2025 Fairway Aeration & Expansion of Our Santa Anna

In our previous Granite Bay Course Update we outlined our planned Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda expansion and the steps we took to prepare areas for re-grassing with aeration cores. This past week beginning Monday July 7th we were closed for fairway aeration in which we utilized the extracted cores from the fairway aeration process for the re-grassing of the areas we prepared the preceding weeks. 

This was the first time we endeavored to expand hybrid bermuda in this fashion and we learned quite a bit from the experience. Below are pictures of the process for those who are interested.

Step one in fairway aeration is all sprinkler heads, valve boxes & yardage markers have to be flagged so aerifyer operators can lift and avoid these obstacles while aerifying. 

Second step for us is to aerate around these sprinkle heads creating a buffer zone for the following aerifyer.

Third step is we aerify up the fairway now that we can navigate around sprinkler heads easier having aerated around the sprinkler heads ahead of this aerator.

The fourth step is to collect cores and place them in the prepared areas that we described in our last course update. This is the step that we knew the least about going into expanding the Santa Anna. After some experimentation with other pieces of equipment and methods, we settled on careful removal of the extracted fairway cores using our front end loader to push, pick-up and move to the expansion areas. This was a relief as it is productive of a process as there is, and we ended up using substantially more cores then we initially thought. The areas stripped and prepared on #9 & #8 measured approximately 12,000 square feet and they took all of the cores generated on hole #8 & #9. We wanted to keep the cores intact for a better end result so using the loader turned out to be a BMP versus sweeping up the cores with our giant sweeper which would have broken these cores up.

Step five, move the cores to the prepared areas.

Step six was to rake the cores onto the prepared area.

Here is the finished product after raking.

Step seven after we have removed cores for re-grassing expanded areas we drag remaining cores for removal.

Step eight is to remove the cores with sweepers and blowers.

Step nine is to mow ahead of  sand topdressing

Step ten is to sand topdress the aerified fairways.

Sand topdressing is the process that is the most time consuming of all of the fairway aeration processes. This year in  31/2 days we moved 700 tons of sand, covering 30 acres of fairways, 4 yards at a time from three strategic locations

2024 picture of the topdressor working in front of #4 green.

The area above circled in green is another 2024 picture showing one 4 yard load spread out on #16 fairway. 

Enrique Reyes Hureta, the man, the myth, the legend, the one behind the spreading all of that sand in 3-1/2 days. We couldn't do it without him

The last step in the fairway aeration processes brushing in the sand. We brush all fairways twice during the process. 

What To Expect When You Return To The Club Saturday 7/14/25

When you return Saturday you will encounter freshly aerated fairways with open holes and remnants of topdressing sand. Open holes can dry the surface out so the fairways could be a bit wet in areas initially. There will be sand present so if you do not want to scratch you irons, you might consider a using older irons until the sand disperses.

Here is what the freshly aerified  fairways will look like from afar.

And a closer look you will see aerification holes which will be gone by the end of next week

You will also notice all of the areas that we put the aeration cores into having some temporary soaker sprinklers installed on the surface. The trick to getting these cores established is to keep them moist during the initial rooting stage and this temporary soaker irrigation will help us achieve just that. The re-grassed area doesn't look like much now, but by the end of next week we will see green grass getting started. By the end of July we hope to see substantial coverage over the area and by the end of August we hope to have full coverage.

More to come on our Santa Anna Expansion. Thanks as always for your support of our efforts on the course.

Planned Santa Anna Expansion

Last week as planned, we started preparation for expanding our Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda in some high traffic areas on the golf course adjacent to the cart paths. These areas include the left-hand side of #8 near the green, the right-hand side of #9 middle of the fairway, the right-hand side of #12 near the concrete bridge, the left-hand side #12 near the path entrance to the restrooms, the left-hand side #13 where all of the cart path traffic exits and finally the left-hand entrance area to the fairway on #15 after crossing the shared #15 & #16 bridge.

Our previous course update described the process of us stripping the old sod in these areas followed by conditioning the soil by adding sand and rototilling the compacted soil existing in these areas. These six areas totaled about a half an acre in size and will be re-grassed utilizing the cores from our upcoming fairway aeration starting the week of July 7th. Below are pictures of the process for all who are interested.

