Walker Course

Month: July 2026

July 2026 Newsletter

July 7, 2026

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 
04Red-White-Blue Event
06Course Closed / Shop Open
13Course Closed / Shop Open
18-19Clemson Women’s Golf Academy
20Course Closed / Shop Open
23SC Senior Golfers (am shotgun)
25-26Hurricane Junior Tour (am times)
27Course Closed / Shop Open
August 
01-02CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP
03Course Closed / Shop Open
06Vets Helping Vets (am shotgun)
10Course Closed / Shop Open
15Ping Fitting Day
17Course Closed / Shop Open
23Tiger Invitational Practice Rounds
24Clemson Tiger Women’s Classic
29Kappa Sigma (pm shotgun)  
31Course Closed / Shop Open

Golf Pro News

Brent Jessup, PGA Head Golf Professional

Red-White-Blue 4th

In celebration of July 4th, we will host a Captain’s Choice 18-hole scramble on Saturday morning, July 4th. Play begins with 9am tee time starts. Members sign up individually, and teams will be determined by handicap index and paired accordingly. Each team will play (6) holes from the RED tees, (6) holes from the WHITE tees, and (6) holes from the BLUE /purple tees. Entry fee is $20 per player, plus cart fees. Deadline for entry is Friday, July 3rd at noon. Since most folks have evening plans, there will be no post-golf social for this event. Winners will receive golf shop credits.

31st Annual CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP

The 31st annual Club Championship will take place on Saturday & Sunday, August 1 & 2. The entry fee is $20 per player. This is a two-day, 18 holes per day, stroke play, NO HANDICAPS event. Members will compete only against other members playing from the same set of tees. The tee flights will be: ORANGE (Championship), Purple/White Hybrid, White, and Red (Women’s Championship). There is no gold (senior) tee competition since the Senior Club Championship is held later in October. Sign up in the golf shop by the July 30th deadline. Defending champions are: Raymond Wooten and Mary Brock.

Member-Guest Pass Cards

Be on the lookout for your 2026-2027 Member-Guest Pass Card. They were mailed this past week via the US Postal Service. For our newer members, this card allows you to bring THREE guests (annually) to play for only a cart fee. Please review the day and time restrictions listed on the back of the card. The card is valid weekdays any time and after 2pm on weekends (F, S, S) and holidays. It is not valid on home football weekends (F, S, S). You must present the card for validation when you bring your guests and you must play with them. All 2025-2026 cards have now expired and are no longer valid.

It is a good idea to store the card in a safe place. Lost cards will not be replaced. Don’t wait until June 2027 to use them; they tend to get lost the longer you hold them.

 Hurricane Junior Tour Seeking Volunteers

Once again this month (July 25-26), we are hosting the Hurricane Junior Golf Tour. We will need shuttle driver volunteers to move these young golfers around the course on Saturday and Sunday. If you are able to volunteer a few hours either day, please contact the golf shop for an assignment. A sign-up sheet is also posted in the shop for you to sign up.

 Match Play Reminder

 Quarter-final matches are due to be completed by July 19th. Please contact your next opponent and get that match played! Thanks for your diligence in keeping this event moving along toward

completion by the end of summer.

Member-Member Results

     Congratulations to Joel Fickes & Tom Teasley for winning the gross division and Dave Carney & Tom Turpin for winning the net division of the Member-Member championship last month. Twenty teams competed in the multi-format event on Father’s Day weekend. Thanks to everyone for playing. We hope to increase the size of the field again next year. Congratulations also to all the individual format winners from each set of tees. Over half the teams won some division and shop credits!

Interclub Update

Both of your senior and super senior interclub teams are in position to make the playoffs later this month. Both squads have 3-2 records so far this season. The senior team is leading their “pod” with

209.5 points. The super senior team trails Cobbs Glenn GC by 3.5 points going into the final regular season match later this month. Big NIL bonus money is at stake for our captains! (LOL). Bring them home victorious, Captain Mansmann and Captain Miller.

Golf Superintendent News

Don Garrett, CGCS — Course Superintendent

June Status

We had a very successful aerification week, completing all greens, collars and fairways as planned. The weather was in our favor as well. It was dry except for one shower that slowed us for a few hours, and the temperatures were mild, staying in the mid-80s all week. The somewhat cooler temperatures make a big difference to our staff, who worked from sunup to sundown all week to get all the work done. All in all, an almost perfect week.

