2025 Fall Aeration & Seeding

Coming up a week from now on Tuesday 9/23/25 we will celebrate the 2025 Fall Equinox. The reason we celebrate is half of our golf course, the rough, still consists mostly of cool season varieties of turf that are susceptible to Sacramento summers. And even though we had what will be  considered a mild summer by Sacramento standards, its still summer with long days and plenty of heat that can effect cool season turf negatively. The equinox marks the official end of summer and is the best time to refresh the cool season areas on the course with new seed. 

The cool season rough at Granite Bay encompasses over half of all playing surfaces after our fairway  turf conversion in 2021 to warm season Santa Anna hybrid bermuda. In the four years since this conversion we have made substantial progress on improving irrigation coverage in the rough to mitigate the effect summer. We plan to continue this work after we complete aerification and seeding of the rough which is in process right now ahead of and during the equinox. 

The picture above is an example of the irrigation work GBGC GCM has been working on in the fall and winter seasons since the 2021 renovation. The smaller sprinklers depicted are designed to improve irrigation coverage into the rough only. These "blocks" of irrigation heads aim into the rough, are completely controllable and have made a substantial difference maker in every place we have installed them. These "blocks" of irrigation heads are the key to GBGC's cool season rough success during future summer's and we plan to return to installing them later this fall and through the winter. 

First Things First

Before we can get started on installing these irrigation blocks, we need to get through our clubs early fall business, while aerifying and seeding rough and overseeding the Santa Anna hybrid bermuda tees and select shady surrounds. Aerifying and seeding the rough in the fall has always been something we need to do at Granite Bay after the summer losses of varying degrees. Theoretically after we complete the irrigation install over the next couple of winter seasons, we wont have as many summer losses. However I suspect we will always need some refreshing with seed in the rough during the fall. Below is a schedule of our aerification and overseeding process for the fall of 2025 and some overseeding & aerification process pictures

2025 Tee Overseeding Dates

Monday 9/22/25 - Prep & Overseed Back tee's 1-18

Tuesday 9/23/25 - Prep & Overseed B9 Tees & Shady Surrounds - B9 - Closed

Wednesday 9/24/25 - Prep & Overseed F9 Tees & Shady Surrounds - F9 Closed

Overseeding Steps

Step #1 is to scarify the surface of the tee, This scarification process thins out the stand of Hybrid Bermuda allowing space for ryegrass seed to nestle in and make contact with the soil.

Step #2 is to clean up the debris created during the scarification process. Here we are blowing the debris into an accessible area for sweeping up with the big sweeper.

Here we are sweeping

Step #3 we mow the scarified, cleaned up surface preparing it for seeding.

Step #4 apply ryegrass seed. We overseed at a rate of 400 lb's per acre.

Step #5 we topdress over the top of the seed with clean sand.

Step #6 we irrigate  to "push" the sand & seed into turf canopy.

Above depicts the surface after the six step process described above.

And here is the surface a few weeks later after the seed has germinated and surfaces have been mowed a couple of times. 


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