Preparations

 

Each spring, before the golf season begins, we prepare the greens for a grueling summer of more than 24,000 rounds of golf and all of the other environmental stresses of a golf season. If you have been paying any attention to this blog, you know how much thatch in the putting greens can be a problem. During the shoulder seasons we take advantage of the down time to get aggressive on removing thatch.
A few years ago I purchased some scarifying reels. They are deep vertical blades that help remove some of that organic matter in the soil profile. It is less invasive than pulling aerification cores and is easier with less labor to accomplish. In no way does scarifying replace core aerification, but it helps.
After pulling out some material, we run the aerifiers out on all the greens with solid tines to spike and vent the greens. Every 2 inches there is a 5/8" hole that allows the soil the breathe from a long cold hard winter.
We finally add sand topdressing and drag them into the holes. The sand has multiple benefits such as diluting thatch, creating a firmer surface, smoothing out the surface, helping ball marks and promoting growth. Once a part of the soil profile, the sand eases compaction rates from traffic, allows for better air, water and nutrient movement.
The recent weather has slowed us down with accomplishing all of these tasks, but we hope to finish this all be the end of the week. Keep your fingers crossed.

Schedule Changes

Yesterday's topdressing application was moved to today due to the amount of heavy frost and the amount of golf scheduled for the day. The topdressing was completed today. Our range tee entrance project will be moved to Thursday. The farm that is supplying the sod on the front range received a heavy rainfall yesterday and can not cut the sod. Access to the range will be open and there will be no closures to the practice ares.

Topdressing Fairways

Thursday, we began topdressing fairways. This is a once a year program that we do to incorporate sand into the soil profile. The benefits include smoothing out any small depressions, filling in divots, dissolving the thatch layer, reducing compaction and improving root health.
Fairways 9,10 and 18 were done yesterday.

Topdressing Greens

This week we spiked greens and topdressed them with a fine grade sand. Following all of the wet weather recently, the putting surfaces were in desperate need of oxygen to the root systems. The past couple of days we spent opening up these holes and took advantage of the opportunity to also incorporate sand into the root zone. We schedule light topdressing to each green every two weeks throughout the season. Due to the late start and wet conditions this was our third application of the season. By this time last year we had five applications done.
There are many benefits to topdressing greens on a consistent basis. The most important is dilution of the thatch layer in the soil profile. With our cold temperatures our microbial activity does not break down the thatch fast enough.
Sand helps with smoothing out any blemishes and ballmarks, firms up the surface, allows water and nutrients to penetrate through the root zone more freely for maximum plant uptake. A sand profile also has the least amount of compaction which can be detrimental to any root system. These pictures show you how we spread the sand accurately to the surface and follow that by dragging with an old carpet. Following that we sometimes roll the greens and complete them with a heavy watering cycle that night to help wash the sand into the turf.

topdressing continues

Topdressing fairways today on holes 12 and 13. Tomorrow we will continue with topdressing fairways 10 and 18 tomorrow. Also half of the driving range tee will be closed tomorrow. have no fear, there has been limited play on the range lately so you will still have plenty of room to tee it up if you only have a limited amount of time to hit balls.

Clean up efforts continued today with the staff raking and sweeping up leaves around the course. There is still plenty of color throughout the course which makes for a beautiful walk.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Very cold weather today, the high was 42 degrees. We began to topdress fairways today accomplishing holes 11, 14 and 16. The topdressing sand we use comes out of a sand pit in the Denver metro area. It is screened and provides an excellent medium for the fairway playing surface. The sand accomplishes many issues including divots, low areas, fills aerification holes and overall provides a smoother surface. A sandy soil drains better, compacts less and reduces wear and tear from play. When the sand is incoprporated into aerification holes it helps dilute the thatch layer and provides a healthier envirnment for the turfgrass.