Step #1 is to remove all of the battered sod in the individual areas. We use a sod cutter to make strips of sod so we can easily pile up and remove with an excavator or front-end loader.

Removing and finding a home for all of this old sod is strategic as too far of a haul would add to the length of the job and we were under a hard deadline of getting the areas stripped and prepped prior to fairway aeration. We gave ourselves a couple of weeks for preparation and that ended up being about right as we stripped the sod last week and are preparing the soil this week, while setting up and maintaining the golf course for Member play.

The areas on #8 & #9 we hauled around #9 fairway to the pond edge near the new as of 2021 fairway bunker on the left. The addition of this bunker created a tricky maintenance scenario along the water's edge that needed some expansion to make it right. Above we are compacting the sod and soil placed there that was removed for #8 & #9

Above is the #13 cart exit area which has always been some of the worst turf on this golf course because all of the cart traffic exiting the fairway near the green to the left, a classic golf course pinch-point. In 2009 during a bunker renovation, we hauled tons of old bunker sand into the area to improve the grade and soil conditions which made the area better but still didn't solve the problem. 

Part of the problem on #13 is it's a very small area to concentrate all of the cart traffic and we don't have enough square footage to spread it out. If you remember there used to be a much larger rock at the end of the cart path curb that was removed during renovation in 2021. Unfortunately, there were some smaller, at least on the surface, rocks that remained that were now an obstruction to softening the grade to facilitate more exit areas. We were going to dig around them so we could jackhammer off the tops and re-grade, but once Enrique started digging, he was able to extract some of the rocks and move the other side of the cart path. The rock pictured above however was too big to extract for our equipment, so he kept digging and was able to push it into its own hole and bury it with dirt allowing us to re-grade and soften this area creating more exit spaces.

Above is a good look at the rock before Enrique pushes it on its side into the hole.

Our next step after stripping all of the sod off of all of the areas was to condition the soil prior to
re-grassing. Part of the reason these areas struggled with traffic was the underlying decomposed granite soil that the turf was trying to grow in. Here we are rototilling the area near #8 after we added sand.

The tractor mounted rototiller can't maneuver in the tight spots or edges, so we utilized our walk behind rototiller in these narrow areas.

This is the alternate exit on the left-hand side of #12 after stripping and before soil preparation with the rototillers. It's a good example of the shape we plan to re-grass with Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda in these carved out traffic areas. We plan to mow it at fairway height providing a smooth exit transition off of the fairway and onto the cart paths. The hybrid bermuda will be much more durable than the cool season turf blend that was there prior, especially in the spring, summer and fall where the course receives the vast majority of its traffic.

We will post another update soon, showing the grading and re-grassing of these areas.

Thanks for your support!

2024 Fairway Aeration & Topdressing Process

After being closed for a week, we are putting the finishing touches on our 2024 fairway aeration & sand topdressing.  We decided  to close for the traditionally slow week following the 4th of July rather then stretching out the necessary process for 3 to 4 weeks with alternating F9 & B9 closures. This will make the process more productive and produce consistent playing surface's with recovery being more or less equal.

Not only will the fairways recover at the same time, GCM  can get back to our normal irrigation regimen after they recover as open aeration holes will cause the fairways  to dry out hindering recovery.  Additionally we can get back to using sharp mowers as the  topdressing sand disperses  and the surfaces recover, and we can logically re-sharpen reels. 

What To Expect Saturday 7/13/24

You should expect a very playable, freshly aerified fairway surfaces with open holes and the remnants of topdressing sand. As mentioned above, open holes can dry the surface out rapidly so the fairways could be wetter initially then what you might expect, which will effect ball roll temporarily. If you dont want to scratch your clubs you might want to consider using a older set until sand disperses. 

A picture is worth a thousand words. For those who are interested enjoy the pic's chronicling the steps of aeration week at GBGC.

First step is to mow the fairways. We set the fairway mowers to as low as we can currently go    (about .400") to "scalp"  them down as low as we can get them. Even though we are in the middle of a heatwave in July, these hybrid bermuda fairways can take it as they are actively growing and will recover quickly.

Next step is to flag all of the irrigation heads, valve boxes, yardage markers so we do not hit them with the aerator's.

