten over that hurdle of"
"of starting"
"every time i've done it i always have"
"thought to myself i wish i had this from"
"previous years"
"it's you know"
"it always makes me realize that that i"
"can't believe i wasn't doing this before"
so
yeah
"how's your time do you do you want to"
"keep going and shoot through the rest of"
"the report"
"you know i can go for as long as people"
"would want to listen um"
"this is this is a great subject and"
"we're at a nice time of year here in"
"minnesota where"
"my time is um"
"i don't want to say limitless but i"
"i don't i'm not under any sort of"
"strain time strain cool good well let me"
"flip back to the um"
"let me"
"flip back to the chart then"
"it might be good like if we just talked"
"a little bit about how we've come up"
"with the prescribed sand and that might"
"be where you're going the amount of sand"
"for a year"
"that would be very good let's"
"let's look at the report to show what"
"we're trying to achieve and then i'll"
"i'll show how i calculate that"
um
so
"i think i can share that screen there we"
go
um
"so we've got those numbers that compares"
"to species and then"
"so basically everything's fine and the"
"idea is kind of like we want to keep"
"things the"
"kind of where they are"
"and then the next chart i show"
"is um"
"like a scatter plot that identifies the"
"different grains so now the fifth green"
"is i think it's the worst one out there"
"uh in terms of"
"the way the grass"
"the grass doesn't seem very vigorous"
"it's our most difficult green to manage"
"that's that's and that's how i would"
"describe it and it's got the lowest"
"organic matter at the surface and then"
"nine green is in full sun and it's got"
"the most organic matter so nine green is"
"perfect so if i would if i would label"
"those two greens i would say that when i"
"go out to look at greens in you know"
uh
"let's say the weather is you know you're"
"in middle of the summer and the the heat"
"index is 105"
"and i want to go"
"look at a green to see if there's"
"anything that's you know becoming an"
"issue number five is where i would go"
"it's that is our our low end indicator"
"green and number nine would be a green"
"that i would never hardly think about in"
"that regard"
"excellent and this is very typical"
where
"when people"
"do this type of testing the healthiest"
"greens the best performing greens tend"
"to have more organic matter which is"
"and the worst grains tend to have the"
"least because they just don't grow as"
"much and"
"i i or they don't grow they don't"
"produce as much organic material"
"underground and"
"i think that can be a caution against"
"trying to go too low"
so
"here we've got the numbers and then now"
"i'm not showing the background by um"
"by only bank graphs i'm showing"
"everything so for this test on putting"
"greens the organic matter goes up"
"sometimes as high as about 20 percent"
"and then"
"also this shows why we don't do so much"
"testing down at the deeper depth you see"
"there's just very little variability you"
"just go down to two to four centimeter"
"depth that's 0.8 to 1.6 inches you we're"
basically
"uh from from three quarters of an inch"
"down to one and a half inches below the"
"surface it's it's nothing"
"i've i've got a"
"handy sampler here as a as a prop"
"and uh"
"these these lines on here are two"
"centimeters apart so if if this would be"
"the zero to two centimeter depth"
um
"that next step it's it's it's nothing"
"it's it's a tiny tiny bit below the"
surface
"so um"
"as we go down to those depths"
um
"there's very little variability and you"
"go down to the four to six centimeter"
"depth there they're quite close"
"so we're not worried about that so much"
"but we do want to make sure that at the"
"surface it's uh"
it's
"staying relatively consistent so then"
"let me bring up a different screen"
"and i'll show how we calculate this"
"so it turns that there's a surprising"
"amount of uh"
complexity
"there's a surprising amount of"
complexity
in
this
"in terms of math"
"so i'm going to"
"go to"
"the shiny apps"
and
"i've got a calculator for this"
the
"om246 calculator"
so
"what this does is calculates the organic"
"matter accumulation rate i think"
"not everybody knows about this"
"or thinks about this completely"
"do they chris i mean when when you first"
"start doing this you're probably"
"thinking about what the organic"
"matter is what the total organic what"
"the number is going to be when you do"
"the test"
but
"and then everybody wants to know how"
"much sand should i apply well"
"i can tell you if you apply this much"
sand
"last week what your organic matter will"
"be right now"
but
"after the grass grows in april may june"
"and july you have some organic matter"
"accumulation and that"
"is it's difficult to know but we can"
"figure it out by doing this organic"
"matter testing over time and that's what"
"this calculator does"
"it's all"
oops
"it's showing the wrong"
hmm
"i'm gonna"
"i'm gonna try again to share my screen"
"it's not sharing the one i thought i was"
"shiny abs"
"that must have opened in a different uh"
window
"oh i"
"wait a second"
sorry
"this is the beauty of this is the beauty"
"of live recording"
yeah
"then this is totally my first time doing"
"this too but"
this
"should be the app"
"i can't believe the internet has worked"
"all through this time all right so right"
here
"here's a tiny app that that has the"
calculator
so
"i'll jump to the om accumulation rate"
part
"so it's just showing some default stuff"
"but let's let's change some things so"
"i'm going to change the we're just"
"concerned about the top two centimeters"
"so i'm going to change that to two"
"you were 4.9 weren't you chris yep yep"
so
"you were 4.9 last year and you were 4.9"
"this year so this is now"
um
"going to calculate the organic matter"
"accumulation rate which is really"
"important because we need to know"
"how rapidly it's accumulating before we"
"can figure out how much sand to apply"
"then the date range was one year i'm not"
"going to change it it was october to"
october
"this is still 12 months"
"and you two what did you apply 5.2 or"
"something i was just above five like 5.3"
