Fairway Topdressing

This week we topdressed and solid tine aerated fairways. This marked the first year that we have ever topdressed fairways. We've been topdressing approaches for the past 5-6 years and the quality of the playing surface has improved dramatically. We now want to extend that quality to the fairways. We started with 500 tons for 26 acres. That equates to 20 ton per acre. Though that may sound like a lot of sand, the sand was easily worked into the profile of the turf. An additional 20 tons in the Fall would be ideal, but I'm sure it's not in the budget this year.

After the fairways were topdressed we followed the process by solid tine aerating using 5/8" tines and then brushed the remaining sand into the profile. After a slow start on Monday morning we were able to have the entire process completed in only 3 days. Maybe with a second topdresser next year we can cut the time down to 2.5 days.


The sand topdressing on fairways will aid in creating a firmer, drier playing surface as well as a great cutting surface for our mowers. It took about 4 years of serious topdressing on approaches to get the firmness we were looking for. At our current rate of topdressing on fairways, the process is going to take just a little longer and patience will be required before we feel we are making good progress.