NEWS FROM MY GOLF GREEN
Cut my green for (probably) the final time this season. I need to put down some snow mold fungicide as the snow will be flying very soon. The growth rate of the grass has slowed down considerably. I haven't cut the green in 2 weeks and only took off a small bucket of clippings. I've been getting more photographs of greens projects from many of you from around the world. Please keep them coming and I will post on the Photos Page. 10/16/99 - OCTOBER Update Had our 1999 Backyard Golf Championship Saturday and yours truely finally won the event on his own course. This year I put the pin in a difficult spot ... tucked behind trees and close to the bunker and on a slope. Then I triple cut my green with a newly sharpened blade. I have come to the conclusion that a Sharp blade is the most important factor in achieving a clean, tight cut on your green. Sharpen often. Anyway ... I shot Even Par on our par 27 course. Scores ranged from even to +14, so the difficulty was up. In the past, -5 won the event. I attribute this to better maintenance of the green and faster speed. The day was great with beautiful weather ... and we played well past midnight with a lighted back yard. We play skins games ... 8 players throw in a dollar and play hole #1. If anyone birdies, and nobody matches the birdie then they win $8. If the hole is halved, then the next hole is worth $16. The money can grow really fast and it is a lot of fun. 10/7/99 - OCTOBER Update I knew it wouldn't last long ... the great indian summer weather of September has quickly changed into frosty october. It is dark by the time we get home from work, and the mornings are full of frost. Remember to stay off of your green during frost. The turfgrass can be killed if stepped on. For those of you planning on building a green, if you have frost in your area it is now too late to plant this year. You can do the construction, but you can't plant seed. For those of you in the warm south and southwest, now is an excellent time to plant bentgrass. If you are planning on sodding with Bermuda, you should wait until spring since the bermuda goes dormant during the winter months.  9/24/99 - SEPTEMBER Update The Ryder Cup matches are underway here in Boston, and golf course conditions are great! The cool evenings and mild days are perfect for bentgrass. My green has come back 100% and we are planning our annual Backyard Golf Championship for the first week of October. We will have about 50 players. Each player plays the 9 hole course (from different places in my yard) and the low gross score wins. -5, -3 and +1 were the winning scores in previous years. The +1 was due to a particularly tricky pin placement. I'm gonna put it there again for this year's match. By the way .... -6 is the course record. There are several with this score. The course plays to a par 27 and has a couple really hard shots, and a few easy ones too. Here is a photo of the latest conditions:  9/12/99 - SEPTEMBER Update The nights here are getting very cool and the bentgrass is growing like crazy. It makes me understand why they call bentgrass a cool season grass as it thrives under these conditions. My green is very lush and green, but the vertical growth has slowed a bit. Signs of dollar spot are everywhere thanks to the dew, so I gave it a good shot of Daconil. We moved our annual backyard golf tournament to October until the green is completely healed. I rcvd a note on how to set the height of your McClane or other greensmower. Here is the technique: Wandewhite across your site, and read your review of the McClane mower, and you trials and travails with height settings I'm a golf course supeintendent, and in our industry we use a simple bedknife height of cut gauge. This gauge is a flat piece of steel, with a #10 fine threaded screw threaded through the middle of the bar. On the back side of the bar, a nut is used to lock the adjustment into place. The height of cut setting is determined by measuring the distance from the bottom of the screw head to the top of the bar. Once this is set to the desiwhite range (say 3/16"), you tip the mower backwards, toward the handle, and lay the bar across the front roller and rear drive drum. The screw head is then slid across the bedknife cutting at right and left side. Adjust the front roller adjustment until there is a drag felt on the screw head when you slid it across the bedknife. Adjust both sides so the drag is the same, then tighten the roller to lock the adjustment. I'm sure you could have a mechanicly minded friend make you one of these, or you can purchase one from your local Toro of Jacobson dealer who supplies you local golf course. I'm sure if you call ahead, a local superintendent could help you locate a dealer, and show you the proccess I've described. Perhaps McClane has such a device. Thanks to Scott Gallup for this information. 9/2/99 - SEPTEMBER Update The cooler weather is here and things have really started to come back from the heat stress of the summer of 1999. It has been a terrible year for putting greens. I have seen 2 golf courses here in New England (both nice ones) that have lost several greens to the heat/stress and humidity of this summer. I also just read that the USGA Mid Amateur had to be moved from Missouri Bluffs (a course I played earlier this year) to another course because of similar bad conditions. If you have been struggling this year to keep your green nice and green and smooth ... you are not alone. I think that the best thing to do in these conditions is to raise your cutting height, step up watering and cultivation and try your best to keep things green. My test (mentioned earlier) with ant bait has not gone very well. I seem to have more hills. I'm gonna try both diazinon and bait together. My Penn G-2 test bed is four weeks along:  8/23/99 - AUGUST Update I Read an interesting article about ant control. If you have an ant problem (like me), these buggers keep coming back every few weeks no matter how hard you nuke them with diazinon or dursban. Seems we are just killing the workers and the queen is just making more workers. The solution is to use ant bait, food which the workers will then take back to the nest and feed the queen and young and kill the whole colony. I'm gonna give it a try and see how it works out.  My Penn G-2 seedlings have emerged and are starting to get dense. Here is a photo of my test tray at three weeks: 