"or something like that but this is where"
"it gets tricky because a lot of that"
"went in with the dry eject"
"and so i guess that right at the surface"
"the amount that stayed at the surface"
"might be three i think that's what yep"
"that's what i recall you saying so i"
"think that's what i did so i'll change"
"that to three"
"and now it says that your organic matter"
"accumulation rate was 9.1 grams"
"per kilogram of soil per year which is"
"interesting to know"
but
um
"and there's a surprising amount of math"
"behind it"
"but now we just calculated that you"
"can't do anything with that except when"
"we plug that math in also"
"to the"
"the next tab here the sand requirement"
"so now it's"
"it's it's remembering that we're working"
"with the two centimeter"
"soil layer you can change this if you"
"want to but it's remembering that we"
"were at two we're currently at 4.9 we'd"
"like to stay at about 4.9"
and
"it it brings in what our"
"accumulation rate was which is 9.1 grams"
"per kilogram"
"and we want to be a year from now we'd"
"like to be the same so it's saying that"
"you need to put 2.6 millimeters of sand"
"into the top two centimeters over the"
"next year given"
"the accumulation given that the"
"accumulation rate we've calculated from"
"last year"
um
"is the same accumulation rate that you"
"would have next year that that's how"
"that works so"
"i probably put something similar to that"
"in the report but anybody can can do"
this
"with the"
"calculator that you can also find on the"
"asian turfgrass website"
"um there's some some great i don't know"
"if you saw them michael as you were"
"doing that but jason and eric and um"
"andrew had some great commentary"
"uh andy's probably staying up quite late"
"that's past your bedtime andrew"
wow
"had some some commentary about uh"
aerating
"you know in that"
"and and if we're gonna"
"poke holes and put sand in there does it"
"make sense to just do it you know keep"
"it in the two centimeter depth it to me"
"it seems like it does"
"because as i as i look at what you just"
"came up with there micah if we're gonna"
apply
um
five
"five millimeters of sand because we had"
"talked about five millimeters being an"
"amount but then i think you also split"
"that into"
"three millimeters in the top two"
"centimeters and two millimeters would"
"we're just assuming he's going to go"
"below that from some sort of"
"verification holes um"
"okay well let's let's just"
"as maybe like a thought exercise if if"
"cause i just applied"
"leading into winter 2.5 millimeters of"
"sand to the surface"
"in two lifts let's say two two"
"applications one application each of one"
"point two five millimeters"
"so in theory in theory if that's all we"
"did for the year between"
"between now and the next time that we"
um
"do our testing in october in theory that"
"that should keep us level without having"
"to worry about"
"any sand going into the"
profile
"uh it would be interesting to see if"
"that's the case now that doesn't account"
"for the idea that at some point we might"
"want to make make some holes and put"
"some sand into there in there i'm not"
"saying we"
we
"you know i don't know if we do need to"
"do that um"
"at some point i'd like to find out but"
"you know i know that's what andrew's"
"stayed away from"
"it's it's interesting i mean like"
uh
"some of these things are pretty crude"
calculations
um
"but we can certainly"
"test it and see how it how it works it's"
"like now now i start thinking about"
"layering and stuff like that that i just"
"said is it's not a problem but then it's"
"like yeah if if you talk to us once a"
year
"and uh"
"as you do this and and see how the"
"surfaces perform and get the data to"
"confirm that things are not going"
"completely haywire"
"you can start getting ideas of things"
"that you never thought were possible"
"yeah suddenly you start to wonder"
"whether it might be possible like andrew"
"this year"
"was only able to get one top dressing"
down
and
"one top dressing in the year and the"
"greens performed great so"
"those kind of things that i never would"
"have thought that was possible i would"
"have recommended to apply six or eight"
"times that much sand"
and
"now all of a sudden i start to think"
"yeah maybe you can do it with once a"
"year maybe you can do it"
"with very little well and so you know if"
"i think about that bobble test chart"
"let's just say let's say in theory that"
"we decided okay the 2.5 millimeters of"
"sand that we just put down heading into"
winter
"is is we're gonna go with that we're"
"gonna roll with that amount because we"
"think that that will keep our om in the"
"top two centimeters where it needs to be"
um
"over the course of the year and then"
"just roll with that as our as our our"
"practices for the year maybe we needle"
"time if we feel like we need to open up"
"a hole on the surface so maybe there's"
"something like that that happens but"
"there's no big verification event and"
"then i look at that bobble test and i go"
"okay we come out of winter and we"
"quickly get to eight and then we quickly"
"get to nine and then we just stay at"
"nine until the end of the year"
"in theory in theory um who is going to"
"complain about that i'm not i hate air"
"fine i hate it"
"you know i don't get excited about that"
"process at all"
um
"but again"
"the testing would say would tell you are"
"you is there undue harm being done"
"because i know that that would be the"
"concern you know other"
"colleagues of mine would think about"
"something like that and hear that and"
"just think oh they just shudder thinking"
"i can't not do a verification"
"i think there's also some concern that"
"if you don't do it this year"
"then is that going to become the"
"expectation in years"
"in in in coming years and then you lose"
"that opportunity to do it um you know"
"that needs to be concerned"
"yeah i've i've heard that one i yeah"
"that's that's not my favorite argument"
"because i'm just like man who's gonna"
"complain about"
"skipping something"
"when you might have to do it in the"
"future but"
"if we can if we make the greens better"
"this year by not verifying why"
"why is that a bad thing"
right
but
