Unlike some websites that claim to have the latest golf course openings, here at GreensKeeper.org we actually report which course is opening and when.
With the global pandemic a lot of things have to take the back seat. Unfortunately golf was made one of them. For reasons that escape me personally golf was declared unessential and with the court of public opinion going against popular sentiment was not a smart move. With the virus mitigated to some extent, it’s time to get back to work and with it a round of golf or three.
BE PREPARED: It’s Not Over
Not by a long shot. Remember to wash your hands with soap often. Don’t touch your face. And remember to keep your distance.
Get the latest information and course conditions about your favorite courses here.
Golf Course Review Rancho San Marcos Golf Course Santa Barbara California
Reviewed by: S_Smith, Danville, CA
Playing Conditions 6.46 GOOD
RSM went through some tough years during the drought and it’s good to see the course coming back. It’s been greener this year but still looks and plays OK.
They have always maintained the greens well and today was no exception. As noted, the course is a bit on the brown side now, which is not unusual this time of year, but it doesn’t affect play much. There are some hard-pan areas in a few fairways where you get a nice kick and run. So, some maintenance is still due. The main issue is the tee boxes. They’re in the worst shape I can remember. Many are hard, players not fixing divots, and some not even level. I’ve never seen that state of condition before. To my recollection they were always near perfect.
Based on conditions today, I wouldn’t go full-rate on this course. About the best you can do is $59 on Mon – Thurs, which is a great deal. Weekend afternoons are $75 riding with range balls and that’s about the break point. I wouldn’t go at a higher rate.
It pains me to say anything negative about this course because I love it. The design is awesome, the challenge is good, and the entire operation is first-rate. I’m confident it will get back to its former condition soon.
Rancho San Marcos Golf Course Santa Barbara California GK Coupon
Rode the Blues this morning 5/29/2018 for a GK guru round teeing off at 10:05am with JohnnyGK, MrKich and Barkydog. POP was 4 hrs 40 minutes. Weather was beautiful low 70’s with maybe a 1 club breeze on the back nine. Had not played out here in 15 months. Tierra Rejada’s range is closed for a couple weeks as they are fixing the fence around the range. They have a very huge and sloped putting green and a separate nice smaller chipping green. Down below on their range they also have a nice short game chipping area with a practice bunker.
The greens were very shiny green, soft and were putting medium speed. They had some minor poa circles creeping in that could effect putts. For the most part the greens ran true. We fixed a couple ballmarks here and there. Green rating 7/10.
The fairways were more lush than thin. 75/25 lush to thin. Some divot damage in the low lying and common areas like #10 fairway. I thought they were in pretty darn good shape. It gets hot in this area and it looks like the course is trying to water where they can. Fairway rating 7/10
The tees were semi-lush with mostly level teeing grounds. There were a few tees where you had to spend time hunting for a stance but you could always almost find it. Some divot damage on the par 3 tees that I tried my best to fill in with sand. Rating 6.5/10.
The rough was low in most places just off the fairway and high in others like where my buddy was just off of #1 fairway. The further you got off the fairway the rougher and less predictable it got. Rated 6/10
Was in one greenside bunker on #7 that contained raked firmer sand.
The layout here is an interesting one on the front–very hilly elevated tee boxes with small target landing areas. I think the front is tougher and has a lot more character than the back nine. It’s 2 different golf courses. Some fun character holes on the back as well like 11 and 14. Better hit it real straight here to score.
Its only a mile from home so for sure I will be back on birthday rounds or rounds that I can land a deal on. Recommended for a fun and challenging option in the area.
How do you look as good and play as well as a pro without spending hours at the gym or your life-savings on the range? Eat the right foods! That’s right desk-jockeys and cart-riders, you can increase your metabolism by 30% just by consuming more protein. Protein is a vital component to building the lean muscle mass needed for longer drives off the tee and provides the strongest hunger-reducing effect, keeping you full throughout the round. Grass-fed beef and wild salmon are especially good sources of protein and contain high amounts of vitamins, minerals and omega-3 fatty acid.
Go For Grass-fed Beef!
Beef = Protein
Go for grass-fed animal products to improve your health and aid weight loss! Why should you eat grass-fed instead of grain-fed beef?
