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The past 2 Days...

During the past 2 days we were able to complete a lot of work that would be unfeasible if the golf course was not closed. On Tuesday we core aerified greens, removed the cores and applied a light topdressing of sand. On Wednesday we applied a light fertilizer and rolled the greens smooth. We were not able to fill the holes with the first application of sand, simply because having a lot of sand on the greens in 38C weather could be catastrophic. Sand on greens heats up very fast, much like the sand on the beach. This heat can cause very rapid wilt of turfgrass, therefore I did not feel it was worth the risk. The forecast is for cooler temps on Friday, so we will be applying another topdressing of sand to our greens very early in the morning, in front of golf. In combination with our rolling program, this topdressing will help the greens heal relatively fast.
During the closure we were also able to deeply verticut our fairways and approaches. This process is long and labour intensive. Our crew was able to remove all of the thatch and mow all of the fairways by early Wednesday night. There are some areas of the fairways that did not fair as well as most. We will be going out and seeding these areas over the next week.
We also cored and cleaned up the tees. We will be topdressing the tees first thing this morning in front of golf. The plan was to complete the topdressing of tees during the closure, but we had aerifier "issues" yesterday and were only able to use one machine. For this reason we were unable to finish until Wednesday evening, leaving no time to apply and brush in the sand on the tees.
Our staff worked tirelessly in near 40C weather to complete all of these tasks. Cultural practices are of huge importance to successful golf course management and maintenance. These tasks require and incredible amount of labour and scheduling. I commend our crew for their hard work and dedication for not only this week but the entire season of commitment to our department. If you happen to see some of our staff out on the golf course, if you feel that they are doing a good job, please let them know. A few kind words go a long way.

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