Saturday, August 27, 2016

Greens Recovery

          This Monday, August 29th will be 3 weeks since we aerated the greens and topdressed with heavy sand.  While this process takes a minimum of 4 weeks to fully recover, we have seen a pretty good recovery rate so far.  However, it has also become evident the greens were damaged in some areas during the process.  Many of the worst areas appear to be where too much sand collected and damaged small areas or lines on the greens.  This amount of sand combined with the 90 degree temperatures over the last 2 weeks really damaged these areas badly.
           The only good news is we have seen good recovery over the last week, and though extremely slow,  I am confident these areas will fully recover over the next few weeks.  Also, our staff will focus on plugging and sodding the worst areas, which will instantly improve the surface.  Believe me this is a  worst nightmare for a golf course superintendent, and I want the conditions to improve more than anyone!                
           Good thing is we can fix the problem, and in the future we  will change our schedules to reduce the chance of this heat damage happening again.  Instead of aerifying the first week in August, we are moving the date to the week after Labor Day.  Typically by the first week of September the weather has started to cool off and the greens should recover much quicker.  Later in the season will also help ensure we do not see the damage we suffered this year.  We will do all we can to prevent this from ever happening again.

Thank you,


Mark Hayes
Grounds Superintendent


You can see some sand spots on the green that are slow to recover.  These spots are slowly filling in and will be fully recovered within a few weeks!




Sunday, August 14, 2016

Aerification Successfully Completed!



Last week our staff successfully aerified all the greens on the golf course with no problems!  This is always an unpopular time for golfers, but once all the plugs are removed and sand is added to the greens, all there is to do is wait for it all to grow back!  Over the next few weeks it will not be fun to putt on the greens, but by the time Labor Day weekend rolls around, the greens will be almost fully healed and back to putting true again!

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Greens Aerification August 8th!




This is a reminder that next Monday, August 8th, we will be doing our Fall Greens Aerification.  This will be the BIG HOLES and HEAVY SAND!  I know this is the time all golfers dread, but it will be very beneficial for the greens this fall golf season, and for continued annual health.  The greens will be fully recovered within 4 weeks!