Wow! You've never done this before, have you? Well, no time like the present to learn.

Go to the Logan Labs website and learn how to take a soil sample. Then send them at least one. I'm thinking eventually you'll want one sample from every green, so talk to them and tell them what you're doing. Maybe they'll give you a break on pricing for lots of samples??? I have no idea, but it never hurts to ask. Then post your results here after they email them to you. Check this forum for topics with Logan Labs or soil test in the title and see what kind of replies you get.

Get rototilling out of your mind. You're not dealing with a tomato garden here. The fastest way out of your new industry is to rototill a golf green.

I'm really late for work, but I want to get back to this. Go to my member page and send me an email. I can hook you up with a long time professional bermuda sod farmer and currently golf greenskeeper at a course in Prescott, AZ. You'll want to get to know him.

Interesting!! I would like to see where this one goes.

I'm not sure how helpful I can be with greens soil testing, although I'll do my best. Also, large numbers of samples will take me large amounts of time to analyze.

This one may be a task for a professional agency that works with greens managers. They do require special care and balancing.

I'm thinking about starting with one green. Greens are typically made of sand, so it should originally be a blank slate. Everything that's in it has to be added. I think the test results are going to show excess amounts of fertilizers from times gone by. I doubt there is a budget for rebuilding or renovating the greens, so it's all just growing bermuda from that point. C'mon, guys! The last greenskeeper didn't care and this guy does.

Garrett, I'm not sure what these guys are afraid of. I helped a guy turn his golf course around several years ago. Of course he was located north of Lake Erie, so that was a little different from your situation, heh, heh. But one thing I learned from him is that you have some greens that are fine and one or two that are horrible. Let's work on the horrible ones first. Golf courses are a different in general because of the way they are fertilized, watered, and walked on by all those danged golfers.

Generally we tell everyone to water deeply, always. Deeply means 1 inch of water all at once. We also tell everyone to water infrequently. Infrequently to you means 2x per week (with temps above 100 degrees F). You have temps running even 10 degrees higher than that. That's something I never considered, especially for low mowed bermuda. Did you get any guidelines for watering? If I recall correctly, it seems to me golf greens are watered lightly every morning a couple hours before they first golfers arrive. What are you doing now for watering? This is critical to your success.

You said you were mowing the greens at 1.2. Is that inches or centimeters? Because that sounds about right in centimeters. The aprons would be more like 1.2 inches. Fairways would be more like 2 inches and the roughs would be mowed as needed every other week.

Is the course open every day? And is it used every day? Are your mowers in excellent shape? How much are you paying for fertilizer and what does it cover?

Dchall. No I've been working on this golf course for a minute but not the greens keeper. Yep been trying to read everything I can online even been buying some book's. I don't think I'm going to be getting pro soil testing when I said the last guy didn't care I mean he didn't fix anything from greens to wire cutters to 10 year old tractors I mean literally ever one of mower's still has something seriously wrong with them I have parts on hold for the reels and my 40 year old irrigation system would be the second thing before spending that kind of money on soil testing. ...yeah I noticed I go to the nuclear option to fast. I'd love to talk to you're buddy but would rather get my stuff together and learn a bit more before branching out and give a bad impression.

"C'mon, guys! The last greenskeeper didn't care and this guy does."

What's that mean?

Are temps running about 120 130 for 4 5 months it's just been a cool summer for now. The greens are being waterd properly luckily I have some one that knows what their doing. Yeah I'm measuring in centimeters. the rough is once a week greens every day tees and skirts 2 and the fair way 2 just because I can't really sharpen it since one reel is broken and that would just leave a ugly line so I'm basically just laying the grass down on my fairways and not cutting em

Open everyday besides x miss. Yeah the members use it every day mostly Monday and Friday. Hell no for an example I was the first person to ever change a air filter on the mowers we should of replaced 4 years ago I'm trying to make lead in to gold here.

"C'mon, guys! The last greenskeeper didn't care and this guy does."

What's that mean?

That was me trying to bring the others here at GW onto the band wagon to support you because you seem to care what happens to the course.
I see that a lot that the grass is getting "watered properly." Can you be more specific? How often and for how long does it get watered? Because you have dead grass in your greens. Bermuda only dies from lack of sunlight or lack of water. Unless you had a chemical spill.

Is this a promotion to greens keeper for you?

Logan Labs soil test costs $25. You'll have results back within a week, post them here and you'll have a soil chemistry plan in another day, and your boss will think you're a lawn genius. I have a feeling the soil test is going to show that you already have too much of some component of phosphorous or potassium. Knowing what your soil chemistry is will guide you in selecting fertilizers that don't continue to add to your problems.

What is your first priority for spending money? Is it equipment or fixing the greens?

Where are you in AZ?

O my bad miss read that. The greens get watered about 10 minutes in the morning 15 20 in the after noon and 25 at night. I'm not sure why thy died in the first place or how thy were let go for so long to get em in that bad of shape.

Ha o no if anything I don't think I should of used my real name.

I'll see what I can do about the soil testing I got them to change from 15-15-15 to 18-5-0 5% iorn I wanted 25-0-0 but what ever.

I'll have to say the greens after all the golfers wouldn't care if the tractor's were on fire as long as the grass is green.

Bullhead city.

The 18-5-0 5% is a greens grade fert. right? Sounds like the correct fert to me, if so. The watering habit seems a little off imo. I do not deal with the heat you have, the traffic, or mow as low as a green, but if that is the everyday schedule, it seems excessive. A normal "lawn" would get 1" all at once preferably in the morning, probably twice a week with your temps. Since this is a golf course, I do not know if 1" all at once in the morning is feasible or not. Watering at night can cause disease and fungus.

With all that said, I do not maintain a golf green, so just my 2 cents.