"yeah that's an argument i've heard too"
"so i want to show one more thing on the"
"chart and then maybe we can have an open"
"discussion um and then then wind this up"
um
"i'm gonna"
"i'm gonna figure out this"
screen
"share thing again"
"that was not"
"uh this one's this one's gonna be right"
though
"so i'm gonna i'm gonna share the report"
"and show something else that has"
"slightly less complicated math but that"
"is is brilliant um"
"i think"
so
"a lot of people are familiar with the"
"research that dr carro did in in the 90s"
"and uh"
"early 2000s some"
"funded research"
"looking at"
"organic matter in"
"the surface layer of bent grass greens"
"he also looked a little bit at ultra"
"dwarf bermuda grass greens and but see"
"he did that on uh knotted at zero to two"
"centimeter depth not at a zero to one"
"inch depth he did it at a zero to two"
"inch depth"
"and so now we're talking about something"
"that's from zero down to two 2.4"
"no zero to 5.4 centimeters below the"
surface
and
um
"is that right"
"something like that"
"it's getting very late for me too"
"i think"
"i think something something like that"
"uh so anyway we can make that"
"calculation because we're measuring at"
"zero to two we're measuring it two to"
"four we're measuring it four to six so"
"we've gone all the way down below"
"zero to two inches"
"so we've got that entire layer we can we"
"can estimate what the"
"little difference will be there's a"
"slight overlap when we go from the two"
"to four into four to six so we use some"
"math to to calculate that and we can"
estimate
"well i mean basically we've measured it"
"and then we just do a calculation to"
"figure out what the zero to two inch"
"is and so dr carroll said if you're over"
"four percent that is an indication that"
"you might have a problem especially on"
"bent grass greens in the american"
"southeast in the summer"
"and bent grass greens"
would
"they're difficult to manage in that type"
"of climate and they can fail pretty bad"
"when it gets hot that when there's not"
"enough oxygen in the root zone when"
"there's too much"
"too much water in the root zone not"
"enough pore space you get big problems"
"so he he put the number four percent out"
there
"as a upper limit that might be safe and"
"so i show that last because i think"
"people would be interested in this also"
"so i make that calculation i just"
"started doing this on the reports this"
"year and you can see for"
"for hazeltine"
"with all so now now we're looking at the"
"effects of your dry jacks the effects of"
"when you're putting the solid tine and"
"and um"
"and filling those holes with sand we're"
"looking at what's happening at the"
"surface we're looking at the entire"
"effect through um this depth"
and
"this is going from 2.5 2.5 2.9 2.9 so"
"it's staying flat all through that depth"
"i'm sorry i"
"this this particular chart is showing"
"from 0 to six centimeter depth i i make"
"the calculation from zero to uh"
"two inches in the footnote"
"and so where you're at"
uh
"in october of 2011 you were at 3.3"
"in in the if that's expressed on a"
"two-inch basis but um the chart i'm"
"showing everything down to six"
"centimeters so i think this is kind of"
"cool because now you're looking at"
"what's happening with the sand that"
"you're putting down below the surface"
"too and to see that just staying flat"
"with basically you're only disrupting"
"the greens a few times a year it's"
"it's a nice reassurance i think that"
"that what you're doing is not causing"
"organic matter to accumulate too much"
"yeah i i will say too and we've seen if"
"people are recalling the charts from"
"before you can see"
"from the first two times we tested to"
"the to the third time we tested there's"
"a jump there"
"and i will say that after um"
"in 2017 and 2018 i i i"
"kept the greens very lean and that this"
"was sort of before"
"that was when i started clip volume"
"and i would say that"
um
"this could be another two hour"
"discussion but we've we've talked a"
"little bit of micah you and i before"
"about how what are measurements a target"
"or are they to inform decisions and i"
"think when i started doing that clipping"
"volume i was i was focusing a little bit"
"more on it being a target"
"and so in 2017 and 2018 the first two"
"years i was doing that i was sort of"
"focused on like keeping that clipping"
"volume number low"
"and really low and"
"and i think in that regard i think we"
"had some um"
"surfaces that weren't ideal because they"
"were too lean and there wasn't we"
"weren't growing enough grass for"
"you know"
"in simplistic terms and so those organic"
"matter numbers are a little bit lower at"
"the beginning of that and then they come"
"up a little bit as we just grew a little"
"bit more grass"
"but i that's one thing i'm really happy"
about
"this comparing this year's results to"
"last year's"
results
"is growing more grass"
"applying the sand that we did on a sort"
"of prescribed"
"in a prescribed manner and getting that"
"number to stay where we want it to stay"
"is something that's really encouraging"
that's
"that's very good i"
"i think this is an exciting time in turf"
"grass management because"
"we keep finding"
"ways to produce great surfaces with"
"less work i think it's pretty cool i"
"i was emailing back and forth with"
"bjarni today"
"he also collected samples i think on"
"october 11th so i've sent him a om246"
report
"some weeks ago and"
"he and i"
"have both been a little bit busy so we"
"didn't really chat about it until today"
"and i asked him how much sand he put he"
"put 3.2 millimeters of sand"
"and he's uh clipping volume this year"
"was about uh"
three
"three liters per square meter"
"3000 000"
um
"cubic centimeters per um"
"3 000 cubic centimeters per"
"per square meter or"
"what would that be"
"i i stopped thinking about it in terms"
"of 100 square meters but maybe"
um
"but i"
"i wouldn't be able to do that let me i'm"
"looking at my charts to see if i can get"
"that number from"
"out of my data somewhere"
"but it turns out to be something that"
"that matches exactly with the research"
"that was done at rutgers when they did"
"all that research about anthracnose um"
"they did not measure clipping volume but"
