Discover the art and science of perfecting the greens as our Director of Golf, EJ McDonnell, sits down with golf course operation gurus, Hal Akins and Todd Lowe, for a chat about triumphs and challenges on the links. Hal Akins, our Director of Golf Course Operations and the maestro behind Bonita Bay Club's latest renovations, pulls back the curtain on the much-anticipated opening of the new driving range and the meticulous Sabal Golf Course makeover. Meanwhile, Todd Lowe, a seasoned agronomy expert and former USGA agronomist, now with Envu, unpacks the complexities of maintaining pristine course conditions under the erratic mood swings of El Niño. Their combined expertise is a treasure trove for anyone keen on learning how to keep the fairways flourishing despite Mother Nature's curveballs.
As we traverse the trials of green recovery post-storm and the science involved in crafting resilient turf, this episode paints a vivid picture of the environmental hurdles from hurricanes to droughts. We delve into the decisions that shape the health of our beloved golf courses, including the regrassing of greens and the impact of unusual weather patterns on soil health. The conversation illuminates the crucial role of moisture management and offers a playbook for battling against the unpredictable elements, ensuring the quality of play remains top-notch. Join us for this insightful session, sprinkled with a hint of holiday cheer, and equip yourself with the know-how to keep the conversation around golf course care both engaging and informed.
Discover the art and science of perfecting the greens as our Director of Golf, EJ McDonnell, sits down with golf course operation gurus, Hal Akins and Todd Lowe, for a chat about triumphs and challenges on the links. Hal Akins, our Director of Golf Course Operations and the maestro behind Bonita Bay Club's latest renovations, pulls back the curtain on the much-anticipated opening of the new driving range and the meticulous Sabal Golf Course makeover. Meanwhile, Todd Lowe, a seasoned agronomy expert and former USGA agronomist, now with Envu, unpacks the complexities of maintaining pristine course conditions under the erratic mood swings of El Niño. Their combined expertise is a treasure trove for anyone keen on learning how to keep the fairways flourishing despite Mother Nature's curveballs.
As we traverse the trials of green recovery post-storm and the science involved in crafting resilient turf, this episode paints a vivid picture of the environmental hurdles from hurricanes to droughts. We delve into the decisions that shape the health of our beloved golf courses, including the regrassing of greens and the impact of unusual weather patterns on soil health. The conversation illuminates the crucial role of moisture management and offers a playbook for battling against the unpredictable elements, ensuring the quality of play remains top-notch. Join us for this insightful session, sprinkled with a hint of holiday cheer, and equip yourself with the know-how to keep the conversation around golf course care both engaging and informed.
Hello Bonita Bay Club members. I'm EJ McDonnell, your director of golf, and today I'm here with Hal Aikens, our director of golf course operations, and also joining us is Todd Lowe. Hal, I think everybody's pretty familiar with who you are, and mostly with who I am. Why don't you introduce Todd for?
Speaker 2:us All right. Well, todd, I've known Todd a long time, too long. I knew him when he had hair, but he was the USGA agronomist for Florida for 18 years. He has a very extensive background and he got out and he still does Sees a lot of golf course superintendents, a lot of golf courses, and you know they only call him when they have a problem. But now he works for InVue, which is formerly Bayer, a big company that produces different types of pesticides, fungicides which is a big one now and herbicides and other things like that. So he's technical services, technical support, and he still goes out and he visits a ton of superintendents. So, todd, welcome. Hey, thanks, thanks for having me and thank you, ej, for agreeing to be our host today. I know Becky's got some big shoes, but we'll see if you can handle it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll try to my best to guide the conversation and keep it to a decent length as well for our listeners out there. So, hal, I think you want to start it off before we kind of get into why Todd's here with us today and give a brief overview of where we're at with the Sabal Golf Course renovation and, importantly, the driving range.
Speaker 2:Yeah, things are going well. We grasped the driving range probably four weeks ago now, so unfortunately we haven't had like optimum growing conditions Even for this time of year. We haven't had average growing conditions, so the base of the range is not as far along as I'd like to see it. We're still targeting January the 15th, which is a Monday, to try to open it. I was out there yesterday looking at it, so we'll see. You know we got a few weeks before we got to make that decision. But that's still our target and hopefully we can do it. But we need some good weather to kind of get it to move on growing in.
