Greens Update

We are now a week removed from our fall aeration of greens tees and approaches.  We are happy with the progress made to this point.  Greens were verticut on Tuesday to move some sand around and despite a little mess left after the following morning mowing, it worked out great.  We are cutting a great deal of grass when we mow, so we will continue with daily mowing and rolling to get them back under control.  Green speeds are not what they typically are, but that is completely normal and expected.  Speed will come back with time as long as we can keep the roller going. 

Currently our bentgrass is growing at an accelerated rate because of ideal growing conditions and higher than normal fertility levels.  Prior to aeration we give a little extra shot of fertilizer to help our greens endure the stress aeration can cause.  They are certainly not as smooth as they were prior to aeration, but we are confident that within another week, it will be hard to tell that they were aerated at all.  Aeration is and should always be a compromise for golfers and turf staff alike.  We would love to be more aggressive with aeration, but we understand that the sooner we get these areas back into shape, the sooner we can offer the best possible experience to our guests.  At the same time, without aeration at all, the long term health and playability of our green, tees and approaches would be compromised.  Look for fairway aeration to start in the next week or so, and check back for more information to come.          

Greens Aeration

Monday morning we began our spring aeration of greens. With many important tournaments coming up in less than a month, we have made the decision to modify our agronomic plan to make sure our greens are completely healed and rolling their best in time for these tournaments. This year we will be forgoing the usual hollow tine aeration for a much less invasive solid-tine option.

Normally we will run our Soil Reliever with 12" solid tines over greens first, followed by an Aercore with 5/8" hollow tines set at 2"x2" spacing. Due to the large amount of surface area actually removed by the hollow tines, the green is quite soft and requires more time to become smooth again. As we mentioned in earlier posts, core aeration is crucial for our turf to weather the hot, dry weather typical of summer on the Front Range. While we are not removing any organic matter or thatch this spring, we are diluting it with heavy sand topdressing and by opening up the profile, we aid in water infiltration and gas exchange.

So, we will run our Verti-Drain as normal, but in place of hollow tines, we will double spike with our custom-built spiker.  Our Equipment Manager Jim Bloesch built this spiker last spring, and as usual his creation has worked flawlessly and been a great addition to our greens maintenance regimen. Jim can build and fix anything, and this spiker is a great example of his fabrication skills. Hats off to Jim for a job well done.

The use of the spiker will in effect create thousands of small 1/8" holes in the greens surface, allowing water and oxygen to enter the root zone. The holes will be almost invisible to the naked eye after a heavy topdressing is applied and the greens are smoothed with a 1-ton roller.

When the process is complete, we should have applied about 25 tons of topdressing sand to 21 greens.  Once the sand has dried it is worked in gently with a cocoa drag mat. There isn't a better opportunity to modify the soil profile with sand than during aerification. 

Open holes also present a perfect opportunity to introduce nutrients into the soil profile, so Gypsum, Sulfate of Potash, and Earthworks DPW will be applied before we topdress. We will soak greens heavily to help work the sand in and flush sodium out of the root zone that has built up over the winter season.

We understand the disruption caused by aeration, and only hope that our efforts to speed up the healing process will show our commitment to our guests and their enjoyment of our facility. I would like to point out that Tom Watson shot the course record 58 at Kansas City Country Club only two days following a core aeration of their greens, so a high level of golf is possible following aeration.