Turf Talk
11 AUG 2025
Dear Members,
I trust you’ve been enjoying the season so far. With the Club Championships now behind us, I wanted to take a moment to share how the Turf Team prepared RattleSnake Point for this important event — and to update you on how we’re managing the golf course through this stretch of extreme summer weather.
Club Championship Preparation
Leading up to the Club Championship, our crew focused on several items to ensure championship conditions for players.
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Greens: Double-cutting and rolling for consistent speed and trueness. Throughout the weekend, greens on both Sidewinder and Copperhead rolled between 11.8 and 12.2 on the Stimpmeter, providing true, tournament-quality putting surfaces.
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Tees and Fairways: Extra mowing cycles for a clean look and firm playing surfaces.
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Bunkers: Full edging, sand distribution, and daily raking to ensure uniformity and playability.
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Detail Work: Irrigation, and cleaning up naturalized areas to present a crisp and well-defined course.
Our goal was to provide tournament-quality conditions that challenged competitors while showcasing the beauty and playability of RattleSnake Point.
Managing Heat and Drought
You may have noticed some of the peripheral areas of the course starting to fade, as well as occasional “hot spots” developing on our playing surfaces.
So, just turn the sprinklers on at night, right?
If only it were that simple. At RattleSnake Point, we water every night during weather like this. We also hand-water hot spots, run select sprinklers in problem areas before play, and monitor soil moisture daily with electronic meters. But there’s one unavoidable limitation — there’s only so much time in the night to irrigate.
From the moment the last golfer leaves until the sun rises, our system runs at full capacity. This allows each sprinkler roughly 12 minutes of run time per night — the equivalent of about 1 mm of rainfall. Compare that to the late-June heatwave, when daytime highs hit the mid-30s (feeling like the mid-40s), with full sun and steady winds. During those days, the turf lost around 5 mm of water daily through evapotranspiration, meaning we replaced only a fraction of what was lost.
To manage this deficit, we use wetting agents on greens, tees, and fairways to help retain moisture where it’s most critical. We also adjust irrigation based on topography — cutting run times in low-lying areas that hold water and reallocating that water to higher, drier mounds. These strategies help maximize efficiency, but during prolonged drought, some browning is inevitable.
Playability Over Perfection
While a few faded patches may not look perfect, they don’t necessarily hurt playability. In fact, firmer fairways, true ball roll, and quick greens often make for some of the best golf conditions. And if the rough gets a little thin… well, let’s just say it might not be the worst thing in the world.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support as we work to keep RattleSnake Point in top playing condition, no matter what Mother Nature sends our way.
See you on the course,
Bill McAllister
Golf Course Superintendent
RattleSnake Point Golf Club