Speaker 2:So but the rest of Sabal's going good EJ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as we know through all the projects we've done, that you can't just stare at the grass and make it grow. It's better to only look at it every three, four or five days instead of staring at it every day. So we know that we'll get that range open as soon as possible, depending on how Mother Nature does for us. And where are we at on the actual golf course?
Speaker 2:Well, we basically got holes one through five shaped and 18 as well. We're finishing off the green complex on 18 and that'll pretty much have that hole shaped out. So Tom Marsoff was here yesterday and Monday as well and he changed a few things and modified that green complex some so they have good direction to be able to finish that off.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, we'll come back shortly after the new year with a video for the members. I think Irvay usually enjoys those. It's nice to see what's actually going on out there. It's actually good for us to see things from the drone. You know that we can't see on the ground, so that's always always pretty cool to do that. So let's get to why Todd's here with us today. Irvay's talking about El Nino. I know you and Dustin talked about a little bit on your other podcast and our other weather patterns we're having. But with Todd kind of having been an expert and continuing to be in that arena when he was with the USGA for 18 years, he's seen a lot of things and so we want to talk to him about what we're going to see here on our golf courses.
Speaker 2:Well, this is another good reason for you to be the host. But I know that you field a lot of questions and obviously we are challenged with some of the greens out there, especially on Bay Island, but not just Bay Island, but we're seeing some on Marsh and a little bit on Creekside. So I wanted to talk about that in particular, but then I wanted him to give a broader overview, because he was with the USGA back in 2015 and 16, which is the last time we had a really strong El Nino. They predict El Nino is quite often, but rarely do you have one that is as strong as what was experienced then and what we're going to experience this year, because it's becoming obvious that this is going to be a reality, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Well, I remember the one 15, 16, and it was December 15, somewhere between the 10th and 15th of the month, and just over the course of 36 to 48 hours you can see significant changes in the greens and the grasses and stuff like that. So it can happen fast. So I know you're always on your toes and you have to be really on your toes during these kind of weather patterns.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no doubt, man. I mean we talked about in our other podcast how important it is to monitor your water, manage it as well as you can. We do that all the time, and during these kind of periods it's even more important, which it's hard to believe, but I mean it is like the most important thing we can do is to make sure that we're not over watering the greens, because that's really where the issue comes in with the with an El Nino is you can't control the moisture in the soil column there. So, todd, why don't you tell them a little bit about what you experienced back in 2015.
Speaker 1:I was going to wonder if you're going to let the expert talk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I started as a US agronomist here in Florida in 2000. And I remember, so we can go back to the previous El Nino of 98. And prior to that John Foy was the only US agronomist for Florida. I came in to help. But you know, and in 2000, I took the West Coast and he'd managed the East Coast but working with superintendents for 15 years before I started, I could tell you one superintendent after another always was very thankful, always very humble, for what John did as a whole, but particular to the 98 El Nino, and at that time they sent letters to all the clubs throughout Florida letting them know what they were going through weather wise, and how a lot of this was just simply uncontrollable. But I had one superintendent after another for many years when I first started, letting me know how much they appreciated that help, because once it gets to a point you can't overcome what the weather is throwing at you. And as golfers it's hard to understand that when their lawns look so great right, and it becomes more of an excuse. And so they really appreciated when having that third party expert level saying look, there are things happening that are beyond our control. So it started with that.
Speaker 3:Funny enough, he retired the December of 2015. And I knew we were coming into an El Nino winner and I said, john, just give me three more months please. I need all the help I can get. But he retired and sure enough, you know, I was watching courses and hearing superintendents, friends down here letting me know it's not getting better, it's getting worse, it's getting worse. And then finally it's we need. We need something, we need help and I'm like absolutely anything I can do. So I began writing articles. You can still find two of the articles from that time.
Speaker 2:I actually included that in the email that we sent out for the last podcast where Dustin and I talked about.