"they reported what their nitrogen rates"
"were and they reported exactly how much"
"sand was applied and and we know what"
"the climate is like at those research"
"plots we know what the temperatures are"
"like so based on that i can"
"predict approximately how much clipping"
"volume they probably got from the amount"
"of nitrogen that they applied because"
"you'd expect a certain maximum growth"
"rate the grass can't grow any more than"
"that so we expect a maximum growth rate"
"for the amount of nitrogen applied we"
"know exactly how much sand was applied"
"and we know what the temperatures were"
"so based on that i guessed that for"
"every one"
"milliliter cubic centimeter of clippings"
"that you harvest per square meter you"
"it might make sense to apply"
"one cubic centimeter of sand and it"
"turns out that's basically exactly what"
"bjarni's done and his uh his organic"
"matter there in iceland is right in the"
"range that stri recommends that the rna"
"recommend that they're they're shooting"
"for for their open championship venues"
"um right in between four percent and six"
"percent in the top two centimeters"
that's
i
"i don't generally recommend specific"
"ranges for anyone uh"
"or for everyone i don't recommend for"
"everyone to be like that because i think"
"it should be done on a course-by-course"
basis
but
"certainly it's quite comforting to know"
"that he's applying a relatively minimal"
"amount of sand that it matches the"
"approximate growth rate he's getting and"
"he also happens to have a"
"om2 value that's right"
"like at an open championship type of"
level
"all right chris we lost your camera"
"are you uh"
"maybe he's maybe he's got a phone call"
"okay i'm gonna check the chat real quick"
uh
my
"this is"
"this is great to have so many people"
contributing
"the information i i agree with everyone"
"about uh"
just
"just punching holes really really"
"shallow and just filling those with sand"
it
"based on these numbers we just don't see"
"so much happening down at the"
"two to four centimeter depth or the uh"
"four to"
"six centimeter depth so it it seems like"
"we could do quite well with uh"
"just getting a lot of sand right into"
"the surface"
and
okay
"all right"
"well everyone i"
"uh i don't see chris i maybe he had to"
"take a phone call i'll i'll stay on here"
"a couple more minutes in case anybody"
"has any more questions"
"okay chris sent me a message he he had"
"to leave the office he said he's going"
"to be right back"
"there he is hey"
"i'm back so i stayed on i answered it"
"i made a few comments but one of the"
"disadvantages of me doing this in the"
"morning is that i've had"
"about 16 ounces of"
"bulletproof coffee"
"and you know"
which
"doesn't allow me to go for a two-hour"
"period without using the restroom so"
"okay well good good"
"welcome back micah you've had my coffee"
"right we had some in in 2019 i was very"
"glad to have it thank you it's delicious"
"do you still do the coconut are you"
"doing butter what are you putting in um"
"so butter um about two tablespoons this"
"is about 16 ounces about two tablespoons"
"of butter two tablespoons of mct oil"
"and then a scoop of of collagen powder"
"and then i blend it with a"
"immersion blender"
"and it's um as you can attest it's it's"
"it's quite good and then that'll be kind"
"of my"
"sustenance for most of the morning and"
"early afternoon so"
that's
"that's excellent i think phil mickelson"
"has become"
"he's that's kind of his mixture as well"
"i'm not mistaken so"
"yeah coffee is coffee is delicious i"
"drink a lot of it we were just up in"
"northern thailand"
where
"at the higher elevations around chiang"
"rai kind of the golden triangle area"
"where there used to be a lot of opium"
"poppy production and now there's tea and"
"arabica coffee and various other types"
"of agriculture there but"
"just some splendid"
"coffees really"
"flavorful arabica that you can get and"
"just coffee shop after coffee shop in"
"these towns so"
"that was that was enjoyable"
yeah
"i did you talk some of these discussion"
"that jason and and steve and"
"those and eric were having about"
"yeah i i agree that"
uh
"it makes sense to me to just punch a lot"
"of holes"
"at the very shallow depth and fill them"
"with sand because"
"there's just not much happening down"
below
"um so"
"if you don't have a compaction problem"
"if you don't have other reasons why you"
"need to"
"decompact or or make holes down deeper"
"if we just consider this only from a"
"organic matter perspective"
"then it doesn't make sense to do"
"anything below two centimeters"
"yep i agree that's that's kind of what"
"we're thinking about"
"um you know now i'm really intrigued"
"though i'm wondering if our our 2.5"
"millimeters just on the surfaces"
"is enough but we'll see"
"we'll see"
"yeah i think"
if
"if you keep the growth rate under"
control
um
it
"it probably is"
"is pretty close i think"
"it's like chasing your tail"
to
"keep trying like i i used to recommend"
"people put 12 to 15 millimeters of sand"
"right that's uh 40 to 50"
"cubic feet"
"maybe not in your climate but in in"
"warmer climates"
"i'd recommend 12 to 15 millimeters which"
"is 40 to 50 cubic feet per"
"thousand square feet per year and now"
"we're talking about numbers last year"
"you put five something i said bjarni put"
"uh three"
two
um
"andrew put"
"one i think this year so"
"now we're talking uh single digits and"
"pretty much everybody's less than five"
"so these numbers are such a departure"
"from the the way that i used to"
recommend
um
it
"it's it's striking and i never would"
"have thought this is possible but now"
"people do this get good results and then"
"you start thinking"
"maybe by putting such a small amount of"
sand
we
"we don't have to grow the grass so fast"
"so then we don't need such an organic"
"matter accumulation rate"
"i think sometimes people are doing so"
"much work that they"
"they're maintaining the grass at a at a"
"growth rate which produces an organic"
"matter accumulation rate but they're"
"they're they're maintaining it at a"
"growth rate that seems normal"
right
"but that normal is based on they're"
"punching holes and spreading sand that"
