As some of you that have played lately may have noticed, we have had a contractor doing the repairs to our cart paths during the past two weeks. The damaged areas at #4 fwy and #9 tee have been repaired and the contractor is currently in the process of tearing out areas on #3. We will be completing some of the areas on the back nine such as #13,#15 and #16 while we are closed for aerification on the 29th of May so as not to inconvienience players. These repairs will be a huge improvement to our cart paths and should provide a much smoother ride around the course. Our aerification will take place on the 28th and 29th, right after Memorial Day. We will be punching the greens with a 1/2" hollow coring tine and topdressing and rolling the greens afterwards. The greens are growing well and should heal quickly with Mother Nature's help. I would also like to welcome our new Assistant Superintendent Robert Romney to The Currituck Club. Rob comes to us from The Pete Dye Golf Club in West Virginia and is a graduate of the University of Maryland.Welcome Rob and we look forward to providing members and guests with the best course conditions possible this season. Get out there and play some golf and please remember to repair your divots and ball marks. Thank you. Mike Terry - GCS

Well , it is supposed to be spring and it sure felt like it during mid to late March. Since then we have been dealing with some nasty weather from Mother Nature.Our March greens aerification went well despite some rain but the cooler temperatures during the weeks following really slowed down the healing process. March on the OBX can certainly be a shot in the dark weather wise. The greens took a while but they are now completely healed and looking good. We have been working on suppression of the poa annua that has started to creep into some of the greens. We have been able to keep the poa at bay for several years now, however as time goes by we will inevitably see more of it. Our chemical program to manage the seed heads this time of the year is working well and as it gets warmer the poa will start to disappear from the greens. Our bermudagrass seems to be breaking out of dormancy very healthy this year. We do have some spring dead spot as usual and I expect these areas to cover quickly once we start getting some warmer nighttime temps and the bermuda growth picks up.The cooler temperatures that have set in as of late have really slowed down the bermuda growth. Overall, the course is looking good and we are poised for another great year.The repairs to the damaged areas of the cart paths will begin this month and we will be fixing spots on holes 3,4,9,10,13,15 and 16. This will be a real improvement as some of these areas are very bumpy to drive a golf cart across. These areas will be roped off until the concrete has had time to cure to proper hardness. We will also be getting a new Toro fairway mower this week. This machine will be parked over the weekend on the range tee, so come out and take a look at it. This machine replaces our old fairway mower which will now be used for range maintenance on Sunday mornings. Our logo flags are here and we will be putting them out on the course as soon as the wind slows down a bit! These flags are quite attractive and will be offered for sale in the pro shop this year.Please remember that you can help us keep The Currituck Club in great shape by obeying cart rules,filling divots and repairing ball marks when you are on the golf course. Thank you for you help! Mike Terry - Golf Course Superintendent

Well, It is now March and it has been a fairly mild winter so far. The maintenance staff has been very busy all winter working on clearing projects, tree pruning, weed and pre-emergent sprays to the entire course and cleaning up the landscape beds throughout the golf course. The course is very clean right now as far as winter weeds. There was some poa annua that our simazine did not kill left on some of the holes and we added Round-up to our Spring pre-emerge sprays of Ronstar. The Round-up has done a great job of controlling the rest of the poa on the course. Kudos go out to staff members Ben Parker and Eric Wolfgram for doing such a great job getting the couse sprayed out and clean.The bermudagrass looks good and healthy and with the mild winter and lots of rain we should see it break dormancy in great shape this spring. We are currently in the process of aerifying the greens for the first time this year. We will be using a machine called a Verti-drain that allows us to aerify deeper into the greens soil profile. This machine punches through the "pan layer" that forms below our normal aerification depth of approximately 4-5 inches. The Verti-drain can aerify to a depth of 12 inches and we are using a 7" x 5/8" tine to penetrate the pan layer to allow for better drainage and to relieve compaction. The front nine and practice green are complete and with the rain today we will have to complete the back nine greens on Wednesday. The greens should heal quickly with the help of Mother Nature. March is kind of a guess as to what kind of weather we will be dealing with here in North Carolina so here's hoping for some spring like weather during the next couple of weeks. We will also be finishing the chipping of the live oak limbs on holes 10 thru 17 as soon as it drys up enough to get the large chipper in to these areas. This past Saturday with the help of the forestry service we attempted to burn the 300 acres of marsh behind the club. Unfortunately the wind was not co-operating and we were only able to burn about 25 acres from the wooden bridge north to about 18 green. We will be re-evaluating the weather conditions this month to see if we can get the rest of that acerage burned safely.

winter clearing work under way

The maintenance staff has been busy so far this off-season working on the natural areas throughout the golf course. Maintenance foreman Carmen Castle has been using the bush-hog to cut down all the areas that were cleared last year for views along some of the soundside holes. Carmen has completed the back nine and will be moving to some of the areas on the front nine in the coming weeks. Staff members Eric Wolfgram, Rob Shaffer and assistant superintendent Ben Parker did a great job of clearing around the pond on the 14th hole and pulling up the large wax myrtles that had taken over around the edge of the pond. This has improved the line-of-site views from the back tees quite a bit. During the coming weeks we will also be clearing around the pond on the 1st hole. Assistant Ben Parker has done a great job with our winter herbicide sprays for poa and broadleaf weeds. We are spraying a product called Simazine which will take out any poa and a variety of winter broadleafs that may germinate this winter.Overall, the course is in great shape so take advantage of some of these warmer days we have had and get out and play a round of golf.

The sound side wedding ceremony site is almost ready for some lucky couple to tie the knot! Our staff has been working hard to get the site irrigated, sodded, and hydroseeded with lovegrass before the first wedding there at the end of May. Kudos go out to maintenance staff foreman Carmen Castle for grading the site, installing the irrigation and helping to put the finishing touches on the area. We have laid a truckload of bermuda sod and seeded lovegrass, ryegrass and fescue along the sound front for soil stabilization. The site is looking good and will only get better as things mature there. If you get by the seventh tee box make sure to check it out!

March aerification

On March 12th,13th and 14th we used our deep tine aerifyer (Verti-Drain) to punch holes in the greens for the first time this year. We used a 7inch x 5/8 inch coring tine to remove material from the greens and applied approximately 50 tons of sand and dragged the sand back into the holes. This process will allow air and water movement through the soil profile as well as reducing the effects of compaction on the greens. The process is complete despite getting rained out on the morning of the 13th. The deep holes proved to be difficult to fill completely with sand and the staff will be topdressing lightly next week to cap off the tops of the holes. The greens should recover quickly with some help from Mother Nature in the form of good weather. Kudos to the maintenance staff for working through the inclement weather to complete a successful aerification. Our next greens aerification is scheduled for May 29-31.

poa control

While the golf course is pretty clean overall, we have had some poa annua break through our fall pre-emergent herbicide application. The poa is evident on holes 1,2,3, and 11 and we have sprayed a post emergent herbicide on these weeds for control. The plants slowly die after the application over a three to four week period so we should see these holes look cleaner over the next two weeks. The pictures show the plants as they begin to die out. We are now spraying our spring pre-emerge for the control of poa annua, crabgrass and goosegrass this summer.