Yep. Since the greens are raised and so short most of the water just runs off but were about to core here pretty soon so we might be able to cut down after that. I'll set out some cups today and post how much their getting after thy get watered in the morning.

AaaaHA! Now we're getting somewhere. Water runoff on golf greens is extremely typical. Thousands of pages of university studies have almost universally suggested hydration products (soap). Typically the reason the water rolls off a golf green is due to the frequent watering and general sterilization of the soil/sand. What happens is the absence of normal soil biology allows a fungus to grow on the grass. That fungus is hydrophobic and sheds water like a dry sponge. There are two things you can try to completely fix that. Do you have a green you can experiment on? I'm going to suggest spraying it with shampoo. Most golf courses use Cascade Plus to break through that hydrophobicity. I think shampoo (much cheaper) will do the same thing. We home owners use it to soften the soil, but we have normal soil and not sterilized sand. With sand the shampoo should not make much difference to the firmness, but it should break through the water barrier and allow the irrigation water to soak right in.

I would find a spot on a green where you know exactly where it is. The application rate is 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet (1 gallon per acre if you're talking about large areas). But for your experiment, just mix up a few ounces of shampoo in a gallon bottle (laundry soap bottle??), and sort of splash it around on the designated area. Then the next time or two when you irrigate, go look at that spot to see if the water seems to be soaking in instead of running off. If that works then you can either inject the soap into the irrigation system or you can spray with a hose end sprayer.

If that doesn't work, try the same thing with molasses at the same rate. Molasses of course is sugary and provides a more natural "wetting" action. The molasses coats the grass surface and literally allows the moisture to flow right over the fungal barrier.

Is yours one of the courses adjacent to the river?

I think you might be right. The hills on my greens sux

I was wounding about improving the micro biology of my soil heck my roots are only like 3 5" on all my greens.

Well why not 18 its all ready .... And my greens are soil based ill take a pic in the morning of the soil.

I did throw some none biodegradable liquid dish soap on a green after a hydraulic line blew about five months I don't see any difference in the grass were the spill happened.

I got the right kind of sop now after a small leak. biodegradable dish machine or so what ever university I can't rember the name of said. I'll try it out on the front of the green it's starting to come back from dirt. Well I'll try it on 3 different parts of the green and see what happens

You should see the water flowing down into the grass right away. If you're doing this right, you'll likely get wet. Fortunately it's 115 degrees and you'll be dry before you walk 15 feet. We used to camp at Blythe in the summer, so I've seen your heat and soil conditions. If you can get moisture down through the surface of the grass and soil, you're going to be on your way. There's nothing like water, and deep water, to make grass grow.

Do you know why you water 3x per day? Is it because the water doesn't soak in? Simply letting the water sit on top of the grass has some advantage in cooling the grass, but it doesn't help at the root zone. I'm hoping that once the water starts soaking in that you can back off to watering once a day or once every other day. If you can get to that point then I think you should not see the hydrophobic surface again. That's due to multiple watering per day.

Morpheuspa, on this forum, has tried overdosing his lawn with his custom blended surfactant and found that he could not do it, so if you don't see an improvement right away, put some more down. Now I'm wondering if scrubbing it in with a push broom would help agitate the soap down and scrub the fungus off?? Nah. Just suds it up.

Going back to something you said at first, you should not ever need to reseed bermuda. I don't think there's much more to say about that. It just grows.

If you can get the water to penetrate, then I would suggest using the occasional dose of organic fertilizer. That seems to be sacrilege with golf courses. I've never seen a good explanation why other than those coming out of ignorance of what it can do for you. Again this is something to try in a small spot before you even announce to your people that you want to do it. Organics was the key to turning around the golf course I mentioned in Canada. He had a lot of things going for him that you don't have, and he was a skeptic, until he spilled a bag of corn meal on the ground and swept it up. Three weeks later he sent me a picture of the deep green spot with tall grass where he swept up the corn. He was immediately converted and went completely organic with his fertilizer. Three months later he was getting approached from some of the members at his course to come fix their lawns. All he did was stop using herbicide, insecticide, fungicide, and chemical fertilizers. He changed his mowing heights during the week (fewer players to complain) to allow the grass to get taller, and then clipped it down to regulation for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Thursdays his course was covered in white Dutch clover flowers, but when he mowed them off the course was fine for play. Again, you don't and won't have that issue.

Knowing where you are I have another concern with your soil. This is something only a Logan Labs soil test (again, $25) would tell. You're 175 miles away from Boron, California. I know you don't have as much boron in your soil as they do (or else boron would be mined in your town and it would be called Boron), but I'll bet you have excess boron or close to it. If you do there are certain limitations as to what you can do with plants and grass.

Hit you up later watching caddyshack.

A fungus im sorry but the devil its self can not stop Bermuda we don't have a fungas here

It's not stopping the bermuda. It's stopping the water from penetrating through the blades of grass and into the soil. If you have hydrophobic grass (water rolls off), you definitely have a fungus. Instead of declaring you don't have a fungus, just spray it with soap and see if things improve. It'll cost you about 10 cents. Rolling with the spike aerator will not help like the soap will.

Meee pay no attention to that had a little to much fun that night.

But yeah I've been backed up with a leak ATM I'll try to see about spraying this Saturday or Sunday I'll get some before and after shots

If 3 ounces per 1,000 of shampoo does not make the water penetrate the surface, try it stronger. You can spray it on as foam if you want and it should not hurt anything. I've mixed molasses and shampoo in the same sprayer. It sprayed out with a brown foam. Kind of weird but it worked.

Ha that's kind of funny I use to use black strap molasses In growing pot to make the buds more shiny I never thought it could help with water penetration ... I'll give my 4,000 green a light dose at first