Weibring Golf Club at Illinois State University

The monthly update is a place I will share agronomy related updates for the 2021 golf season.  Thank you to everyone that watched my Maintenance Monday videos throughout the off-season.  Also, I love when people ask about agronomy, so please send comments, questions, or ideas to the blog or Facebook/Twitter pages.   Quick work and the bunkers on #5 were ready for play this spring  It is easy to forget the ice storm when you start off the spring with such great weather. But it was a tough start to 2021.  The damage was extensive and required quickly mobilizing our team and renting equipment to begin cleanup.   With the extra labor, rental, equipment, and emergency repair to the power lines at the Pro Shop, the Ice Storm cost our operation over $12,000 in unexpected costs.   Here's a few pictures of the course the days after the ice storm. Cleanup detail continued as we opened the golf course on March 4th.  The work will continue ...

It has been a difficult few weeks for everyone.  The decisions being made by leaders nationally, regionally, and locally are difficult ones, and in times of such uncertainty, never please everyone.  As we make direct decisions about our operations, conflicting positions of our own principles and values, make these decisions that much harder. In the end, we are under executive order by the Governor of Illinois to close our golf course.  This has been difficult, as we always associate the spring season and green grass with being able to see so many familiar faces.  Fortunately, we have been allowed to perform essential maintenance tasks while the course is closed to the play. We will be able to keep the golf course in a playable condition, which will allow immediate reopening after the order is lifted.  Thank you for your patience during this time and please respect the closure of the golf course and not frequent the grounds.  This includes walking, running...

The last blog post was May 2019.  It is disappointing that I allowed that much time to pass between posts... but, my energy has been spent improving the property and operations. Since the last post, there has been  A LOT  of changes at the golf course!!! So what's new? Hole 8 after the renovation The bunkers of course!    If you didn't get a chance to see the big changes we made over the summer of 2019, you missed out!  We received positive feedback on both the strategic changes and the improved play-ability of the high quality white sand in the new bunkers. By finishing Phase 1 on-time and under budget in August, we were able to add more additions to holes 1, 4, and 13 as winter set in.   In all, we spent $290,000 to completely renovate every bunker and add a few new ones.  This was not just removing the bad sand and replacing with new sand- we gutted every bunker and made them all better. Better shape, better strategy, better sa...

As we begin the golf season, I want to ask for everyone's help.  We try and provide golfers the best possible experience each time they play at Weibring GC.  As a user of the golf course, you can help us further that experience by "leaving it better than you found it".  Below are a few things each golfer can do during there round to keep the course at its best. Audubon International's Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses We have added a sign at the first tee signifying our designation as a Certified Audubon Sanctuary Property.  Below are a few ways we achieved this prestigious designation. Over the summer, I will continue to highlight ways we further our Environmental Stewardship insuring sustainable use of the golf course property while providing quality playing conditions.  Thanks for reading     Travis Williams, CGCS

Spring is creeping upon us like a sloth and our soil temps are finally climbing enough that we see some "green up". With the spring green up, comes a few necessary tasks to help us stay ahead of future pest problems.  Our spring applications of Pre-emergent and plant growth regulators were completed just ahead of the rain on Thursday.  I often joke that we are "racing the rain", but often it is true.  Many of our practices are heavily influenced by rain events (better to use natural rain than to use the irrigation, which overuses electricity and the water from the Mahomet Aquifer) .  This week we used the rain to activate our Pre-emergent product.  The product is carried on a fertilizer granular that either needs to be irrigated or have rainfall to make it active.  Once active, it forms a barrier at the soil surface that inhibits summer annual seeds from germinating.  Examples of the weeds we are inhibiting from germinating are crabgrass and goosegrass...

Fall 2018 Oct.  12th, 2018. Snow caused Round 1 of IHSA Finals to be cancelled   A quick recap of the Fall- we skipped it! We had summer-like temps in early October and snow by mid-October.  November was cold (6-7 degrees below normal) and 7.7 inches of snow (we average 0.3 inches). Temps rebounded to above average for most of December and early January, but have been below average since Jan 10th, with record cold January 29-31.  Certainly a roller coaster over the last 4 months. Mid-November snow.  Note the leaves still in the trees in the background. Fall fertilizer applications were scheduled 3-4 weeks earlier than years past, with a few applications not completed due to cold temps through November.   The challenge with fertilizing fine turf, such as greens, is that you need to be careful not to impact the plants' natural process of "hardening off".  Meaning the plant goes through the physiological process of releasing protein...

