Summer mowing plan for greens

As of May 30th, we are now on our summer schedule for mowing greens at Glendale CC. We use Toro Flex 21's with a 14 blade reel, and the cutting height set at .090. These mowers have a floating cutting head, so the actual cutting height with a fixed head type mower would be more like .110. To put it into terms that make more sense, we are cutting the greens 15 thousandths of and inch below 1/8" (.125). The greens are mowed seven days a week into October, and we'll roll them after mowing on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. This should put our green speed into the 10.5 to 11.0 range on the Stimpmeter. If we get them any faster, we lose hole locations because the sloped areas of some greens get way too fast. We don't want to create "Putt-Putt" type of conditions where you have no chance of getting the ball to stop near the hole, close to a sloped hole location.

First Green field trip at Glendale CC for 90 students

 On Monday April 7th, we hosted 90 sixth and seventh grade students from Sacred Heart and St. Louise grade schools. Along with the kids came some parents; their teachers; reps from the USGA, WSGA, and PNGA;  golf course superintendents looking to host an event at their course; and teachers from other schools who are interested in the First Green program. The students spent three hours in the cold, and put up with gusty winds that even made it feel colder. But they hung in there, and had a great time learning at the five stations we had set up for the event. The students spent 30 minutes at each of the five different learning stations.

 Steve Kealy (Glendale CC golf course superintendent) talked about water quality issues and had the kids test their math skills by calculating the velocity and the amount of water flowing in Kelsey Creek. Larry Gilhuly ( USGA Agronomist) talked to the kids about golf and the environment, and then had them participate in a short putting contest. Laurie Deveraux ( City of Bellevue Stream Team Cooridinator) taught the students about the importance of macroinvertebrates (bugs) to fish, in a health stream environment. Moira Campbell ( Instructor from Nature Vision) showed the kids the five different types of salmon in the Northwest, and details of their life cycles. Kyle Young and Josh Cheney (Assistant Superintendents at Glendale CC) showed the kids how water moves through the soil, soil types used on golf courses, did a soil pH test and talked about the significance of the results. The event was also covered by a reporter from KOMO TV, and the story ran on the 4:00, 6:00, and 11:00 news. Here is a link to the TV video:
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/School-program-uses-golf-to-teach-students-about-science-149593035.html?tab=video&c=y
After the learning labs were finished, the kids came into the clubhouse to warm up and eat their lunches before heading back to school. It was good learning experience for the kids, as they got to see some of the things in the real world that they had learned in the classroom.