Hey everyone! We hope everyone is staying cool these past couple of weeks and have stayed dry. Here at Heart of America we have been busy trying to make the course at little easier to understand for new players! We have added signs! There are new signs around the course so new people understand which way they need to be going. They will help people trying to find #2 tee box, #5 tee box on the river. River and Rock signs are up to let people know what side of the course they are on as well. There are new signs in the parking lot so check those out the next time you come out to the course! We are also trying to get accurate yardage for the rock course for... you guessed it new signs!! We hope everyone is having a great year so far and to stay cool out there! 

Hunter Hill

Assistant Superintendent 

Heart of America Golf Course

Hello everyone! We hope everyone is doing well and keeping those scores as low as possible! If not we have added some new poles to the range to hit towards. In total we have added six new targets to the range. Three by the lower tee as short shots for short game play, and three more mixed in with the ones already there.  The larger ones are spaced out so there is less of a gap between the older poles, distance wise. Please download the HOA app! The app will have GPS coordinates for the poles and should help judge distances for you. If you have any questions please ask the club house staff for instructions. 

Yes the camera does add ten pounds. I am six foot with shoes, so these poles are large. 

    Also you might have noticed some construction by our front gate and going west down our road. That is a new walking path the city is putting in that anyone can walk down if you are interested. It should be finished anytime in the next couple weeks. 

Hunter Hill

Assistant Superintendent 

Heart of America Golf Course

 Hello! We hope everyone is doing well and staying warm out there! We have had warm days and cold days these past couple of weeks but we are still open and hope everyone can make it out to play the course! If you have been out you might of seen us spraying fairways and tee boxes.  We are spraying a herbicide that will get rid of the unwanted weeds in the fairways and tees. This is the perfect time to spray because the zoysia fairways are dormant. That means it's not actively growing and we can spray it and the plant will not take up the herbicide and die. But the cool season plants/weeds are still actively growing and will take up the herbicide. The rough that is still green and still growing can take the herbicide that we sprayed and die. So we need to be extra careful near the edges of the fairways and close to the greens so we don't get any drift from the wind and accidentally spray the greens. We have to actively watch the weather and make sure we spray when there is little to no wind. If you are spraying at home please make sure you are using proper safety gear and also make sure that you are checking the weather for low winds so you don't have any angry neighbors! Also we put a dye in the tank so we can see where we have been, that is why the fairways have been a bluish green.  

Hunter Hill

Assistant Superintendent

Heart of America Golf Course

    Hello! We hope that you had a great Thanksgiving break and didn't eat to much!! It might be a bit chilly out there but still come on out to the course and play a round or two! We are open and ready for play! When you do come out you might notice or have noticed our new rock fence lining the range and parking lot. We had to do that because we have been getting broken into for the past three to four months now.  They have stolen gas, carts, equipment and have broken into our clubhouse on occasion.  Your cars are totally safe if you are worried about that, they have only come really late at night. We have cameras now and a security company to come to the course at a moments notice. But we added the rock wall because our white fence was not really a fence. You can just pull it apart and drive a cart right through. With these new rocks, we spaced them three feet apart so carts cannot drive through. We will be taking down the white fence now that all our rocks are placed. 
    

Thank you again for coming out and enjoying the course. Have a great holiday season and stay warm out there!

Hunter Hill

Assistant Superintendent

Heart of America Golf Course

    Hello everyone!! It has been a while since the last blog post, but we have decided to start once again! We had a dry 2022 so we couldn't spend as much time on the blog post as we would of liked during the summer months.  Now the leaves are falling just like the temperature.  If you have been on the course recently you might have noticed all the leaves falling and covering the greens, tees and fairways.  Which makes finding your ball just that much harder!!  We have been blowing leaves pretty much every day now and there are still loads of leaves everywhere.  We hope that you are patient with us and with the leaves that are getting blown back onto the greens by the wind.  It is a constant battle everyday and every year for us and many golf courses around town.  We hope you guys come out and play the course and hit on our driving range! We are now down in front of the range tee ever since we seeded the tee area.  Please try to stay off the tee, it is still growing and the roots need some time to get established.  

Hunter Hill

Assistant Superintendent

Heart of America Golf Course 

    Rain, Rain and more RAIN! These past couple weeks have been just nothing but rain. It's been tough to keep the course looking trimmed and in order because of it. But we are doing our best so we all hope you are patient with us while we get to course back to normal again. Even though we have gotten so much rain, we have been running mowers nonstop trying to keep up with how fast the grass has been growing.  It has been difficult to mow the fairways without tearing up turf, because of the rain.  Also the fairways have been sprouting up seed heads which makes cutting them quite difficult for the mower. With the amount of rain we received the river flooded over the first bridge and deposited a lot of trees and branches.  We cut up a big tree trunk that was blocking the path and pushed it into the river.  We were fortunately though, with the amount of rain we got we were surprised that the river didn't flood more of the course.  But we were lucky that didn't happen. Now that it is officially summer time we should be seeing warmer and drier days ahead of us! We hope everyone is staying dry and healthy!

Hunter Hill

Assistant Superintendent

Heart of America Golf Course 

    Its almost time for summer and that means warm days and potentially dry days as well! Water is a big issue that we need to be constantly aware of during the summer time. We don't want our course to be super dry but we also don't want it to be super wet. Both can cause problems for the turf. So we are always watching the weather and reading the moisture levels on the greens.  If the greens get to dry, everybody knows what happens. The grass wilts and starts to die, which no one wants to see dead grass on the greens and the rest of the course.  However if the grass is constantly over saturated with water we could start to see a wide variety of diseases. Which in turn looks bad and can damage or kill grass. This is why you will start to be seeing us checking the greens more often. Also over watering can shorten the roots of the plant. This is bad because without deep roots it is only getting water that is near the surface and may dry out faster. 

    Different types of grasses is another factor when it comes to moisture.  For example our fairways are zoysia grass, that is a warm season grass.  It's grown in warmer climates and is made to withstand drying out and less water.  We are in a transition zone here in Missouri and Kansas. Which means we can grow warm season and cool season grasses. If you are trying to grow a great lawn this summer just be aware of what type of grass you have or want to seed in. If you have an suggestions about the course and or questions don't hesitate to ask the club house or the turf crew!! 

Hunter Hill

Assistant Superintendent

 Heart of America Golf Course