The course reopened after only a day and a half closure yesterday at noon. We were able to complete aeration of greens, tees and approaches less than a dozen people and in about half the time. Ordinarily we close at 2pm the Sunday prior to aeration week and reopen the following Wednesday. This year we were able to bust out aeration, cleanup, topdressing and dragging all in a day and a half. We encoutered some challenges with our Soil Reliever (deep-tine machine) when we attempted to fit 16" tines for the first time. After half a day of struggles we opted to go back to our 12" tines which as usual worked flawlessly. Jim did a fantastic job keeping everyone moving and making adjustments and repairs very quickly. To my knowledge there weren't any major equipment problems, a testament to Jims preventative maintenance.
Getting greens back into shape will be our main focus in the coming week or so. We will try for a mow on Sunday and will likely roll on days when we don't mow. Tees and Approaches cleaned up very nicely and should get a trim over the weekend at some point. All of these areas are extremely soft and will be for the near future, so be careful with clubs, carts and footsteps as they can be extra damaging under current condions. We will continue dragging and rolling to move sand around and slowly firm up all playing surfaces. The importance of aeration cannot be overstated, as much as it is a nuisance to our guests for a week, it is exponetionally important to providing excellent playing conditions the other 51 weeks of the year. Bare with us and if the weather cooperates we should be back in shape in no time flat. A big thanks to our staff and the Heritage staff that spent the last couple days helping us out with aeration. We enjoy having them over and couldn't do all of this in such a short time without them.