"the grass needs to recover from"
"or or verticating right some some people"
"like to rip the grass up and vertical a"
lot
"and that requires the grass to grow"
"but if if you're"
"not doing those things you're able to"
"grow the grass at a slower rate it may"
be
"that that allows"
"for a lower organic matter accumulation"
"rate so this all just kind of"
"uh works"
maybe
"it's a little bit uh"
"yeah it's it's like a self-fulfilling"
"thing almost in that"
you
"do all this work"
"and then it requires is are you doing"
"all this work because you're growing so"
"much grass or you're growing so much"
"grass because you're doing all this work"
"and and my experience has come to to be"
that
"we're growing all that grass because"
"we're doing all that work and the work"
"can be reduced"
"allowing the grass growth to be reduced"
"as well"
"keeping the quality from and the quality"
"doesn't drop i think you know again we"
"we talked about this again but i think"
"that this is the crux of the matter"
"and carl asked this question"
"people are fearful of stopping doing the"
work
"because they think that that means that"
"their surface quality will deteriorate"
"but i don't think they realize that if"
"they stop doing all the work"
"all of the other things that they'll"
"also be able to stop doing"
"um all of the other things but maybe not"
but
"the other things that they will stop"
"being able to do the amount of of"
"fertilizer they'll be able to"
reduce
uh
"fertilizer nitrogen inputs that be able"
"to reduce and and the"
"improvement in quality that comes from"
that
"you know i think again you know there's"
"multiple ways to get to the a good"
"surface quality"
"uh absolutely you know i'm not saying"
"this is the best way to do it"
"but what i know from listening to our"
golfers
"is that they don't they just want to"
"play golf when we open"
"the golf course on april 15th they want"
"to just play on without being disrupted"
"from april 15th until"
"whatever 5th 4th october 31st they just"
"want to play undisrupted we have roughly"
"170 days of golf that will be open"
"and of those 170 days let's say 30 of"
"them you toss out because the weather's"
"crummy and people wouldn't play or it's"
"too cold or it's it's a thunderstorm"
"that results in a rain out on a"
"particular day so now we're down to"
"about 140 days"
"now how many of those days can can we"
perfect
"the the quality of the surface for our"
"golfers that's that's what i'm looking"
"at um can we do 140 maybe not but i"
"think we can get pretty close to that"
"and that that's kind of that's the goal"
"of all this for me yeah i"
"i saw kaya keeper"
"mentioned that"
"if you"
"if you don't have maintenance mondays"
"and i think in japan"
"golf courses are usually open"
"all all week so"
"there's no maintenance monday and then"
"you have a couple tournaments"
"he happens to have a"
"warm season grass on the greens with one"
"pro tournament in june another one in"
"august so it's like you don't have"
"mondays to do the work you and and you"
"can't really do the work because during"
"the growing season you have tournaments"
"and it kind of fixes itself so that's"
"that's a joke but uh it's funny that uh"
"it did kind of fix itself there and we"
"we found out that it works there um so"
"that's pretty cool"
"i might say that you know a pandemic and"
"just sort of wanting to not uh"
"i don't know it it kind of that whole"
"last year just kind of froze me and i"
"just like it was weird but i didn't want"
"to do"
"anything it's not that i didn't do"
"anything but it just like"
"my my mind was was so focused on the"
"fact that it reduced risk in every"
"possible way and you know i look back on"
"it now and i think how could how could"
"like the idea of top dressing greens"
reduce
"risk of cova they couldn't it couldn't"
"but you know at the time at that time"
"you know nobody knew exactly what the"
"real risks of the almost anything we"
"were doing were and again it's not that"
"top dressing greens was particularly"
"risky but there was just we were just"
"trying to do everything so simple we had"
"fewer staff we had people riding around"
"on on you know a cart by themselves"
"trying to stay as far away from other"
"people as they could"
"and it just sort of led to this"
"mentality of you know doing less and one"
"of the things we did last was top dress"
"greens and by accident we almost found"
"out wow look at what the quality of"
"these surfaces were when there wasn't"
sand
"right there that the rollers and mowers"
"were just smashing the grass the leaf"
"blades into all season long so"
"i think"
"something that"
i
"have noticed i wrote an article about"
"this from my column in golf course"
"management magazine"
was
"what i've learned from tournaments"
"and something that we can learn from"
"tournaments is they don't do deep and"
"infrequent irrigation during the week of"
"a tournament"
"they don't spread granular fertilizer"
"during the week of a tournament they try"
"to minimize clip volume during the week"
"of a tournament"
um
"they definitely do light infrequent"
"irrigation if necessary during the week"
"of a tournament they don't did i say"
"they don't airfy they don't they have no"
"need to vent the greens right the grass"
"doesn't need spa day during the week of"
"a tournament"
and
"they don't spread sand unless it's an"
"emergency during the week of a"
"tournament um so there's a lot of things"
"that um"
"that i've learned from watching how"
"tournament play is and then saying wait"
"if we're trying to produce tournament"
"conditions all the time or like you're"
"saying trying to hit this really high"
"standard of"
uh
"playing surface for the season of the"
"year when the golfers can play you said"
"140 days or something it's maybe the"
target
uh
well
"then then you want to be doing things"
"like not top dressing not venting"
"uh all the things that you do during a"
"tournament minimizing clipping volume"
um
"you know so so to do that you don't put"
"so much fertilizer and so on so it's uh"
"it's it's an interesting way to think"
"because i used to swear by deep and"
"infrequent irrigation"
"to the point that i"
"to the point that i caused problems with"