Speaker 3:Perfect. Yeah, they're out there for anyone that wants to go look at them. Just Google, you know, low USGA El Nino, and you'll you'll find the two that are there. I actually had one more that can't find anymore. But what I was saying is, you know, we were getting the word out. And then, you know, more and more superintendents were like look, we need face to face. And so we actually hosted meetings, beginning in late January. The first was at Vasari and then when the East Coast superintendents found out what we were doing, we're like you need to come over here. And then we did one more up north. So you've been getting out in front of it this year, right, exactly. So that was the goal, knowing that we were coming in until an El Nino.
Speaker 3:What can we do preemptively? What can I do? You know, even though I now work for InView, I still, you know, I've got that experience. Hopefully folks kind of look at me that way and what I mean folks like golfers you know I have no skin in the game as far as trying to make recommendations that would, you know, benefit a superintendent over their membership, but where I'm going is mowing heights. You know, that was the first thing that we know as a group of turf managers that we can do to help weather a lot of storms that raise the mowing heights. But you know how? What does that do when we start raising the mowing heights?
Speaker 2:Slows the greens down. We did that maybe three or four weeks ago. We raised our mowing heights because we could see it was coming. You know yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 3:That was the beginning, and then more was just to bring attention that this is what's going to happen. It's going to get wet. Now the predictive for this El Nino it's usually cooler and wetter, and for this El Nino it's mostly wetter. Average temperature is the same for a normal winter, but that's still not a great thing for us, because we have this thing called evapotranspiration. It's just the rate at which water leaves the environment through evaporation and transpiration. As our temperatures drop, water does not want to move, and so that's what I was saying Water management is paramount and whatever we can do to keep water from locking in into that soil and not allowing oxygen to get to the roots, because then what happens is the roots begin to slough off and they begin to shorten up and, generally speaking, that's not a big deal but ultra-dwarf mutagrasses. They don't have a deep root system anyway, so they almost get to be a hydroponic state.
Speaker 2:So we were talking about. It's never usually one thing, it's always a combination of many factors. Talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Funny enough, I did a visit years ago at another course in Benita Springs and I'm trying to explain to the Green Committee chairman about all the things that took place. It's rarely the one thing. They had nematodes. They had lower sunlight because we were in our winter play season and he said, Todd, it sounds like death by a thousand cuts. And I said, oh, that's perfect. That's exactly what it is. Because we begin to do things and some of them are self-inflicted we do for the right reasons. There's a lot that we have to do that actually stresses the turf out in our off season to make us the best we can be in season. Where I'm going is those practices that no golfer likes, myself included. Nobody likes when we have the verticut and top dress and airify. But there's reasons why we have to do, we have to maintain that thatch, but that's a stress on the turf. So we automatically begin to stress turf out.
Speaker 2:And, quite frankly, we do that to prepare ourselves for periods like this, maybe not this extreme, but to make it through the winters when you don't have as good of an operation and you're not getting the kind of growth.
Speaker 3:So every winters has that a little bit, not just to this extreme Correct, and it's great having a job where I could look back at superintendents and what they did and go oh well, it made sense that this happened and this happened and this happened. But when you're going through it, you can't put one, two, three and four, and now we've got two months of wet, cool weather. So some of it's self-imposed, some of it's just you notice. Oh hey, look, I've been using this plank growth regulator and on these other greens I don't have it and I don't see the same stress level. So it's.
Speaker 2:I think we have a little bit of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there are normal stress factors, which are play management, even mowing, golfer traffic, but shade absolutely in winter months. December 21st is our winter solstice and that's the day we have the least amount of sunlight and the sun sets lowest in the horizon, so it has very large shade patterns. So as we begin to enter this, we have this every year and now you throw on wet or cool.
