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.