"turf this is back when i was a golf"
"course superintendent andrew knows or k"
"a keeper as he styles himself here on"
"the internet to be"
"somewhat anonymous but i think i just"
"dropped his name sorry about that"
keeper
"but you know we"
"kept it so dry when he he was working"
"with me at habu country club that was"
"usga greens uh pen cross creeping bank"
grass
"we didn't really use wetting agent we'd"
"let it get so dry then we couldn't"
"re-wet it and it was all because i was"
"trying to do"
"deep and infrequent and we would have"
"had i mean and also jason haynes i think"
"discovered that the grass is just better"
"when you"
"irrigate it and maintain the i i have"
"found the same thing yeah i had the same"
"idea about watering fairways when i got"
"here when i came from northland to here"
"and i've totally changed 180 degrees you"
"know when the fairways need are dry and"
"need water now i will water"
"the areas that are dry and need water"
"every night that's not the entire"
"fairway program but it's the areas that"
"need it and they get that water every"
"night as opposed to um you know start"
"you know keeping them and it's small"
"amounts like six to eight minutes of run"
"time a night so but our surfaces are are"
"better quality visually um"
"just a better overall turf but"
"just as if not firmer than um they were"
"when i was trying to do this uh deep and"
"infrequent and i've seen you you talked"
"i remember you talked about that here in"
"in minneapolis micah about that and you"
"had a chart that showed actually how"
"much less"
uh
"the moisture content can be when you do"
"um you know frequent light frequent"
"irrigation over time as opposed to you"
"know a lot and then let it sit but yeah"
"yeah doug doug soldat taught me that"
um
"he was visiting thailand in 2009"
"for the"
"for the conference"
"and uh"
"it was it was interesting"
"that he told me just like offhand he's"
"like you know you can use less water if"
"you irrigate light infrequent"
"and i was like no no no that can't be"
"right i know it i mean it was all the"
"way until 2009 i kept thinking that"
"you'd use less water and everything"
"would be better ideally if you do deep"
"and infrequent and he just kind of"
"offhandedly mentioned this and then i"
"worked through the calculations and it's"
"like oh my god yeah if if you apply a"
"little bit of water every day you"
"theoretically can keep"
"you can apply less water and keep the"
"soil dryer and do it safely"
"if you average everything out over time"
"there's a question from youtuber 49"
"about volume of play and i don't know if"
he's
"if he's uh asking the question of his"
"fellow commenters or if he's asking the"
"question of us but"
"i you know hazeltine is a course that"
"gets quite a bit of play close to 25 000"
"rounds over those um let's say 170 140"
"to 170 days that were open"
"um so that's that's quite a bit of play"
"and i've noticed that with sand not"
"being constantly present on the surface"
"of greens our resilience to traffic is"
"much better"
"and that goes for both golfer traffic"
"and roller traffic especially"
"i have in my first few years here we"
would
"see that we deteriorated the edges of"
"greens with the rollers"
"quite a bit"
"and in the last two years without top"
"dressing in season"
"or minimal top dressing in season we"
"have not seen that reduction in quality"
"from the rollers they can go out every"
"single day"
"and roll to the edges without any"
"trouble and don't diminish that quality"
"at all so that's one type of traffic and"
"then golfer traffic"
"is is also quite substantial here"
"especially on on some greens we we"
"talked about the fifth green earlier"
"and um that fifth green has a it's a"
"way that its shape a shape to it and a"
"nature to it that forces a lot of"
"traffic into a very small area"
"and so we see some"
traffic
"impact as we go through the season but"
"it's less and in fact"
"prior to these last two years"
"i was oftentimes applying supplemental"
"nitrogen to various areas of putting"
surfaces
"that got a lot of traffic whether it be"
"edges from rollers or areas that golfers"
"tended to go and these last two seasons"
"the the two seasons without the"
"in-season top dressing"
"we've had to hardly do that at all um so"
"again that's a little bit anecdotal but"
"i think that um"
"i think that the traffic resiliency of"
"and of our"
"surfaces has gone way up without that"
"sand always being there and"
"being sort of uh"
"pressed into the the leaves being"
"pressed into that that sand"
"we got another question um"
from
tj
"this is nice and controversial"
"he says micah i've seen a couple passing"
"comments from you on twitter"
"and a bit here now about the need for"
"needle tining for potential gas exchange"
"is this a practice"
"losing value in your opinion recently"
"yeah it"
"it definitely loses value in my opinion"
because
"there's two recent research articles one"
"from north carolina on bent grass"
"well and the other one's not so recent"
"but i blogged about it earlier this year"
it's
"it was published in the"
"usgs turf and environmental research"
"online in like"
"2011 or something"
"i've blogged about both of those so you"
"can find it on on my website"
"both of those"
found
"that venting bank grass so that the the"
"older one is from virginia from i think"
"from the richmond area"
"and the other one is from north carolina"
"both of those very hot stressful"
"environment for bent grass"
"in the summer time and"
"both of those venting did nothing so"
"uh so then i'm like"
"why did i think this was so essential"
"why did i think it's something that you"
"should do like at least once a month"
"better yet twice a month during the"
"summer and if you have"
problems
"if the grass is under stress why did i"
"think that it would be like"
"something that you'd do instantly and"
"then do it weekly or something until you"
"nurse the greens back to health and yet"
"i'm now i'm seeing this research that"
"says it it had no measurable effect so i"
"started looking and i'd gone to a"
"seminar of milt engleke in"
"i think in dallas maybe back in 2001 the"
"gis show in"
"i think that was 2001."