Speaker 2:Well, you don't get as direct sunlight either. It's coming in the angle instead of, you know, more direct. So, and you know, you tend to have more vapor in the air during the winter and it takes longer to burn off, so you don't have the same solar radiation, correct, yep? So you know, one of the things you and I talked about when we were going out looking around and kind of showing you what we got was, you know, we started last year with the hurricane and you know, I don't know if it's a coincidence, I don't know if it's, but even at the time, but we had the storm surge and these, all these greens were covered in salt water and this fine silt. And we said back then, it's like I said, I don't know what the long-term you know ramifications of that is I, when I was growing them back in, no problem, I mean, we had a warm winter last year for one thing, drier and but when I'm not mowing them every day and I'm airifying them and I'm top dressing, I'm fertilizing them, they have no stress on them. They grew right back in, you know, and we were pretty successful.
Speaker 2:And then, by the time we had to, we had to get them in like golfing shape. You know where they, you know where people could enjoy speed and all that. We were into the warm weather. You know we were well into February, march. We do have more salinity in that soil today. It's not super high, but it's could be a factor. I don't know if the silt that that was the captum, even though we tried to wash it off as well as possible, I don't know. Is that making those greens not drain quite as well as they need to as well? Right, I don't know. Yeah, and we won't know. And we tried to airify them a lot, yeah, because we knew that could potentially be a problem.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and that's the best you can do. And I remember, you know, being here last year after the storm and and actually seeing the amount of recovery that had occurred, right up to the point where it's like you know we need to pull the trigger on do we regress these greens? And you made the decision. I got to be honest as an agronomist, I'm like man. But they're recovering so well. But the million dollar question is, yeah, but how long, brian? What's the long term?
Speaker 2:effect of that. But that was only four of them. Those were the four worst for sure. But you know, I mean there was on Bay Island, there were quite a few greens and I don't know that it's coincidental or not, but like number four, number 10, those are two of the worst ones today.
Speaker 1:On Bay Island.
Speaker 2:On Bay Island.
Speaker 1:As a reminder, we regressed four of the greens on Marsh, that's correct, and we just grew back in the greens on Bay Island that had been there and you know kind of when you bring that up. When you talked about bringing them back last winter, which is a great winter, right, too bad, we didn't have all five golf courses for the entire season. You know great golfing weather, great grass growing weather, but when you were growing them back in, like you said, you weren't abusing them, you weren't mowing them down every single day and double cut, roll traffic ball marks, stuff like that Kind of. Back to your analogy of the grass in my front yard looks great. Well, the grass in your front yard isn't stressed.
Speaker 1:So I think that when you bring up those points great reminder to me, even when I look at something I say you got to remember that we're taking these hybrids of this Bermuda grass and just abusing it for our enjoyment. So it's basically what it is. So I just kind of from a golfer's standpoint, and also that, without having the knowledge you guys have and all the fancy words kind of put in my head when you say these things, what triggers in my head which I think will with most of the other golfers as well, and you know you were talking about four and 10 out on Bay Island, that you know they weren't brown, they were yellow.
Speaker 2:Well, they were covered in that black, nasty, fine silt and you know you get out. We got out there and we tried to blast them off with the hoses and but that stuff is so fine it locks in there. And tell them why is that a problem?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, so just being flooded, you've got all that salt. But that material, who knows? I mean, I remember looking at it and seeing how just gooey and squishy and you think, man, what is that going to do to a soil system that, by the way, when we build putting greens, it's not like we just take a bunch of the dirt around there and pile it up right, there's a very scientific way that we go through about constructing putting greens. They've got four inches of gravel with 12 inches of mix, and that mix goes through a high level of scrutiny as far as sand-sized particle distribution, exactly how much peat. So where I'm going is now you've got something that you've put so much time and energy, and then what did that funky effect of that stuff? We'll never know. I mean, could it be minimal? We'll just. Unfortunately we'll never know.
Speaker 2:But so we got the salt. Well, you don't know, because this isn't a normal year. So I mean, maybe if it was a normal year maybe we'd be fine.
Speaker 3:Right, like we were last year after right, you know we improved a lot. But I think we're bringing up good points about. Well, remember it wasn't just right. We had the hurricane, but then you know we had drought that affected so many areas. Right after that, you mean this summer, well, and that too. But I mean I'm just saying recovering from the hurricane, we had a lot of areas where you know the irrigation went down or you know we had issues where some areas dried out right after. I mean I visited so many courses in this area, you know East of 41 that went under the water versus you know the other side, where it was vastly different and quality that lasted six months after. And then, correct, you throw the drought that we had this summer on top of it. It's rarely the one thing and it's oftentimes the collective of many unfortunate previous stresses it's been a fun couple of years.
