Course Aeration

This past week we were able to complete the aeration and topdressing of greens, tees and approaches. We were scheduled to topdress and aerate fairways but due to the contractor over booking, he was not able to make it here this week. Next week looks like it will still be a good week for fairway aeration and topdressing.

All surfaces that were aerated are healing nicely. A lot of this has to do with the fact that we did not core aerate. All surfaces are only being solid tine aerated with either a 1/2" or 5/8" tine. We really don't have any thatch issues to deal with so there is little concern nor a need to pull a core. Secondly the less surface disruption we create the greater we can optimize conditions to favor the bentgrass.

The staff worked hard on Monday and Tuesday hand brushing sand into the greens and tees. Aeration leaves the surfaces soft so we prefer to hand broom the surfaces as opposed to driving a cart and a broom around and around and around on the surfaces. Which then takes a longer period of time to roll out the ruts. The process may take a little more time, but the end results is really all that matters.

The process to get the greens into summer conditions is really simple, do as little as possible. Following the topdressing we have cut the greens one time to remove some of the excess sand as well as some of the grass that was stood up from brooming. Greens were fertilized with an organic based product and now we will roll for a number of days before we attempt to mow again. The grass needs some time to recover as well as grow out from the layer of sand that was applied. The sand was placed there for a reason and we want to collect as little as possible, so we will wait until Saturday to before we mow for the second time since aerating. Once the mowers are no longer picking up sand we will then begin to gradually lower the height of cut on greens, tees and fairways. By the middle of May we should be very close to our optimal cutting height on all surfaces.