Cart traffic...

It's that time of year again... As temperatures rise and the dew points continue to climb, cool season turf begins to show signs of stress. The good news is that the days are getting shorter since we have passed the summer solstice!

There is no doubt about it, cart traffic is a contributing factor to stress on cool season turf. Notice the turf fifty yards past the sign where cart traffic is consistently restricted; it has one less variable compared to the rest of the turf.

Here is another example on one of the older fairways. The green line across the fairway looks like it was caused by cloud cover but in fact it is the line where carts exit the fairway.

With all of this in mind, there may be a few days over the next couple of months that carts will be restricted to path only to give the turf a break and allow some recovery.