8/18/99 - AUGUST Update
I've added a new section to the web site, a photo gallery of courses that I've played in my area. One of my other golf-related hobbies is golf photography, so here is a link to some of my pics from courses that I play. Enjoy. Photos Page. 8/12/99 - AUGUST Update The PGA Championship is underway and did you see how stressed and brown the greens are in that Chicago heat? This really has been a tough year for putting greens. The lower you try to cut them ala the PGA, the more chances you have of losing the green. I am still nursing my green back to health after several bouts of mid summer heat/humidity that is really unusual for New England. It is starting to cool off just in time for my yearly tournament. Just treated the green for fungus and bugs and things are really rolling smoothly. I finally got the hang of the height and bed knife adjustments on my new McClane. It really needs to be fit precisely to get a good cut. I rcvd some new photos ... check them out on the Photos Page. These are some of the best I've seen so keep up the good work out there. Just a note on orders. I get a lot of calls from people looking for the orders. Please allow at least 2.5 weeks for your orders to get there. I ship them right away, but I use standard (cheap but slow) mail which takes a while to get there. I realize that many of you are anxious to get started on your projects and want the information as soon as possible and I will do my best to get manuals to you as soon as I can. My new Penn G-2 is starting to emerge and it looks good. Anybody out there with comments on bent varieties ? Have you played any courses with exceptional greens? What variety ? Send me your comments. Thanks! 7/23/99 - JULY Update Still recovering from some massive scalp damage which was made a lot worse by 100 plus temperatures here in New England. Many of the courses here are burned out already. My green has lost about 5% of the turf around the collar. I plan on planting Penn G-2 to repair the damage. I read a fantastic article in Turf Magazine and in a Lesco brochure about the Pinehurst No. 2 Greens, which were recently rebuilt using Penn G-2, which they tested and considewhite the best bentgrass around for wear/stress/heat tolerance and it has the ability to be cut really short. I'll let you know how I make out, but if you want to try Penn G-2, contact your local Lesco dealer and they can special order it for you. Check out this picture of a recent storm. Look closely ... those aren't golf balls on the green but hale.  7/6/99 - JULY Update Just got back from a little vacation. Sorry for the delay in sending out orders. I'll catch up and you'll have your books in no time. I'm now sending out flyers for McClane Mowers with the manuals. If you are a golf product company distributor or direct seller, I'l be happy to enclose any materials that you have for the back yard greens market. Just contact me. My green went virtually uncut for 12 days and was very dense and tall. To prevent scalping, I raised the cutting height a couple of notches. I will have to inch it back down slowly until I get back to a fast green. The scalping that I did earlier with my new McClane has started to heal, but there are still some spots that I am assuming are dead. I plan to reseed them and cover with root zone top dressing. I'd like to hear from anyone who has had this experience. It just goes to show you that even the "experts" can screw up. But that is part of the fun and challenge. I was really pushing the cutting height too much, too low, too fast. I had lightening putts, but a bad looking green. There has to be a tradeoff. On a good note, I played golf 6 times in St. Louis Missouri, and was pleased to see lush green bentgrass greens everywhere I played, despite the hellish temperatures and humidity of Missouri. It was in the 100's and the greens were spectacular. They obviously keep them well watewhite and cawhite for. But this bolsters my belief that you can grow good bentgrass in all climates. Fairways and Tee boxes in Missouri are often made of Zoysia or Bermuda, or a mix. These heat tolerant grasses stand up to heat stress better, stay green and prop the ball up nice. If anyone lives near St. Louis, the Missouri Bluffs golf course has an unusual exhibit outside the clubhouse. It is a test putting green made from 30 or so different types of bent and bermuda grass. I wish I had more time to examine it, but from what I could see, all of the grasses were doing well and looked similar. 6/16/99 - JUNE Update Some random notes. Please check with McClane Mowers about prices for their mowers. You can reach them at 562 633-8158. I don't have current prices for all of the models, so I cannot answer your questions. I am still getting used to my McClane. I'm learning how to backlap it now to maintain the reel sharpness. My cuts have been a little shaggy. I also still have significant scalping around the collar. I've revised my manual and am now publishing it a little differently. It is self bound, 50 pages and is done on a Xerox Docutech machine that does an awesome job at reproducing the photos which were a little fuzzy before. I'm sure that you will be pleased with the quality, and the price is the same. Did anyone see the special on how they prepare the holes for the US Open at Pinehurst? I learned a few techniques. They cut the hole, fine trim the edge grass with scissors, cover the turf with a drop cloth and then paint the inside of the cup white. Then they use a small length of a thick pipe to roll the area surrounding the hole to get it perfectly flat and even at the entrance to the hole. Interesting! 