For the greens, we used a 1/2-inch hollow magnum quad tine, set on 1.5-inch centers to a depth of 2.5 inches. The plugs were cleaned up to remove this organic matter, then topdressed with sand that was brushed into the holes. The practice green was double aerified. We went over the green once, cleaned it up, filled the holes with sand and then repeated this process. I felt this was necessary to help break up anything layering related to sodding this green. This will help to break this layering up and get the roots moving deeper into the soil. It will take a little longer to heal up, but once it does, I think it will be much better in the long run. We did not perform the Dryject procedure like we have done the last 2 years. The Dryject injects sand into the root zone. I wanted to see if the 2 micro tine aerifications we have started performing in April and August might replace it. But I’m already a little skeptical and have pre-booked the Dryject contractor for next year.

Expect a 28-day healing period before the greens are fully recovered. As they begin to recover, we will begin lowering the mowing height back down, begin brushing and grooming daily, applying growth regulator, lightly topdressing and verticutting every 7-14 days. All these processes will help to smooth the greens and increase ball roll. For the fairways, we core aerified with a 13/16-inch tine, the first step in our 9-step process. The cores are then swept up and removed. Then, the fairways are double verticut. The debris from the verticut process is then vacuumed up and removed. The fairway is then brushed to stand up any remaining tissue. Then it is mowed in a circular fashion with a mower set very low to scalp this material off. The fairway is then blown off. Next, it is mowed again in a standard 12-6 direction and blown off one final time. The fairways are recovering rapidly and should be back to normal in a couple of weeks.

We accomplished quite a bit of work over 5 days, and I am appreciative of my staff, many of whom worked 15-hour days, from sunup at 6am to sundown at 9pm. And as I say every year, I know it disrupts playability for a few weeks, but the work we do over this one week has a lot to do with the condition of the course for the other 51 weeks of the year.

July Plans

As mentioned above, we will be working to assist the greens’ recovery and get them back in shape as quickly as possible.

On Monday, July 6, we will be verticutting the tees and collars, weather permitting.

Also in July, we will be cutting down the natural areas. The “Turnip” patches on holes 2, 5 & 6 will have run their course. We will cut them back and then get them ready to reseed about September 1st. The fescue areas will be cut back and sprayed for weeds. The lower 9 fairway will be aerified again and topdressed as we continue to work on sand capping this area. The rest of the month consists of lots of routine mowing. This is also the month when many of our staff take vacation time.

Bleached White Turf

In early July, you may notice some spots around the course where the grass has a bleached look and appears to be white. This is from an herbicide product called Pylex. Pylex is very effective against the troublesome weed goosegrass. We have some spots of goosegrass that seem to be resistant to some other commonly used

herbicides. These spots are primarily areas we sodded at some point, and I suspect the resistant plants or seed came in with the sod. Thus, the need to try Pylex. The bleaching effect becomes apparent 3-4 days after application, peaks at 7-10 days and is usually fully recovered by 14 days. The 2 largest areas you will see are around the 7th and 13th greens.

In addition, we will be spraying some more traditional post-emergence herbicides. This will give the traditional yellowing/browning look to the turf with recovery in 7-10 days.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

Operating Hours:

Pro-Shop:
Monday: 11 am-7 pm Tuesday-Sunday: 7:30 am-7 pm
Practice Range:
Closed Mondays, Tuesday-Sunday: 8:45 am-4 pm (Weather permitting)  

Key Contacts:

Head Golf Professional Brent Jessup, 864-656-7516
Course Superintendent Don Garrett, 864-656-1814 Accounting Azenda Thompson, 864-656-0595
Golf Pro-Shop 864-656-0236
Solé On The Green 864-656-7444
The Martin Inn 864-654-9020
The Madren Center 864-656-7155		Membership by the Numbers
Individuals 193
Family 96
Life 25
Non-Resident 101
Young Alumni 47
Inactive 3
Legacy Life 12
TOTAL MEMBERSHIP 477  

New Members  

Member Resignations
Mike & Denise Schlitt
Bob & Cindy Starnes
Karen McCauley