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!