"it is getting late here and"
"i've been up since about five so my"
"my mind doesn't uh"
"continue my train of thought always but"
"in i think i've been to a seminar on on"
"bent grass root zone management or"
"something or uh i'd heard him speak with"
authority
"of of the benefit that you get from"
"venting from from needle dining"
"so i search all the academic turfgrass"
"databases the tgif the turfgrass"
"information file at michigan state"
"i searched that"
"for ranting and milt angle key aeration"
"milled angle key and"
"i mean probably i'm totally missing it"
"and somebody's gonna call me out and say"
"micah this is the paper you're looking"
"for um so if you have that please let me"
"know but i didn't find it so he"
"basically he was talking about this but"
"maybe didn't have a lot of data to"
"show it so of course air is important"
"um too much water is important lack of"
"air space is"
"is a massive problem but in a sand-based"
"root zone i think we often"
"are doing okay and the venting maybe is"
"just making us feel better"
"but it may not be having an effect so"
"well i i i become skeptical i become"
skeptical
"i i've i've been one who would um"
"who would would"
vent
"needle time based on you know this idea"
"that i was seeing some sort of surface"
"decline that i i was"
"concerned about"
"and i would react i was sort of reacting"
"to that with the needle tiny and"
"thinking that that was going to help us"
and
"you know if it did or um"
"didn't i don't know but i've done it"
"less the last two years because we've"
"not seen the surface decline and i've"
"not then felt like that's a practice"
"that we need to do"
"and again that goes because in my"
"opinion because we've had less sand on"
"the surface during the season when we're"
"intensely managing the greens"
"rolling doing some combination of"
"rolling and mowing every day"
and
and
"and i just haven't felt the need to do"
"it based on a visual assessment of what"
"the turf looks like and it hasn't caused"
"us any sort of issues there is a a i"
"guess a statement from jeff whitmer near"
"with meyer"
"i don't disagree with that i would say"
"um i we had a situation this year"
"actually i was talking about"
"infiltration earlier"
"um we had a situation this year during"
"one of our club"
"major club events"
"in which we had not had rain for a"
"number of weeks and we were managing the"
"greens really"
"at a"
"championship type level hand watering a"
"little bit of overhead irrigation when"
"necessary but we had the greens exactly"
"where we want them to be to performing"
"the way that we wanted and we got"
"a not a lot of rain but a sort of an"
"intense rain shower"
"during play on the last day that kind of"
"came up out of nowhere and the greens"
"instantly became unplayable"
"um because there was um"
"you know sort of a what just what jeff"
"describes almost like a lack of"
"infiltration due to the intenseness of"
"the man the the managing and the lack of"
"rainfall over the last three weeks"
"and so the greens quickly became"
"unplayable because of almost puddling or"
"surface water but then it was almost"
"like once the"
"the green accepted that moisture and the"
"rainfall slowed down and infiltrated"
"then it continued to rain and it was not"
"a problem"
so
"i i wouldn't disagree with what jeff"
"says that there might be instances of of"
"that where you go a long period of time"
"without any natural rainfall and you've"
"been doing a lot of intense maintenance"
"and and uh needle tanning could could"
"help that uh sort of situation"
"yeah i'm i'm the wrong person to ask"
"about infiltration because i'm just not"
"a big fan like like"
i
"i want to see where"
"where the infiltration is such a problem"
"that you you have to cancel tee times"
"and you know that's what i'm concerned"
"about and i just"
"i agree with jeff that"
that
"you're gonna get more infiltration if"
"you vent but"
"like how much infiltration do you need"
"do you have to do you have the"
"infiltration blocked so much that tee"
"times get"
"postponed i i"
"i don't know i mean andrew andrew sorry"
"kay keeper brought this up with me too"
he
"he was"
i
"encouraged him to stop punching so many"
"holes also because the"
"uh i noticed the ball was snaking a"
"little bit that's part of something that"
"you measure with the bauble test"
um
"maybe in 2015 or something"
"the 2015 kbc augusta tournament"
"he'd done uh you know we both mutually"
"agreed that it would be great to do some"
"verification i forget if it was hollow"
"titan or solitaire in in june or early"
"july then he rushed to get it ready for"
"the tournament the last week of august"
"i was there measuring with the stent"
meter
"and and i wasn't measuring the bubble"
"test at that time but i could see some"
"snaking and i noticed that pointed it"
"out to andrew and i'm like"
"i think maybe you shouldn't be punching"
"so many holes and and his justification"
was
i
uh
"i'm really concerned about the"
"infiltration rate and"
"he's he's really cut back on punching"
"holes and actually he told me recently i"
"think he told me this year that there"
"just haven't been big issues with"
"infiltration rate so it turned out he"
"was quite concerned about it but then it"
"uh it turned out to not be a big deal"
"because like if it rains hard enough"
"that they get water puddling on the"
"greens that you can't play the whole"
"course is unplayable"
"um it's it's not it's not that the"
"greens would be unplayable and the rest"
"of the course is playable"
"right so yeah so"
"this example that i gave of that"
"tournament we had this year where they"
"quickly became unplayable and we had to"
"stop golf there was no lightning the it"
"was really almost not even raining hard"
"enough that"