Speaker 1:But I know, whenever we're talking about different things, having done the Cypress renovation in a four course year for us, you know, losing 20% of our courses on the hurricane last year and then with Sable Down this year, what is a normal year? And it doesn't seem like there is such a thing, and a lot of times, from my viewpoint it's. You know, we have all our driving ranges, do we have all our golf courses? Do we have all our clubhouses? But for you guys in your line they're probably I don't know how to define normal, because the weather pandas are ever changing Right, and the point about the drought this summer is another great point. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, the reason why that is kind of an issue is because we didn't have the rains that we need to flush out the soil columns. I mean greens, we always look at the summer rains as a good flush to get all the things like the sodium and the other kind of toxic things that are there accumulate during the dry season, because that's how a green is designed to drain, correct, you know? And when you get the rains, it moves that stuff through and into the drainage system and out completely, but in then also with, like fairways and rough and all that. We needed it there, although we're not struggling there too much, thank God, you know, but we're not punishing our fairways and roughs and all that, you know, like we do the greens, right, yeah?
Speaker 3:Yeah, which in perspective, when you look at the mowing height of a putting green, it's about the width of two dimes or a nickel. Keep that in perspective, you know, when you're looking at your lawn, which we mow with three inches right, and something that we play the game of golf on at such a low mowing height, that alone is a significant stress. Yeah, then add on all this other stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a shame that you have to take a step back. We take a lot of pride in our greens. I mean, like we like to make our greens fast.
Speaker 1:I mean I saw the disappointment in your face when you came in and told me you had to raise the height of cut on the greens, because you know we nicknamed you a rocket man because you like them to be fast, right, and so I could really see the disappointment in your face. You know I said we're going to have to raise the mower height, but you know we got to keep them as healthy as you can.
Speaker 2:Hey, I can tell you this Nobody here wants those greens to be any faster than I do.
Speaker 1:Well, I want them to be fast, but to a certain point, because it also goes the opposite way there was an old saying that says they're always fastest before they die.
Speaker 2:That's right. Old superintendent used to tell me that. So anyway, I want to like kind of make sure that everybody understands we're doing all the things that we can to manage this. We are not putting any growth regulator on, we are. We've raised the height of cut, we are managing the water, we are putting extra fertility on, we're putting fungicides on them to hopefully not have any issues as far as disease. That would exacerbate the problem. But we need weather. It's pretty out there today, but it's like 65 degrees and the sun is kind of out, but it's not really out completely. So we need some warm. We need some warm weather to stimulate the growth.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and that's the downside is, if we look back at 2016,. When I was doing those meetings, it was late January. What I mean to say is unfortunately, the pain is going to extend.
Speaker 1:That's that was going to be. My next question for you is you know what's the forecast for how long this is going to last? Cause usually I know that when Hal and I are talking we say, you know, mid December through the third week of January, maybe first part of February. We talked about a lot last year when we were trying to get the golf course back after the hurricane, cause we were like, yeah, we want a hot winter and we got it. But generally, and once again, whatever would be a normal year is mid December through the third week of January or the very first of February as we talk about to get through that Cause that's generally our so-called bad winter program right there. So what is the forecast? How long is this stuff going to last?
Speaker 3:I think it's very similar. It's just that the thing we can't predict is how much of this weather is going to prolong and even exacerbate some of the thinning that we see out there. Even though we're doing everything possible, we can't control the weather and it may take some of these greens another step back. So depending on how thin they are coming into that third, fourth week or third week of January, first week of February, we'll dictate how long it's going to take for them to get fully recovered. Hopefully, Lord willing, we're not any worse for wear from this point forward. Then come second week of February, we should be just golden.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's our goal right now. Obviously we want to recover. But if the weather doesn't cooperate and make that, you know, possible, we just want to stabilize. We don't want to lose any ground. We want to try to keep what we have there so that when the weather turns in our favor, then you know we'll make a quicker comeback. But we'll have to be careful, you know, that we don't do anything stupid, you know, to lose any more ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so well, I definitely think that the membership understands and realizes that. You know how is one of the best in the business been here a long time, how in the crew didn't all of a sudden forget how to grow grass? That didn't happen Sometimes, I wonder.
