I would like for you to do whatever you are more comfortable with, for whatever reason you choose. That's because it's brand new sod. That brand new sod is 'mounted' if you will, on PEAT. That peat will decompose over the next five years, more or less 1/5 each year. As it decomposes, it will give off nitrogen, and the usual stuff, as organic material rots (I'm sorry, I meant to say 'naturally decomposes'). At the end of five years, your pretty, brand new lawn will be two full inches lower than it is today. Go look at it: it's two inches up in the air, resting on peat. Five years from now, it will be sitting on the ground. (Which is why, when you see someone ask 'what do I do about the cracks between the sod pieces?', the correct answer is 'do nothing'. The cracks go away as the peat goes away. Five years.) So you're all set, in the 'organic material' department. What that lawn needs is fertilizer. NOT a big, boomba dose of fertilizer. Instead, how about a half dose now, and another half dose later? That would be ideal. Leaving the clippings on the lawn leaves organic material. Leaves a little nitrogen hanging around, which is good. You're set. You've got all you need, at the moment, because it's brand new sod. This is the perfect time for what's called Spouse Manipulation. If your wonderful spouse prefers that the clippings be bagged and removed, your comment will start out 'Of COURSE, dear...' and you will do it her way, so long as she is willing to help. By emptying mower bags into trash bags, or whatever. Especially in July, when it's hot outside. And carrying half of those bags to the curb. In the heat. No shade. By the time five years has gone by, both you and she (please allow her to think of it first: it's the gracious thing to do) will be of the opinion that she was right all along, and that the grass benefits from leaving the clippings on the lawn, as it adds nitrogen, and it's a lot less hassle. Not to mention a lot less hot, sweaty work with those bags. Yup: leaving the clippings on the lawn is the way to go, in the long run. And you can't get around this. And you will mention this, at the appropriate time: you've thought about it, and the fact is, she was right all along.

Since zygolia is not a word in the English language, and since RTF is associated with fescue, I'm going to assume this is fescue because you have too much shade for anything else except St Augustine - and this isn't that. Apparently your sprinkler puts out way more water than your sod installer was expecting. The idea of watering new sod is to just keep it moist, not to make it soggy. Try running the sprinklers for 3 minutes, 2x per day for a couple days to let the soil dry out some. It should be moist but not soggy. I'm guessing the wall with the fireplace on it faces west. That would account for the dead looking grass up against the hot wall. Where do you live in California? Please be specific - SoCal is not nearly specific enough.

Do you have a pic? That might help. What I've noticed, if you let grass grow too long and then cut it, you get brown spots. You might need to keep up with more frequent watering. It takes time for the sod to grow deep roots to be able to handle infrequent watering. Also, was the soil properly prepared before they laid the sod?

That'd be a whole lot of blowing quirkyquercus- and a whole lot of tromping around to do it. My charge would run out after 30 minutes so the whole operation would take days and everything would likely blow back while I'm recharging. I know blowing is the safest and least stressful thing but the logistics of actually doing it boggle me...