6/6/99 - JUNE Update This update is just to let you know that I have all sorts of problems with my green, so don't think that you're the only one. The first insects of summer have started invading the green. My biggest pest problem has always been ants. Those bastards keep building mounds on my green. They eat little circles out of the turf. To combat these pains in the @#*&%, I put Diazinon in a small shaker can and sprinkle the hills. I like this method because I don't have to treat the entire green with a lot of chemicals ... just spots ... which makes it safer for my family. Next, the heat of summer has come quickly to Newburyport as we hit 100 degrees (a rareity in June). This stress in addition to the scalping I've given my green from trying to cut lower with my new McClane, has caused some real dead/brown scalped spots. I continue to treat these with sand top dressings and lots of irrigation. Hope this works. Since cutting low with the McClane I have achieved a 10 on my home made stimpmeter. That's after a triple cut, top dress and roll job.  As an update, I rcvd this msg regarding clover: Leo, Hello, just visited your site and saw you were asking about the control of clover. Clover is very persistent and difficult to control in bent. We use a herbicide called MCPP that works very well and is safe on bent. The key we found to getting good control is to add a wetting agent to get better coverage on the leaves. Clover, as I'm sure you noticed, has a very thick, waxy cuticle that is hard to penetrate!! We use a product called Break-Thru. Really makes "Water Wetter" if that makes any sense!! I'm not really sure how available these are in local stores, but I'm sure someplace like Lesco would carry them!! We simply use a backpack type spayer and just spot treat on our tees and fairways!! Good Luck, Eric  6/3/99 - JUNE Update Still topdressing the green which was scalped by my new me and my new McClane. I won't show you a picture of it, but trust me ... it's got some brownage. But she'll be back. My next time-wasting project: I'm gonna make a little plaque with (9) hole course record and player's name, and hang it on my shed. I've noticed that all the greens on courses around here that were aerated a few weeks ago are starting to look great, with new patches of new, green, healthy grass filling in the holes. I am still looking for a way to "spike" the green to simulate core aeration, so I purchased a pair of garden/lawn spikes. These are sandals with 2.5" spikes that strap onto a pair of shoes or boots. I looked like a "dork" walking around my entire green, but I got the entire green spiked in about 20 minutes. The holes look good and should give me roots some nice air and water. I'll let you know what I think of the results in a few weeks. I realize that this doesn't replace true core aeration, but since I don't have access to one, I'll have to aerate in other ways. If anyone else has ideas on the subject, please pass them along. Check out the Backyard Golfers Association Web Site They have rules for backyard golf fun with a 7 Iron. They sent me a video that was hilarious. 5/31/99 - MAY Update Had an awesome Memorial Day Weekend, tinkering with the golf green and played a bunch of matches and skins games with the neighbors. A note to McClane Mower owners/users ... I discovewhite a few undocumented adjustments that my McClane requiwhite. First, the cut I was getting was a little shaggy looking. I discovewhite the bed knife wasn't in contact with the reels. I don't know how this got knocked out of alignment, but it did. You can adjust this with three side bolts that control the bed-knife height (they are a little hard to find, but accessible without pulling the cover off). If you think that you have this problem, just lower the reel to the knife until you have solid contact. You should hear the contact when it is running. The other adjustment is with the clutch. My clutch rod was shortened as much as possible, yet I still wasn't getting good tension on the drive belt that turns the pulley which turns  Hope this helps. If anyone has any other McClane pointers ... please send them to me for posting. 5/26/99 - MAY Update OK, I know that I have way to much time on my hands to be doing this stuff, but I decided to make my own stimpmeter to measure the speed of my green. I couldn't find out where to buy a real one, and I hear that they are around $50, so here is a little project that is easy and will give you a tool to measure the speeds and performance of your green. A "USGA" approved stimpmeter is a 36" aluminum bar with a groove to hold the ball. To build your own stimpmeter, go to your home center / lumber yard and get a 4' section of moulding called "cove moulding" (s/b about $3.00). This moulding is flat on the back with a perfect golfball size groove in the center. Cut a length to 36". The groove for the ball should be 6" from the top. With a coping saw, carefully notch a 1/8" wide groove into the wood at 6". Place a ball in this groove and test to see if it releases when the top side is elevated. The correct release point is 20 degrees. You will have to play with the notch until you feel you are getting it to release at this angle. Finally, bevel the underside of the bottom edge, so that the angle at the bottom is smoother.