Next we start to aerify across the fairway in short patterns on both sides of the flagged irrigation heads, valve boxes & yardage markers.

These patterns on both sides of the irrigation head allows for the next aerifyer to move up and down the fairway at ease and safety from hitting the head. Even though the heads, valve boxes and markers are flagged , there is allot going on with a heavy piece of equipment and easy to make a raising or lowering mistake and take out a sprinkler head, valve box or bronze marker.

Granite Bay is blessed with 2 large fairway aerators. This one is aerating up the fairway after the above depicted work around the heads, boxes and markers. 

The third aeration process is the short grass around the greens utilizing a smaller walk behind aerator. This aerator is equipped with smaller coring tines then we used on the fairways but he hole pattern is tighter. Cleanup of these cores is being done by GCM staff with backpack blowers and rakes and shovels as we cant navigate the large aerators and sweepers in these tighter areas adjacent to the putting surfaces.

After the actual aeration process we remove the flags from irrigation heads, valve boxes and yardage markers and drag using a keystone metal drag mat. This process preserves previously applied  topdressing sand and substantially lessons the burden of the following step, sweeping.

Next we start sweeping the core debris with the large sweepers. When we are done with sweeping it is time to start the most time consuming part of the process, sand topdressing.

Prior to aeration week we take delivery of topdressing sand in three locations around the course. Above depicts the pile on the Barton Road lot which we use for #1, #2, #4 and any leftovers #9. We also stock pile sand in the corner of the parking lot which we use for #5 - #9 & #17 - #18. The third location on the small out of play lot pin high to the left of #12 green. This pile services #10 - 13 & #15 & #16.

We use a 4 yard topdressor to topdress 30 acres of fairway and short mowed hybrid bermuda turf. The above rate represents  approximately 31 tons per acre which amounts just over 900 tons. Above Enrique is painting #4 with fairway topdressing sand. 

Here Enrique is spreading that 30 tons per acre on #5. Again the spreader holds 4 yards so he makes about 170 trips to a sand pile and back during aeration week. That is an average of 34 trips per day and just about 4 trips per hour. Sometimes more trips per hour, many times less obviously depending on the distance needed to travel.

This picture depicts #15 recently topdressed on the left, In the middle #16 in process of being topdressed, the green circled section representing one trip to the #12 topdressing pile. On the right is #10 which was topdressed, brushed and irrigated the previous day. 

Its takes our whole staff to pull off aeration and topdressing of the fairways in a week and I appreciate all of them, but none are more important  then the
GBGC GCM legend Enrique Reyes Huerta, sand topdressor extraordinaire. 

Next step is to drag the sand topdressing into the aeration holes and turf canopy. I have personally done most of this process myself since our 2021 conversion and can say every time we do this you can feel these fairways getting better. It wasn't hard to get the sand dry this week as we were in the midst of a July heat wave and our new large fairway brush with stiff bristles worked the sand in nicely.

A few days after some deep watering we mow them for the first time and follow them with a blower to clean them up. Doug on the fairway blower has been pretty actively blowing during the core clean-up process as well as the fairway topdressing process moving sand accumulations around with the turbine blower. 

Irrigation during the week was  tricky as we needed to keep the surfaces on the dry side prior to aeration and  topdressing but couldn't completely neglect irrigation after they were aerified because of open holes that were exposed to hot drying weather. Good news that any discoloration from dry down will soon recover after we start irrigating and the deep watering they receive  after brushing in sand topdressing 

This represents the product 3 days out of topdressing. Holes on the B9 will be a few days out from the F9 but all should be recovered by next weeks end. We are planning cart path on hole #'s 15 & 16 as they were just topdressed the morning of Friday 7/12/24 and will receive a deep watering when we are done brushing and could be wet when we re-open the course Saturday 7/14/24

2024 Spring Fairway Grooming

A best management practice that has been mentioned before in these course updates is raising the height of cut on our fairways prior to winter. If we neglected to do this prior to the warm season Santa Anna going dormant, we would run the risk of  excessive thinning of the fairways from winter golf traffic. Now that spring has arrived and we feel the weather has changed enough, it is time to lower this height of cut and groom out the hybrid bermuda's stems and seed head in the process. We got started on this process this week and should have a first pass completed by next. 

