This year's Invitational had one interesting problem to deal with.  After the crew detailed the course to tournament conditions, heavy winds arrived and made quite a mess.  Friday's first round's 9:00 am shotgun had us starting at 4:00 am to mow, double roll, and blow, blow, blow.  Thank you to our neighbors at Van Buskirk for the use of their roller, the greens were just awesome.



Three greens downwind of our massive and messy eucalyptus trees were covered in the flower parts that are tipped with tiny yellow anthers.  Here is a excellent photo pulled from Microscopy UK and author Brian Johnston.  The little white hairs covered three greens and slowed ball roll down making greens that were stimping 11.5 feet only roll out at 9.5.  That is not very fair to the contestants.

We tried to blow them off, but they were glued to the surface.  We tried to mow them off, and no luck at all.  We then tried to wash them off with a high pressure nozzle and the greens were going to be soaked by the time we finished.  As you can see below, the results were not that great.







Back to the drawing board and back to the shop to get our Greens Groomer brush.  I spun the greens a couple of times, we mowed again and double rolled.  Finally back up to speed and ready for play.
                                                                                                                                                                                 



















I'll have a couple more posts about the Invitational which was a very positive experience for members, guests, and the staff. I'm glad it's over with, but I enjoyed every minute. Thank you to my wonderful crew, the best around!!!