Speaker 1:He's always consulting with experts, you know, like Todd and other peers in the area and things like that, which is important because even if you are near the top of your field, you still want to talk to your peers and other experts to make sure that you're going the right direction it sounds like everything that you've been doing is the right thing to do and you know, go get through this next four or five weeks and hopefully this thing gets a heck out of here and use some sun up higher in the sky, warmer, keep some of the moisture out and we'll be back in great shape.
Speaker 2:Hey, you'd never know. I mean, next week doesn't look good, but you never know, I mean, the weather is not only cyclical, like you know, these long periods, but it's cyclical as far as, like, shorter periods, so that we may have a good short period of good weather in January. You just, you don't know.
Speaker 1:You're right, you're right, but I know this. Six, seven, eight days of 82, 84 sunny that would go a long way and you can handle a couple more weeks of the bad weather. You know you get really recovered and you're prepared for it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at least if you have something like that, you know you're not losing ground, right? Yeah, you know, but like what we just went through the last two, three weeks, that's, you can't. It's hard to battle that, you know. I know that we're probably got about five or six weeks that we just have to make sure that we are on cue, you know, Yep, and come beginning of February, you know it's going to get warmer and you know the cold spells won't last as long.
Speaker 3:You're right. And going back to the previous 2016 El Nino, I remember the one of the biggest complaints we had was mudballs and plug lies. And why I'm bringing that up is you know the steps you've made and fairway and rough quality have been outstanding, and you know that's the one thing I asked is well, are you top dressing fairways? Because that's when you look at the programs that are in place on golf courses, when you get to that elite level, it's top dressing fairways. Of course I'm top dressing fairways. That's going to pay huge dividends for you guys. So, everywhere else, tita Green will be great. The greens are a little thinnish right now, you know, and Lord Willem will get some decent weather and they'll improve, but everywhere else, very impressive with where you're at.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, we would like to have everything in good order at one time. Amen, we need to be able to get get a few things right, and then we always have this one outlier and sooner or later, one of these days, we're going to get them all together and have it all working in the right direction.
Speaker 3:And all our years of visiting together, your greens were never an issue. That's the frustrating.
Speaker 2:I never had that kind of problem before man.
Speaker 1:So I'm not sure how many people are actually still listening to this. Hopefully everybody hung on with us, but anyway, just want to say thanks, todd, for coming in today. Your insight is useful and educational, how, as always. We know that you're doing a great job out there, and I know that a couple of the greens are struggling, but overall we're in pretty darn good shape, and so, once, once again, thanks for the information. I'm sure the membership appreciates it and, as always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact Hal at any time.
Speaker 3:I did want to remind everyone, or let them know, that I actually have a recording of essentially surviving El Nino out there on YouTube and you can learn all about all these factors you've been talking about, until a little bit more in depth analysis, from that video All right, yeah, we'll have Becky throw that link onto this podcast as well, with a couple other things for those that want to do a little bit deeper dive.
Speaker 1:You know I'm golf pro and I was always kind of a weather geek anyway, so I'm not even a bigger weather geek, so I know I'll read and tell them.
Speaker 2:I know this has been a little bit longer than we would have liked it to have been this podcast, but I just want to make sure that people understand the details of where we're at and what we're faced with and I want everybody to understand that you know we, we get it, we know what's going on and we are definitely doing everything we can to try to manage through it.
Speaker 1:So it is it's it's important stuff for sure. Yeah, it's more educated we can be the better conversations we can have.
Speaker 2:Hey man, greens are the most important thing on a golf course Absolutely Sure.
Speaker 1:Well, I think this is going to be the final closing. Once again, thanks, todd and Hal. Many Bay Club members have a great holiday and a happy new year to you and your loved ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks again for hosting this for CJ. Anytime, hal, cheers, cheers.