Many small desert animals including prairie dogs, rattlesnakes, and hummingbirds hibernate in the winter. Grass does too!

Golf Course Maintenance Begins at Dawn

Water Traps, Irrigation & Rain

A lush golf course cannot exist in the desert without water. Some types of grass are pretty resilient. But really, no grass thrives in 110ᵒ heat. As for rain…forget about it. Borrego Springs gets about 4.5 inches of rain per YEAR. So we irrigate the entire course constantly.

The grass likes it, the geese in the water hazards love it, but the combination of water and blistering hot sunshine turns the sand traps as hard as cement. The crew ‘fluffs-up’ the sand all day, every day to ensure your ball stays put when it lands in a sand trap.

Everything Grass

Fertilizer

Most everything on a golf course comes down to grass and keeping the grass happy. For instance…we fertilize the entire course with a spray foam nutrient. The foam show us where the fertilizer actually IS so no area is over or under-fertilized. The greens are especially critical, as incorrect calibration of the sprayers could result in damage to the smooth putting surface.

Stripes!

Have you ever wondered why golf courses are mowed in stripes? Our golf course crew alternates mowing patterns as part of their regular schedule. The most obvious result of this practice is the aesthetic enhancement of the turf. But there is another less obvious reason for doing this as well.

When mowed, turf has a tendency to lay over in the direction of the mower. By changing the direction of cut, the grass is encouraged to grow in a vertical fashion. This allows the golf ball to sit up on the turf and give the golfer a good lie. If the grass is mowed in the same pattern repeatedly, the turf will grow in a horizontal direction. This creates “grain.” Excessive grain can result in poor putting green quality. Because our crew mows the greens in a different pattern every day, grain is virtually non-existent.

Divots

Nobody likes divots. We fill them in with a mixture of sand and grass seed. What kind of grass seed? We thought you’d never ask!

Winter Prep – Hibernation & Re-Seeding

Here at The Springs at Borrego Golf Course, we use two varieties of grass – Bermuda grass in the summer and Winter Ryegrass in the colder months.

Bermuda Grass

Is a resilient, heat-loving, light green grass that grows by sending out runners and ‘crawling.’ It’s still green when we begin our winter re-seeding, but it’s not crazy about cold weather, so we put it to sleep for the cold months by shutting off the irrigation, micro-blasting the earth with cold water, and scalping the turf lower, lower, lower. This allows the crews to pull up the old, dead grass clippings.

Nitey-nite, sleep tight, Bermuda grass. We’ll see you in the spring!

Winter Rye

Is an annual grass. It is darker green, grows in clumps, and must be re-seeded every Fall. That’s what we are doing right now.

Getting the golf course ready for winter play takes about six weeks. The first two weeks involve putting the Bermuda grass into hibernation. Then we spend the next couple of weeks re-seeding the entire course. Finally, we mow the new growth of Winter Rye at least six times before re-opening. Why? Because the grass grows back thicker every time we mow it and a nice verdant golf course is what we strive for.

Good news! The Winter Rye grass is growing even faster than our original prediction. Re-opening day is scheduled for Nov. 3rd.

Stay at the Springs at Borrego RV Resort and Golf Course and play our professionally-designed, championship course.

The golf course re-opens Nov. 3rd. Request your site today.