Here we are using a small greens groomer brush against the grain of the Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda standing it up along with its seed stems. 

Above represents a mowed surface on the left next to an un-mowed and brushed up surface on the right. The mowed surface was what we call "back track mowed" which involves mowing in one direction normally against the grain, then turning around and mowing the same strip in the opposite direction. 

Here we are "back track mowing". The process of brushing and back track mowing does take some time to get all 30 acres of fairways done and like most cultural practices need to be done when it is dry and the weather so far this spring has been hit and miss. Additionally this process needs to be done when the Hybrid Bermuda is woke up and growing and it is in the process of doing just that.

Unfortunately we were stalled end of this week with the fairway grooming process, next week looks promising. 

Additional Weekly Progress 

Along with getting started on the above mentioned fairway grooming, we completed core aeration of the back 9 rough as well as core aeration of our collars. Next week we plan on a full course fertility application as well as finishing the first pass of our fairway grooming process. 

Tahoma Hybrid Bermuda #10

GBGC GCM has had a very active and productive few weeks despite the ongoing dreary and wet winter weather of February and so far, March. February started off with a Tree Toppling storm that to date knocked down or created dangerous situations requiring removal of now over 30 trees. I originally estimated it would take us two weeks to cleanup and process the mess. I was a bit off as we still have clean-up to do five weeks later. 

Additionally we repaired the #2 Fairway Exit, and this Monday 3/4/24, we did a new putting surface aeration process called DryJect which was a little sandier than I anticipated, but I'm hoping will be a good process for these greens moving forward. 

And as planned, following the DryJecting on Monday, we stripped out the bad sod under the #10 fairway tree and replaced it with Tahoma 31 Hybrid Bermuda. Tahoma 31 is a variety of hybrid bermuda that claims to be more shade tolerant then other hybrid bermuda varieties and is the same variety we installed on #2. Both sodded areas appear different because the Tahoma 31 on #2 was overseeded, and the Tahoma 31 on #10 was not for reasons explained below.

Here is the turf area under the signature Oak Tree in the middle of #10. The sprigging of the Santa Anna Hybrid Bermuda in 2021 never really took and the area has been one of the worst areas on the course even before we attempted to convert it to Santa Anna. Issues are shade and the common issue that impedes turfgrass quality on the course, our native soil.

In December we had our arborist's strategically work on this signature tree to mitigate shade issues

And now a few months later we start the process of replacing the turf.

Step #1 sod cut the bad sod.

Step #2. Remove the distressed sod and a couple inches of the native soil.

Step #3. Replace the 2" of removed soil with washed tee sand.

Step #4. Lightly rototill the new sand into underlying native soil to help with soil layering and water percolation. 

Step #5. Grade.

Finished grade awaiting sod. 

Step #6. Install sod.

As mentioned above we resodded with a Hybrid Bermuda variety,  Tahoma 31. Again Tahoma 31 is known for its shade tolerance. It should blend very well with our Santa Anna. so much so that you will likely not be able to tell the difference. Time will tell on it's shade tolerance in this important area as its success can prove to be a model of other fairway peripheral areas adjacent to trees. I am cautiously optimistic because of the variety's claims, and because of the shade mitigation of the tree pruning and most importantly the soil modification that will provide a much better growing opportunity.

Here is the finished product. Notice the shade pattern from the dormant tree branches. Almost exactly the area that was re-sodded.

The sod installed on #2 earlier in the month is Tahoma 31 as well but it was overseeded. The reason we chose overseeded was it was 4 weeks earlier and the Tahoma at the sod farm hadn't started waking up yet and the shade in this area on #2 is denser because of the amount and type of trees. We will transition the ryegrass out of this Tahoma 31 stand in the early summer. 

Rough Core Aeration

Next up for us is core aeration of the rough. This work is weather related and this essential task for the health of our rough in the summer cannot be done when it is wet. We have a good number of Mondays open through mid-April so hopefully the weather will cooperate and there won't be much of a disruption to the Membership. More on the process as we get started but basically, we aerify, allow the cores to dry and sweep them up. Holes we will be working on during golf play will be closed to cart traffic but won't be numerous if weather is dry and we are able to make good progress on Mondays.

Thank You for Your Support!