"that you would have had to stop play but"
"they had to stop play because this the"
"surface uh water was"
that
"is just such a rarity that i don't know"
"if a person could ever or would ever"
"want to account for that and and"
"honestly once"
"you know so yes because the course was"
"full and they were playing a tournament"
"all the golfers had to leave they went"
"in and they were in for an hour hour and"
"a half or whatever it was by the time"
"they went back out"
"it continued to rain and the greens were"
"were perfectly playable"
"so yeah i you know if if um"
"if i'm putting together the things that"
"a golfer is going to um vote on let's"
"say vote with or the the type of course"
"conditions that they're going to"
"see and make a note of and decide"
"whether the course is good because of"
that
"i think that infiltration would fall"
"pretty low on that list and it probably"
"would be in some category that doesn't"
"doesn't even come into account unless"
"there's some weird situation like we had"
"during that tournament this year"
"and you know that was the only time in"
"nine years that i've been here that"
"we've had that situation"
"uh come up so i sub"
"po and to me"
"that wouldn't be enough of a reason to"
"needletown on a regular basis to avoid"
"that one in nine years or one in ten"
"years type of situation and again and"
"i'm not saying people should you know if"
"i'm not saying people shouldn't do it"
"but as i made the statement earlier"
"if you're going to do it then i think"
"you should really know the reason you"
are
"the reason for that you know"
"know what it is if somebody comes to you"
"and says why are you doing this"
"be able to tell them"
"exactly why you're doing it and if"
"infiltration is one of those reasons"
"then i think that's just fine but you"
"have to assess whether that's a need at"
"your course or not i guess"
"yeah i i used to think i knew"
"what it was accomplishing which is why i"
"recommended it and uh"
"and now i'm"
it's
"it's sort of like yeah you're punching a"
"hole you're sort of"
"making it easier for water to go in but"
"does it does it do anything for the"
"long-term health of the"
"of the sword i"
"i'm not nearly as confident about that"
"as i used to be"
"all right uh"
chris
"i thank you so much for your time um"
"i think we covered your report and a lot"
more
that
"exceeded my expectations for the"
"the quantity of things we could talk"
"about and the great"
"uh advice and questions we got from from"
"people in the comments so i"
"if if anybody hasn't noticed i'm uh"
"trying to do a little bit more on"
"youtube produce a little bit more video"
"content and one of the series this is"
"going to be a series the atc office"
"hours where i occasionally can meet with"
"some people and"
"talk about some technical things i i"
"guess kind of like things that that we'd"
"have on a one-on-one conversation like"
"like i do with many of you with many of"
"you in the chat"
"but just make some of this information"
public
"and just put it out there for future"
reference
so
"it's it's good i i really appreciate it"
"chris thank you and yeah well uh thanks"
"thanks for inviting me i guess honored"
"to be the first the first uh"
"uh participant in the uh invitee in the"
"uh office hours"
"i have some exciting news i i invited"
"tom cook and he said yes but we we"
"haven't quite sorted out the time to do"
"it but i'm uh"
"i'm excited to talk with tom cook about"
"lawns in the pacific northwest and turf"
"grass ecology so hopefully he'll be here"
"on on office hours sometime it's a it's"
"a great it's a great venue there there"
"are you know there are many of these out"
"there and um"
"you know"
"podcasts and such and"
"and some of them are are great"
"information but you they're they're over"
"so quickly you sort of want more and"
"it's nice to do sort of these long form"
um
"i think discussions and you know some"
"people may look at them and think i"
"don't have time for that um i here"
"here's how i i oftentimes look at a"
"podcast and i think oh it's 90 minutes i"
"don't have time for that but um"
"then i when i watch it it's almost"
"always worth my time so um you know i"
"also i know you do this micah but i do"
"with podcasts and videos the option to"
"speed them up to"
"you know a one and a quarter speed or"
"one and a half speed"
"is um is really a great way to be able"
"to listen to more content"
"in a shorter period of time so if you"
"look at something and it's two hours and"
"you think i don't have time for that"
"speed it up"
"your ears will quickly and your brain"
"will quickly um"
"adapt to that that speed"
"and and i think you'll it'll share it'll"
"save you time which we all know is as"
"valuable as anything"
yeah
"that's a great idea and i re i do that"
"all the time i i try to consume as much"
"material because i want to know what"
"people are"
"talking about what uh the new"
"information is that that's being shared"
"so i try to read and listen to as much"
"as i can and speeding it up works great"
"so that should do good with us because i"
"think i don't i don't talk at a very"
"rapid pace uh so so i think people can"
"ease it probably sounds better when you"
"when you listen to mine at one and a"
"half speed and i'd like to thank"
"everybody for joining in the chat and"
"for watching this live"
"that was awesome so"
"thanks everyone and i guess for"
"everybody in the united states have a"
"great thanksgiving week that's a lovely"
"holiday and"
"um i'll be enjoying it in bangkok"
"awesome well uh"
"get to sleep get some sleep micah and"
"you know to everybody who is"
"able to join in thank thanks so much for"
"listening and hope you have a great day"
"happy thanksgiving all right thanks a"
"lot chris i really appreciate it"
"bye bye"