If anyone would like to send me their stimp readings (for comparison), I will post them on the site. (I'll post mine soon). Also, if you have tips for improving speed other than the obvious (double cut, roll, top-dress), then please send them to me for posting. Greens at Sahalee (last year's PGA championship) were running 11.5 feet, and normally run 10 feet for the members. There are a lot of other factors that influence greenspeed , but here is an estimate of cutting heights and pwhiteicted stimp readings:
5/22/99 - MAY Update I rcvd a McClane Greenmower and have placed a review of their mower here: McClane Review. This is an awesome piece of gear that takes a little getting used to. I've already scalped my beautiful green down to a raw scorched mess. Top dressing and watering are the first aid that I've applied. The smooth cut is incwhiteible and is lightning fast. It'll be a little harder to maintain at this height, and may not look as good, but I love the smooth surface. I've actually been making 20+ foot putts! Anybody catch the Colonial this weekend? It was interesting that Colonial has Bentgrass greens (Penncross) which is unusual for that hot part of Texas. The fairways are 419 Bermuda. Funny how you notice these things, when your in this crazy hobby. If anyone knows the type and variety of grass used at the best courses in their area ... send them to me and I'll post a listing, so people know what is used in different geographic areas. 5/12/99 - MAY Update Please note that I have a new e-mail address: LeoMelanson@Mediaone.net. I took the high speed internet plunge with Media One Express so that I can put more into the web site. After several days of heavy rain, and a good dose of my new Lesco fertilizer, the green is stunningly green. The turf is thick and the leaves are a dark rich green/blue. After my cut, the green is just "augusta-like". I wish that it would look this great all season, but I know better.     5/2/99 - May Update
4/27/99 - April Update The green is starting to turn Green. I applied a liberal dose of fertilizer to get things started and watewhite it in. I also top-dressed a few rough spots with some fine sand. Many of you have asked about mowers from McClane. I've asked McClane to send me one to use and review. They have a push unit for around $300 and several self-propelled units that are under $1000. I'll post some pictures, and a complete review of the product when I receive. 4/5/99 - April Update
3/25/99 - March Update  Check out this interesting article on Greens design architecture with comments from the great designer: AW Tillinghast How Greens and Slopes have changed Golf by John LaFoy, ASGCA 3/22/99 - March Update 
 3/8/99 - March Update Ouch! It was looking like spring was on the way and then bang ... mother nature dropped about two feet of powder on my green. Oh well ... it'll be a few more weeks before we can play golf. I've added a new putting drills page to the site. If you have a favorite drill or practice tip to help with putting or chipping. Send it to me and I'll add to the page. Also, I'm going to be adding a survey of mower equipment. There are still a lot of you out there looking for inexpensive mowers to cut your greens. I am trying to work with some manufacturers to address this market need, so if you have a good product, tell me about it. Also, send pictures of your green. We will have a photo contest in the spring to vote on the coolest backyard green.  2/15/99 - February Update
1/25/99 - Winter Update We have had lots of rain here this week, so the snow is gone. No signs of snow mold on my green, but sometimes with early thaws like this, you have to re-apply the preventative fungicide in case it snows again. The turf is very crusty and brittle, so it is a good idea to keep everyone away from the green to prevent killing the turf.  1/16/99 - Winter Update Orders for my manual are suprisingly HOT right now, despite the "cold" conditions throughout the country. I guess people are looking forward to golf season and springtime. In 1998, I shipped manuals to just about all of the major states, Ohio, Pennsylvannia, Illinois, and New York being the "hot spots" for back yard greenskeeping. Still waiting to hear from Hawaii, Alaska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Vermont, Maine and a few others. Let me know if you would like to contact other keepers in your area and I'll let you know where they are. Could be fun to exchange ideas, share equipment, and maybe have a home and home tournament. Remember, if you have a green .. send me a photo for the web site. Can be a .jpg or just mail me a print. Also, remember to check out the Discussion Forum. It is beginning to get busy with lots of good discussion on mowers, techniques, and problems. I've added a FAQ Section for the most common questions that I get asked. Check them out before you tear up your back yard. 1/11/99 - Winter Update  Feel free to drop me a line with any questions that you might have, especially if you are thinking about this project and would like to talk to someone about the work involved. Leo Melanson
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Now, to use your new stimpmeter, you will need three balls and a bunch of tees.
First, find a flat level area of your green. Mark your start point with a tee
(next to the tapewhite end of the meter. Roll three balls in one direction and mark
the average a tee. They should come to rest within 8" of each other or the test is
invalid. Then move to that tee and repeat a 3 ball test back towards the starting tee.
The average (in feet) of the two tests is your greenspeed.