Having had a few cold mornings recently, the pace around the maintenance shop has slowed.  This slower pace allows everyone a few moments to reflect back on the long summer. Here's a quick recap of the weather we faced. The blue graph represents actual temperatures. The total number of days over 90 degrees and the flattening between Mid May and Mid October, indicate a warmer and longer summer than usual.  From the May 1 through Oct 10th the temperatures felt very "summer-like".  The lower graph represents rainfall.  Note the flatness of the line from early April to late May, indicating very little rainfall over that 6 week period.  Also note the two vertical shifts in the graph around mid June and early October.  These two rain events account for a large percentage of total rain over the last 4 months.  I estimate those two events were approximately 7 of the 18 inches since mid April. Overall, Bloomington has received 27 inches of precipitation...

Consistency is the key to momentum. You get momentum by putting intentional effort towards a goal or vision, and eventually the compound effect takes over.* Our vision for WGC is to enhance the maintenance standards annually and provided quality playing conditions for all in the community to enjoy.  Some summers provide challenges to maintaining that vision. A specific example is our efforts to reduce our Poa annua populations in our fairways.  Every year we develop a agronomic plan that favors the growth of Bentgrass (the preferred fairway grass) over Poa.  The plan includes use of plant growth regulators, well timed fertilizer applications, reduced water use (Bentgrass is a more drought tolerant grass), and plant protectants.   Weather is a variable that impacts all the components in our plan and we have no control over the weather.  Over the past couple summers timely rains and moderate temps allowed Poa to continue to survive stress free, despi...

Aerification holes have healed.  The greens are slower due to the fertilizer we applied ahead of aerification, not applying plant growth regulators for 4 weeks,  and because of the mower 's cutting quality being ruined by all the sand.  Now that the sand is worked into the profile and the holes are healed, we put a freshly ground set of reels on the mower.  The quality will improve dramatically by Saturday.  We have also applied plant growth regulators again, which will limited vertical growth. Next week we will mow with the intent to remove excess growth and grain from the turf canopies.   In order to maximize removal of excessive growth, we will not be rolling the greens until Thursday.  The reason for this is because if we roll after a mowing, we lay the turf back down until we stand it up again the next mow.  Not a problem when turf growth is limited, but to heal quickly we encouraged a lot of growth.  By skipping rolling, we w...

With the onset of summer (I guess we skipped spring), my time gets stretched thin. I am going to try to keep posting updates, but they will be shorter and more to the point than my off season posts. I send weekly updates to our golf course leadership group and will included the pertinent information from those messages through this forum. Maintenance-wise we are back into a summer routine. The golf course is overall good and will slowly be coming into a more uniform color as all the grasses even out their growth patterns after plant growth regulation this spring. Detail work such as string trimming, bunker edging, and continuous rough mowing has now begun. Please be patient with the rough height and details. It will slow in a month or so, and we will be able to keep up and provide the details we expect. Overall, we are a little dry, but I prefer dry over wet this time in the year. It will build roots and handle the summer stress better. Greens will vary a bit from firm and ...

I, like many, have spent the last six weeks trying to figure out why Mother Nature still thinks it is February.  To support my claim, I dug into some weather data and found that the average daily temperature for both March and April is under 40 degrees (37 and 38 respectively)!! Soil temperatures for the state are averaging 44 degrees.  The historical soil temperature average is 55 degrees and the 10 year average is 57 degrees. So yes, we are all justified in saying IT IS colder than normal!!!  I hate to mention this, but I also found that the average daily temp for April 1-20, 2017 was 56 degrees! That's almost 20 degrees warmer. But, we are not doomed.  It will warm up.  I promise.  It reminds me of working with an Assistant Pro in Chicago, who when asked by members if it was going to stop raining would reply, "it always has..."  So yes, it will warm up, "it always has",  and when it does the course is going to be ready. The reason it will ...