Excellent source of complete protein
Lower in total fat
60% higher in Omega-3s (better ratio to Omega-6s)
10x higher in beta-carotene
4x higher in vitamin E
5x higher in CLA, cancer fighter
Higher in B-vitamins, folic acid, calcium, magnesium & potassium
Broiled Wild Salmon is a simple and easy way to enjoy this exceptional “brain food.” Not only is wild salmon an excellent source of protein, but it is also high in omega-3 essential fatty acids, potassium, selenium and vitamin B12. Always go wild when selecting salmon. Wild salmon has 20% more protein, 20% less fat and far more omega-3s than farmed salmon.
Ingredients
1 pound Wild Salmon fillets
1 tablespoon Pastured butter
Salt and pepper
Instructions
Preheat broiler. Pat salmon dry with a paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lay fillets skin-side up on a rimmed baking sheet 4-inches (or top rack) from the broiler. Broil for 4-6 minutes a side (depending on thickness) or until a fork can easily peel away flakes from the flesh. Remove from broiler. Top each fillet evenly with butter. Cover and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.
Cate’s Bio
Cate Ritter runs THE LEAN 18 Nutrition program at MTT Performance, A Golf Channel Academy located in Pebble Beach, CA. With a successful career as a top junior and collegiate golfer, Cate knows the importance of nutrition when it comes to having a competitive edge on the course. Cate’s work has been featured on ABC15 News, U.S. News and World Report, Wall Street Journal, Golf Digest, GolfWRX, Golf Tips, Golf Today Northwest, PopGolf Mexico, GolfPunk UK, and The Arizona Republic.
Leaving the house with a healthy meal under your belt, doesn’t mean your work is done! A day on the course requires that you keep your body fueled and your mind sharp for the long haul.
Too often golfers think of snacks as something they throw in their bag or grab at the turn. Unfortunately, many snack choices are processed foods high in sugar and or refined carbs, such as pretzels, crackers, cookies, granola bars, etc. In addition, they’re usually low in quality protein and natural fats. Consuming such nutritionally inadequate foods will give you a good chance of riding the bogey train on the back nine!
Eating Right is our Responsibility
Make a commitment to consuming more nutritionally balanced, whole foods. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. Plan ahead and enjoy delicious treats that provide consistent energy and maximum focus. Start by replacing refined carbs such as pretzels with simple whole foods like walnuts. Stop focusing on calories and start focusing on nutrients. Make it your goal to consistently choose whole foods over processed products. Always read labels and, although it might seem obvious, avoid foods containing words you can’t pronounce.
Enjoy snacks with natural fats, like avocado, nuts, nut butters, seeds, etc. Sustainable energy is NOT about eating low-fat, but rather finding low-sugar alternatives. If you like something that has a bit of a sweetness, try including some fresh fruit. Always balance carbs with protein and fat when possible. Fat lowers the glycemic load of any type of carbohydrate, meaning the sugar from that food enters the blood at a much slower rate. The lower the glycemic load of the food, the better. Fat also provides high satiation, keeping you full long after you eat so you can focus on the shot at hand instead of your growling stomach.
Pack From Home
Almond Butter with Apple, Cucumber or Celery
Beef Jerky + Walnuts + Pear
Cheese + Apple + Ham
Chicken + Olives + Hummus + Carrots
Hardboiled Eggs + Guacamole + Tomato
Organic Peanut Butter + Celery
Red Pepper + Carrots Sticks + Olive Oil + Balsamic
Yogurt + Blueberries + Pecans
At The Turn
Beef jerky, mini bag of walnuts and a pear
Sausage, couple slices of cheese & an apple
Tuna on 1 slice of sourdough with tomato & avocado
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I am Iain Sturge, golf course superintendent
It’s everyone’s favorite time of the golf season.
NOT!
For the Golfer, it can be a nightmare; paying good money only to find out no one told you the course was recently maintained. (Thank Goodness for Greenskeeper.org!)
For the Golf Course Superintendent or Greenkeeper it’s a good thing — relieving compaction, removing thatch, and amending the soil.
Perfect! Well, only if you are a golf green.
Like topdressing, Aerification is a necessary evil to maintain a healthy green. There are several ways to conduct the process, from using the smallest needle tines to iron spikes 16 inches long by 1-inch diameter. It is sound advice to anyone who has a lawn, sports field, or golf course with a wet spot, dry spot, compacted soil, just about any area that isn’t doing very well, to use aerification as the first and probably the best solution to fix the problem area. With golf greens and other areas around the course, routine aerification is done more as a preventative measure to maintain the health of the greens and other areas.
