10/01/2026
Dear Members,
I am writing everyone to address the scalping that occured this week on our greens and apologize for not making better decisions during the process. I believe there are multiple factors resulting in the scalping. The first issue may be my attempt to extend our verticutting schedule from once every two weeks, to once every three weeks. I was hoping to extend the time and give us a longer stint of smooth greens conditions in-between verticuttings, but in reality that might have been counter productive since our Champions ultradwarf Bermuda is very high maintenance and needs the canopy thinned regularly. Moving forward I don't believe that will be possible to accomplish and we will need to stay on a bi-weekly schedule. Secondly this week I disassembled our reels and took them to Mt. Pleasant for sharpening. I believe I assembled them correctly and could not find any indication that I didn't do it correctly. That led me to contact a few former golf course mechanics that gave me a few leads, but said the best approach was to disassemble the reels and start from scratch. After doing so I didn't experience any further scalping until hole 8 which only occurred cutting into the grain. With all that being said I believe that the biggest mistake made was the decision to continue the process when I should have stopped and left our greens unmowed until I completely figured out the issue. Though I feel that I have let myself and my membership down I do want you to know that I believe the reel issue has been remedied and Monday we will verticut our greens to remove any leggy canopy and grain. We should see full recovery a week after this Mondays verticutting. Finally I want to express my gratitude for all your support and understanding throughout my first season. It has been wonderful working for such a great group of people and look forward to helping our club bring its dreams to fruition.
Sincerely,
Richard Clark
Superintendent
P.s. now is the time to apply your winter pre-emergent at home. Also adding calcium will aid in strengthening the cell walls for winter protection.
