Professional Documents
Culture Documents
It is our pleasure to welcome the Hess Family to the Club. Ken Hess first appeared here when son, Eli, decided to participate in the Kids Klub Golf Program this June. Both Ken and Ceann decided to become members and play a lot of golf since so many golf balls end up in their front yard. Guess that makes sense, because the Hess live across the street in between holes 7 & 8. Ken says he has lived here FOREVER and is a retired Hannibal Police Officer. Wife, Ceann, originally hails from Unionville and currently is a Social Worker Supervisor for the Childrens Division. Their hobbies include photography, swimming, boating at Thunderhead, and tailgating at Missou games. Glad to have you here!
Were celebrating the hot days of summer with a lighter, lady luncheon. Jan Schanbacher, Rosie Raible and Dolly Athman have chosen to serve a beautiful ripe tomato from the Meyers Garden stuffed with chicken salad. Along side this sunshine split tomato will be haricot vert green beans, crusty bread with dipping oil and lemon pie to finish. The hostesses are looking for this function to be the largest of the year so please call soon with your reservations.
The golfers and everyone else who normally admire our golf course do not need to be told that we are again experiencing problems with the fairways. The extraordinary heat and drought that we have experienced for several weeks have been a factor in this. Larry and Henry have for weeks been working long hours seven days a week to compensate for the extreme conditions. Our water bills reflect the tremendous amount of water applied. Despite this, deterioration of the fairways started some weeks ago. The Greens and Grounds committee have been working with Larry since the first indication of the problem to identify and control the cause of it. Regular core samples are taken to determine moisture levels. Soil temperatures are being taken to determine if temperatures are being reached which can damage roots. Additional water was used at times to limit soil temperature. When problems were first noted contact was made with the University Extension Service to obtain assistance in addressing our problems. This has been a slow and frustrating process which finally culminated in the arrival this past Friday of a knowledgeable turf specialist. He came equipped with microscopes and I believe the experience gave us credible assistance. He identified three sources of our problem; heat stress, leaf spot melting out disease, and Pythium blight. The chemicals we were using were somewhat effective against these diseases but not the best in his opinion. We will switch to his recommendations to prevent further deterioration this year and to better maintain the course in the future. We are seriously investigating converting our fairways to Zoysia grass. Some of the benefits of Zoysia grass are: Heat tolerance Requires approximately one half the water as does blue grass Requires less chemicals Requires less frequent mowing You can see that the various volunteer patches of Zoysia grass around the course are thriving whether they are covered by the sprinklers or not. The Zoysia plugs we inserted in the middle of #4 fairway last spring are doing fine with everything around them dead. A complete conversion to Zoysia grass will probably be cost prohibitive. It is more likely we will convert one or two fairways at a time. We will communicate our recommendation when we have identified the best course within our budget. Anything we would do with Zoysia grass would not be done until next spring at the earliest. We will be seeding this fall with a bluegrass variety more resistant to the diseases identified. ~ Mike Mechlin
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