Spring is an exciting time of the year.  There is a buzz and energy throughout the environment.  You sense it from people and pets on warm, sunny days. From an agronomic perspective, plants awaken, triggered by soil temperatures, day length, and other factors. Golf fans can enjoy watching Tour events on the West Coast and through the Southern U.S. and Florida; teasing the upcoming shift from cool and grey to warm and colorful.  For the Agronomic Team here at Weibring Golf club, we are anxious to get back to the servicing the turf, soils, and ornamental components of the golf course. We again look forward to analyzing how weather and people interact with our golf course environment.  Our first analysis of the season is deciding when to open the golf course. One approach we could use to make this decision is strictly the economic impact. This results in opening and closing the golf course throughout the off-season based on fluctuating weather. When air ...

My favorite and most frequent question.  Each winter is different, but what we accomplish in the winter will setup our successes for the upcoming golf season.  Bottom line is that details matter.  We look for ways to improve the details in all aspects of our operations. Some of those details fall into course accessories.  Each winter we look at ways to improve the accessories on the golf course and training center.  In years past, we have crafted new tee markers, seed and sand boxes, and updated our recycling and trash disposal setups.  This year Corey Wisher, the Assistant Golf Course Supt., spent much of his winter handcrafting new range accessories.  His work includes new range dividers, pace-of-play clocks, and wooden "apple crates".  See below for the picture slide show of his work.  Its pretty impressive! The dividers will be used at the hitting bays at the Mounier Golf Training Center.  The pace of play clocks will serve ...

Each tag starts with the number 50, which is an area number designated for the golf course. Each area of campus has its own unique #. The second numbers represent the year it was ID'd or planted and the final number is the inventory number for the golf course Since arriving just before summer in 2015, we have been aggressively removing dead and diseased trees and replacing them with new varieties in better locations.  My predecessor, Mike Rayman, began the process years before and deserves tremendous credit for his efforts.  We also owe thanks to our University Grounds department and their tree specialists.  Many years prior to my arrival at Weibring GC, they began planting/transplanting trees into a little used space adjacent to the golf course. We refer to this area as the tree nursery (located just west of #3 tee box) and in total we transplanted 35 trees into the golf course.    Dr. Kopsell and a number of his horticulture students here at...

        Over the past couple weeks we have been working with a local photographer and drone pilot, Jim Finch, to develop content for marketing, recruiting, and promotional purposes.  It has been a fun and educational process.  With plans to use the footage as part of marketing and promotional campaigns, we were required to seek permission from the Athletic Dept. and ISU before beginning.  The use of commercial drones is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration.  You are required to hold proper licensing and certificates before operating a drone for commercial purposes.  In other words, don't try this yourself.          With Jim's help we have been able to acquire videos and still photos of the golf course from angles and elevations never before seen.  The amount of footage is overwhelming.  In total, we will have between 500 GB and 1 TB of files to edit and produce.  This is a great wi...

We have begun the initial planning stages of a complete bunker renovations here at WGC.  Timing, scope, and logistics of the project are still in the works, but I have confidence that the project will get off the ground in the near future.  There will be a scrolling summary of the project on a flat screen in the Pro Shop throughout the remainder of the season.  I will also be holding narrative presentations to accompany the slideshow.  The first narrative will be held Friday Oct. 27th from 1-3PM in the Pro Shop.  If the weather permits we will also tour the course to answer any questions.  I will repeat the narrative a couple more times this fall.  Come by this Friday or check back for updates on future dates. Below is the complete slideshow being presented in the Pro Shop.   The Cost of renovating The investment comes at a cost. For our project we are looking at a figure of over $200,000. There are certainly ways to lessen t...

Weibring Golf Club  @  Illinois State University  Agronomic Update-Fall Aerification Many golfers are aware that a golf course must aerify.  Here at Weibring GC, our fall aerification practices are set to begin Monday Oct. 16th.  H ere are our plans for aerification, followed by a brief explanation of why we aerify. The Plan:  Greens- Back 9 on Monday, Front 9 on Tuesday.  Putting Green will not be aerified until on-course greens heal enough to roll smooth. Every green will be topdressed with sand before aerifing; aerified with a half-inch solid tine, followed by another topdressing, brushing, fertilizer, and water. Greens with excessive black layering and black algae accumulation at the low points will be core aerified in those trouble areas only.  Fairways- 4 inch vertical slice offset at 1 degree, brushing, verticutting, and aggressive mowing. We will solid tine the fairways in the Spring, a practice we started this past s...