Putting Surface Maintenance March 2020

The golf course is still open during these challenging times for golf members to get out of the house, get a little exercise and enjoy their golf course. We are grateful to be preparing the course for you and at the same time remaining employed and we  hope that everyone is safe and healthy.

Both golf and golf course maintenance schedules have been been pretty fluid in 2020 and it looks like this dynamic will continue into the foreseeable future. Our adjusted overall strategy this year is to keep a frequent, less aggressive approach to cultivation practices on the golf course such as aerification. On Monday 3/2/20 we deep tine aerated the greens and Monday 3/30/20 we spiked the greens along with adding granular fertility and seed. Below are some pictures of the process.

Above is a putting surface aerifyer set up with solid spiking tines. These tines make a 1/4" wide hole 4" deep facilitating much needed air to the surface's root system.

Close-up view of the aerification pattern. This hole pattern is approximately 2"X 2".

After the spiking we run a vertical mower over the surface to groom it and provide slits or avenues for bentgrass seed to make soil contact and establish.

Bentgrass seed is very small.

Next we apply a medium-light dusting of sand to the surfaces.

Followed by granular fertility application. Open holes are a perfect opportunity to get nutrients incorporated into the soil via open holes  such as calcium, magnesium and slow release potassium.

The finishing touch is brushing the seed, sand and nutrients into the aeration holes and vertical mowing lines. Next we apply some water to push the seed, sand and nutrients down into the turf canopy. Final touch is to roll the surfaces the following morning. Putting quality will not be effected by this process although there might be traces of sand evident which is not that foreign as we frequently light topdress the greens during the growing season.

Updated Fairway Aeration Schedule

Successful Putting Surface Aerification Monday 3/20/17

In the two previous course updates we chronicled changing our previously scheduled greens aerification from Tuesday 3/21/17 to Monday 3/20/17 due to wet weather forecasted  for the aerification day. We started The Greens Aerification Process around 5:00 AM and finished 1-18 regulation greens as well as the chipping green and both practice putting greens by 3:30 PM. Moving the date seemed almost providential because not only did it start to rain shortly after we completed the process, we literally had no issues with damage, or equipment or man-power. I've never experienced such a smooth process, here at GBGC nor anywhere else, and there is allot of equipment and moving parts involved. Thanks to our entire maintenance staff and in particular, Kevin Schumann our Equipment Manager who made sure everything was working tip top. 

#18 Green aerified the day before getting rained on Tuesday 3/21/17

As I mentioned above it literally started raining when we finished and continued to rain off and on for the next two days ( Tuesday and Wednesday) and nights giving us a total of 1.70" of rain. This is extremely good for the greens after aerification as it helps work the sand into the holes and draws oxygen deep into the green soil profile. The down side to the wet weather is we cannot what I call "tweak" the greens by spot sanding & brushing areas that have settled as it is imperative that this is done in dry weather. Today is nice and as I am writing this correspondence to you, the crew is out working amongst some of you and rolling, lightly sanding and brushing to make sure all of the holes are filled. This again is being done right ahead of another rainstorm later tonight ( Thursday ) and into tomorrow ( Friday ). Perfect.

Jogi adding a little extra sand to fill up settled aerification holes

Brushing to fill up the holes

Fairway Aerification Plan

We have been able to time rain events with the greens aerification this time around but I suspect the fairways will be too wet to core aerify next week on our planned alternating F9 / B9 closure days scheduled for Tuesday 3/28/17 through Friday 3/31/17. We will wait and see what nature brings us as far as rain is concerned the next few days and make and communicate our decision by Saturday or Sunday. If we are not able to go on the planned dates we will re-evaluate our process doing something that will not require F9 / B9 closures. More to come.

Updated rainfall amounts we received right here at GBGC. Almost 35", more then 10" over normal and it's not done yet.