Monday, October 31, 2011

Weekly Schedule for October 31-November 6, 2011

Weather and unforeseen conditions can/will change the schedule.

Tee verticutting and possibly aerification. Leaf removal. Putting the finishing touches on #18 drainage.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Weekly Schedule for Oct. 24-30, 2011

Weather and unforeseen conditions can/will change the schedule.

Our focus this week will be on adding drainage to #18 fairway and leaf clean-up.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Day 2 of Aerification-Oct. 18, 2011

We were able to stay ahead of schedule and finished all greens and fairway aerification on Tuesday. I'd like to go over the fairway aerification process.

The fairways are aerified using 3/4-inch hollow tines spaced on 4-inch centers. The machine is connected to a tractor and looks like this:


Afterwards the cores are dragged with using a metal mat:



In this picture you can see the difference in what a core looks like before dragging with the red arrow, then after dragging (blue arrow):



The remaining "tufts" are then picked up and dumped on the cart paths next to the fairways:






I'll do one more post this week on some other items regarding the aerification earlier this week.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Day 1 of Aerification-Oct. 17, 2011

As we finish up the first day of aerifcation we are right on schedule. Fairways are almost complete and greens are well on their way to being finished tomorrow. The weather has been great, sunny and dry makes things go easier to pick up the plugs.

When aerifying greens we use 1/2-inch hollow tines on 2-inch centers. That gives us 49 holes per one square foot.  Amazingly, this amounts to just under 5% of the surface being disrupted. That's it! It looks much worse then it actually is.

Here's Juan Nunez with the Toro ProCore 648 on #10 green:


A close up look of the cores:



Afterwards the plugs are moved to the side of the green where they can be picked up. We use snow shovels and a tool called a Level-Lawn to push the plugs to the sides:





Close up look of a Level-Lawn:


Once pushed to the sides of the greens they are picked-up:


Plan on checking out the blog tomorrow (Tuesday) with pictures of fairway aerification and an update on where we are at in the aerification process.

Weekly Schedule for Oct. 17-23, 2011

Weather and unforeseen conditions can/will change the schedule.

On Monday and Tuesday we are aerifying all greens and fairways. We will then begin aerifying tees on Wednesday. Please check in daily to see photos of the aerification process and for updates.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Tee Verticutting and Par 3 Tees

We began verticutting tees on hole #17. It is a very slow process as we are getting a lot of material. Just take a look at these pictures.






The clippings in the baskets that Daniel is holding represent just one single pass across the tee!

We are doing this to help remove thatch (this is the dead and decaying plant material located just below the turf but above the soil) and help the plants stand up as opposed to laying down. This helps with lots of things like adding oxygen to the soil, water infiltration, nutrient uptake and overall plant health.


The left hand side of the photo above has been verticut while the right side has not.

I've been getting plenty of questions about using ryegrass on the par 3 tees. This is the same turf that we seeded the driving range tee to and has shown rapid germination and growth. The answer to this question is that we are looking at all options to improve our tee boxes. Some of the options are regrassing to another turf type and expanding the tees. However the single biggest issue we face is shade. All turf needs plenty of sun to grow and flourish.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Weekly Schedule for October 10-16, 2011

Weather and unforeseen conditions can/will change the schedule.

We will be verticutting tees this week. Hope to get 4-5 holes done per day. We will also continue seeding any weak areas in bunker faces and roughs.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Weekly Schedule for Oct. 3-9, 2011

Weather and unforeseen conditions can/will change the schedule.

Looking forward to finishing up seeding/aerifying green surrounds. We will then move on to fairway bunkers and roughs. Especially areas that have damage from the animals searching for the grubs.