Some of you may have noticed lately that something has been tearing up rough areas as well as the edges of a fairway. At this point the damage has been near the fairway bunker on #4, behind the green on #5, behind and to the left of #13 green, some on #17, and the fairway and bunker edge on #18. As best as I can tell this is being perpetrated by skunks. They typically pull chunks of turf out and root around to find grubs that are under the turf. As you might imagine this problem poses a few challenges.
These grubs are Japanese Beetle larvae that were laid back at the beginning of August. We have seen an increase in the number of mature beetles on the golf course over the last two seasons. Long-term we will have to look at making preventative insecticide applications if we are going to avoid turf damage from the grubs and from predators. We have made some insecticide applications to get rid of the grubs but dealing with the skunks is a problem we will have to address delicately. Stay tuned!
