Steven mowing 17 approach

I often hear people say the summer in Florence starts on the 5th of July. I think we got a bonus day this year because the 4th was also beautiful. The extended forecast  looks dry and sunny.  For all you fair weather golfers out there, blow the dust off your clubs and come out to Sandpines for a round.

Clinton watering localized dry spots on 12 approach

With the drier weather, we are beginning to see more areas with localized dry spots (LDS). In addition to performing cultural practices such as regualr aeration, wetting agents are an important tool to help minimize the occurrence of LDS. I have heard some courses are having good luck injecting wetting agents into the irrigation system. The theory is a little wetting agent consistently used throughout the course will greatly reduce the incidence of LDS. Since the irrigation system puts the wetting agent on the golf course, there is no labor required to put the product out. We were going to try injecting wetting agent into the irrigation system on a small scale to see how it went. Since our irrigation system already had an injection pump, the only cost involved was the wetting agent. Unfortunately, when we attempted a test run, we found that the injection pump was not functioning. Once the injection pump issue is solved, we hope to try again.  In the mean time, we will combat LDS by spot applying wetting agents and hand watering. Our order of priority is an obvious one: greens, collars, approaches, tees, fairways, and rough.