Course Aeration Wrap Up

There has definitely been some delay since my last post, but it's not for lack of activity. Aeration was a challenge, but a rewarding one. The course has made alot of progress in recovery over the last week, and I wanted to share some pictures to confirm that fact: here's #17 green in time lapse form, both in wide shot and close up:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 5

Day 14

Day 1

Day 2

Day 5

Day 14

So though the greens may still be mostly slow, and a bit bumpy, the recovery is over 90% complete. And it might even be a bit farther along if it weren't for the past three sub-60 degree days and 2.3" of rain. But the sun is back, the temps are climbing, and we are beginning to work on speed and perfect smoothness in preparation for our Women's and Men's Invitationals coming up. The pain of aeration is over, let the good golfing season commence!



Course Aeration: Day 3

The end is in sight! Only one more day of course closure left for aeration, and I'm happy to say we've been largely successful. Yesterday, we finished aerating, overseeding and topdressing all of the approaches:

Dragging in approach topdressing

We made some progress on the fairways as well, though we only got through one and a half holes before all our tines were destroyed. The soil below 2" is particularly unforgiving on our equipment and we're constantly making adjustments. We'll continue pushing our way through pulling plugs on at least the four holes that we will be topdressing, and may switch to a less disruptive aeration (solid tines) in order to continue work in between play once we open back up.

Winchester soil vs. heavy duty tines

We also finished cleaning up the second half of the greens that were completed on Day 2 and have begun double rolling them to smooth the surface back out. The greens will remain a bit sandy and slow as we open for play this weekend, but will get gradually better through next week. With this ideal recovery weather we're getting, the impact of aeration should be minimal after 2 weeks and the greens should be excellent shape for the Sugar Pine tournament at the end of the month.

Course Aeration: Day 2

Another successful day of course aeration complete. The second half of the greens were completed yesterday. We also completed some follow up clean-up on the greens that were completed yesterday, by blowing the excess sand across and off the green. This helps top of any holes that were still lacking sand as well as provide a cleaner surface, exposing more leaf tissue to increase photosynthesis and recovery.

#17 after Day 1

#17 after Day 2

Green surface after Day 2

We also aerated and overseeded the lower driving range tees, and aerated half of the approaches.

Approach aeration

Today we focus on finishing aeration of the approaches as well as seeding them with more ryegrass and topdressing. We also begin aerating fairways today, starting with the holes we will also be topdressing (our worst performing in terms of drainage, playability and plant health): #3, 4, 8 and 12. Still alot of work to be done, but we're making steady progress!

Course Aeration: Day 1

Day 1 of our course aeration is in the books and the crew is heading out as I write to finish off the rest of the greens. We completed the entire aeration process for just over half the greens yesterday. Today we'll finish off the rest of the greens with plans to tackle fairways and approaches over the final two days. So far, so good!

Our process for greens aeration essentially goes like this:
-Core aerate (pull plugs) the greens to a depth of just over 4" (breaking through the previous compaction layer existing around 3.5")
-Use walkmowers with push bars to push the plugs to the collars
-Shovel plugs into carts for disposal (mostly to fill in ruts and potholes on our service roads)
-Verticut in two directions (helps remove even more thatch and cleans up the leftover plugs at the same time)
-Heavily topdress with sand
-Apply bentgrass seed and fertilizer
-Drag the sand with a brush in four directions to fill holes and smooth surface
-Lightly irrigate (to knock the sand down into the holes and relieve some of the stress we just put on the greens)

Here are a few pictures of the process from yesterday:

Pushing plugs on #10

Verticut clean-up on #17

Topdressing #2