The Sand Columns from past Aerification
While heavily sanded, sometimes bumpy, slow greens after aerification are definitely not a golfers’ dream, but it probably is one of the most important things that my maintenance staff performs. An ideal soil profile should contain 50 % soil, 25% water, and 25% air. A few days after aerification, when the green has healed; returning to a normal surface, the green reaches this ideal proportion. As every day goes by, through normal maintenance practices and foot traffic from golfers, the soil becomes more compacted leaving it harder for water and nutrients to reach the roots. Please remember we are maintaining a living, breathing thing. It’s not static but constantly growing. Maintaining this proportion of soil/water/air allows the grass to be at it’s best, especially with the low height of cuts used when mowing the surface. If aerification is never performed, over time the roots will eventually be choked-out, unable to breathe, and will begin to thin out and die.
The most common technique used to aerify a golf green would be a ½ inch or 5/8 inch hollow core tine on a 2 by 2 pattern, meaning that every 2 inches you have a hole. This would be followed by a heavy application of sand. This sand filled hole allows water to flow freely carrying nutrients down to the roots as needed. One of the biggest benefits would be the reduction of compaction, allowing the roots to penetrate deeper, reducing the summer stress, and increasing the grass’ defense against disease. Like you, the healthier the green is the less prone to disease it is. Another great benefit is the removal of thatch, that spongy feeling layer on the surface of the green that turns a birdie putt into a bogey. This would most commonly be done 2 times a year or 3 times per year as the greens mature. You will find most superintendents will also aerify the greens with a much smaller
The Machine
hollow core tine or a small solid spike or needle tine, this is not very disruptive to play and the putting green is returned to normalcy within a few days, this can be done as much as once a month.
The actual process of aerifying a green is not, on its own, very costly, but the closure of the course and loss of customers during the week following has a larger cost impact. This brings us to why when you look on the greenskeeper.org website, my course, Hidden Valley in Norco, is the only red flag the first week of July. We listened to our customers. We capitalized on a slower time of the year and picked up other courses’ golfers from the typical spring and fall aerification seasons. You may think that’s only one time a year, but I have been known to aerify twice in 2 days. First, with an 8-inch long solid spike, relieving compaction at a much deeper level, allowing my water to carry sodium out of the soil profile. This is followed the next day with a ½ inch core tine 2 by 2. Plus, I like it hot! Sand goes in easier and grass heals faster.
The mess maker.
Whatever method used, it’s the Greenkeeper’s choice. It’s part of a necessary process to maintain a healthy green. We temper this because we know it is disruptive. We try to make this maintenance period as short as possible. It’s no secret about the work I do. It’s my job to make the impact of maintenance as little as possible. This is where communication to you, our customers, is so important — Thanks to JohnnyGK and Greenskeeper.org. Consider this, at the end of the day behind every great golf green there has to be several days of down time where maintenance must be performed; even Augusta National closed for 5-months before the Masters. I am not saying I need to shut down our golf course, what I am saying is if you want great playing conditions certain concessions need to be made to help keep the condition of the golf course superior. One of these concessions, aeration, although disruptive, allow me to produce consistent playing conditions you have come to expect from my golf course.
Some Additional Information about Iain. . . .
Who the hell are you? I am Iain Sturge, golf course superintendent, Hidden Valley Golf (Now at Bear Creek Golf Club, Murrieta- CA)
Just After Sanding
Course, Norco, California, 34 year-old tall skinny guy from England. Been working on golf courses for around 25 years, different labor laws there. For those 25 years I have been lucky enough to work on some prestigious golf courses, including, Woburn Golf & Country Club, the host of the British Masters and the Ladies British Open, and happy to be part of the early stages of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, fantastic golf course to be playing every afternoon.
Educated at the Oakland Agricultural School in North London with pig farmers and horse breeders, which also covered turf horticulture. Moved to the big old U S of A, at 22 years-old, after 8 years, 6 states and a hell of a photo collection I have decided to call Southern California home.
After spending many a morning logging into the greenskeeper.org website and finding it amusing, reading peoples variety of opinions about their golf experiences based on course conditions. I will not lie to you, going to work on a Sunday morning, after no sex the night before, after spilling coffee down my white shirt, pulling up to the gate realizing my keys are still in the kitchen, then finally making it into the office with my coffee stained shirt, to see complaints about common maintenance practices, makes me fall off my trolley. So as my course is in Norco, Horsetown, USA, I decided to get off my high horse and if you can’t beat them join them — I volunteered to write a few columns on the site, just explaining why superintendents do what they need to do.
