One of the great features of Highland is our undulating fairways. Before my arrival here there had been extensive drainage added on the golf course and from what I here, the property now drains much faster than in years past. We do however have a number of low spots that tend to hold water, particularly in the early spring during the snow melt. At that time of year the drains are still frozen and surface water tends to sit on the turf and inevitably kill off some turf grass. Today one of Grounds staff members Matt Deans, was out with one of our aerifiers "punching" these areas in preparation to over seed and top dress. We will be seeding the areas with a mixture of fine fescues. This is a very strong variety of grass that can be mowed at fairway height and is rather hardy. This grass will blend in very nicely with our current stand of Poa annua, native bentgrasses and bluegrasses in our fairways.
A week has passed since our annual spring greens aeration. We have had a mixed bag of weather, hot, dry, cold, wet and even frost! These conditions make it challenging to aid in healing, but with the more recent consistent warm temperatures we are seeing solid recovery. We were fortunate to have decent weather to complete the process on time, allowing us to fill all the holes created by the 1/2” hollow tines. As there are some minor depressions within some of the holes we will be beginning our bi-weekly topdressing program early next week. Our team is mowing and rolling our greens daily, while slowly lowering our height of cut to our summer norm. We all know that spring cultural practices are not popular among golfers, but these all important tasks are the building blocks for high performance greens conditions throughout the heart of the golf season. Check out this video produced by the USGA on Aerations effect on putting...
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