Skip to main content

Cultural Practices @ HCC

Earlier this week HCC had our annual course closure to allow the grounds team to perform a number of Cultural Practices on all playing surfaces. The closure allows us to complete these tasks in a timely and efficient manner that would not be feasible if play were to continue.
 I will briefly list the tasks completed so that our membership can appreciate the amount of work completed by our talented and dedicated staff.
Greens:
All greens were aerified (cores pulled)
All cores removed by hand
All greens topdressed and brushed
All greens blown by hand to help work the sand into the holes
All greens interseeded with T1 Creeping Bentgrass
All greens fertilized with a Potassium based product
All greens rolled to smooth out and depressions from traffic
Lots of water added to ensure survival of the 30C temperatures
Tees:
All tees were aerified (cores pulled)
All tees were dragged and matted to break off the organic matter from the cores
All tees were then blown clean and all debris was removed by hand
All tees were topdressed and brushed
All tees were blown to remove any excess debris
Fairways:
All Fairways were deep verticut with a tractor mounted Sissis Verticutter
All fairways were blown to remove the organic matter
All fairways were crosscut to remove any remaining debris
All fairways mowed again to create a smooth and consistent playing surface
Practice area:
The Practice tee was aerified (cores pulled)
The tee was dragged and matted to remove the organic matter from the cores
The tee was blown to remove excess material
The tee was topdressed and bushed
The tee was interseeded with rye grass to encourage the filling in of any voids
Tree Work:
Our Arbourist, Zap Tree Service was onsite to remove the following trees
8 Dying Ash trees to the left of the 15th green
2 Dead Poplars off the 17th at the property line
1 Dead Maple off the 17th fairway
1 Dying Ash off the 1st fairway
1 Dying Ash off the 3rd fairway
2 Dying Ash off the 5th fairway
All tree material was chipped and all stumps were ground and cleaned up.
As previously mentioned all of the Ash trees that were removed have been infected by the Emerald Ash Borer.
As a bonus we were also able to mow all of the rough completely during the closure...
As you can see from the list it was a very busy couple of days...a big thanks goes out to our turf team for a very productive and efficient couple of days....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Practice Range Tee

Last fall we utilized a “new to us” method of revitilization for our practice tee. Our contractor TDS,  fraize mowed the surface of the tee to remove organic matter as well at to aid in leveling. The tee was then aerified and seeded to a new variety of creeping rye grass. We chose this type of turf grass as research  shows rapid recovery and a low growth habit. We were able to get some great growth in the fall, but the tee is still not ready for traffic and full use. The plan is to utilize the mats until growth has filled in some of the voids etc. We will then begin to slowly set up hitting areas on the grass tee. For a while we will alternate between grass and the mats with a 50/50 ratio of use. Once the grass tee is established and is in adequate recovery mode, the practice areas will be back to normal. As always our membership’s patience is appreciated as we try to improve these areas for use.

Venting Greens...

This week we will be venting our greens with needle tines. These tines make a hole that is less than an 1/8th of inch. With our greens being completely saturated from the incredible amount of rain that we have recieved this season, there is no room for air movement in the soil. We need to create very small channels for air movement to the root zone. When roots don't have air, they die. This has not been evident yet, but with the warmer temperatures of July upon us soon, trouble could be lurking. This will be a very non-disruptive process to our members and play. We are going to vent all of our greens over then next few days early in the morning as to not disrupt play. The process is simple, we vent the green using the aerifier and needle tines, roll them smooth and then mow the green. The holes virtually dissapear and are of no effect to roll. I realize that the word aerifier starts to scare people, but this is necessary and again is very clean and non-disruptive. Check out the pic...

Spring Greens Aeration...a week later!

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...