It is my hope a little knowledge will go a long way for many of you to understand what I do to make your golf experience enjoyable and memorable. Because let’s face it, any day is a good day if you’re playing golf.
If you like this or any other article here on Greenskeeper.org be sure to “share it” with the buttons below!
Golf Course Maintenance: Topdressing Greens and Why
I am Iain Sturge, golf course superintendent
Why are you putting sand on the greens?
You’ve made them slow and bumpy!
Stop!
Really?
The practice of spreading sand on the greens — Topdressing — has been part of golf maintenance for ages. With so many benefits to the putting surface and overall health of the green, topdressing is truly a necessary evil for all. Trust me, do you think I would spend thousands of dollars a year to upset my paying customers; ruining the blades of my mowers for sadistic pleasure? No. Simply put, if you want greens to putt like glass, use what glass is made of — SAND!!!!!
The practice of working sand into the top layer of the green has benefits for the player as well as the superintendent. The
To properly topdress a green you need to work the sand into the greens; spread it around.
benefit to the player is obvious. Topdressing gives a smoother, firmer surface that will receive shots better, provided you can actually hit the green from yardage. For the superintendent we like smooth greens (we also play golf.) Seriously though a superintendent is concerned mainly with the dilution of thatch, the modification of soil structure to the top layers of the green, and to stop the greens from being scalped by the mower during the summer months. A side benefit, I am currently using sand to stop rabbits from chewing my greens. Simply put, the quickest way to achieve slow, bumpy greens is to STOP applying sand.
There are many different things to take into account before you put any sand on the greens. First, you should consider what sand or sand/soil mix was used during construction of the green. Matching particle size, shape, and organic contents is important to stop a layering effect in the green. Layering can prevent the movement of air, water, and nutrients through the soil profile leading to a black anaerobic layer. Second, you need to consider what you are trying to achieve by topdressing. If you
have an older green, heavy topdressing may be required to achieve a smoother more playable surface. On the other hand, if you have a new USGA spec green you will only need light, frequent topdressing through the growing seasons, mainly spring and fall. When growth of the plant slows during summer and winter it is not necessary to apply as much sand as the plant is not
Topdressing a green. It’s necessary!
growing as much. The more your plant is growing the more topdressing is needed to keep thatch from accumulating beyond a manageable point. Topdressing is only one of several practices used to achieve the desired surface that golf is known for, others include verticutting, grooming, and of course aerification. We can touch on these on a later day.
Although you may think sand is sand, go the beach, it’s gotta be cheap there is tons of it. With the cost of the sand and trucking, a 25 ton load being delivered to the course can be anywhere from $1200-$1800 depending on the quality of sand and distance from the pit.
Next time you are at a golf course and you hear that the superintendent has been spreading sand, appreciate the fact that he is trying to make your greens smoother and in turn your game better.
Some Additional Information about Iain. . . .
Who the hell are you? I am Iain Sturge, golf course superintendent, Hidden Valley Golf Course, Norco, California, 34 year-old tall skinny guy from England. Been working on golf courses for around 25 years, different labor laws there. For those 25 years I have been lucky enough to work on some prestigious golf courses, including, Woburn Golf & Country Club, the host of the British Masters and the Ladies British Open, and happy to be part of the early stages of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, fantastic golf course to be playing every afternoon.
Educated at the Oakland Agricultural School in North London with pig farmers and horse breeders, which also covered turf horticulture. Moved to the big old U S of A, at 22 years-old, after 8 years, 6 states and a hell of a photo collection I have decided to call Southern California home.
After spending many a morning logging into the greenskeeper.org website and finding it amusing, reading peoples variety of opinions about their golf experiences based on course conditions. I will not lie to you, going to work on a Sunday morning, after no sex the night before, after spilling coffee down my white shirt, pulling up to the gate realizing my keys are still in the kitchen, then finally making it into the office with my coffee stained shirt, to see complaints about common maintenance practices, makes me fall off my trolley. So as my course is in Norco, Horsetown, USA, I decided to get off my high horse and if you can’t beat them join them — I volunteered to write a few columns on the site, just explaining why superintendents do what they need to do.
It is my hope a little knowledge will go a long way for many of you to understand what I do to make your golf experience enjoyable and memorable. Because let’s face it, any day is a good day if you’re playing golf.
