Aeration of Greens Completed...

Today we were able to finish up our spring aeration on our greens. As most of our members know we began the process on Thursday on the greens that suffered the most winter injury, as they were already out of play. We continued Sunday night and into Monday. With the looming forecast of rain, rain and more rain, we opted to Deep-tine and Deep Verticut our greens this spring instead of coring (coring in the rain is a messy process that rarely accomplishes the original goals). Switching to this process allows us to properly prepare a good seedbed for our yearly Creeping Bentgrass inter-seeding program, while still removing a decent amount of organic matter.

The process was as follows:
1. Straight sand topdressing
2. Deep-Tine aerify to a depth of 8 inches
3. Deep Verticut with our Sissis
4. Blow to remove organic matter
5. Dropseed T1 Creeping Bentgrass
6. Straight sand topdress (again)
7. Hand broom the sand into the canopy
8. Roll to smooth
9. Fertilize with an Ammonium Sulphate based greens grade product
10. Lightly irrigate to knock the fertilizer into the canopy

After this process we installed our permeable covers on the 5 greens (1,4,8,10,12) that we had the most significant damage on as a result of the winter of 2014. The covers will help to insulate during the cold nights that we are experiencing and help push the germination of the bentgrass seed. Utilizing temporary greens during the aeration process is a huge advantage to completing the task in a timely and efficient manner.With the exception of 1, 4, 8, 10 and 12 we will be reopening all greens to play on Tuesday, May 6th. Our membership's patience and understanding is always appreciated during these very crucial cultural practices.

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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.

Cultural Greens Maintenance...

With the cooler temperatures this week, we will be performing some all important greens maintenance procedures. Monday evening (after the outside event) we will be doing a light grooming on both our greens and collars. This task will help to reduce the amount of lateral growth, therefore standing up the plants (for a better cut) and smoothing out the surfaces. Following the grooming we will be dry mowing all areas tonight to help clean up the debris. Tuesday morning we will be applying our biweekly light topdressing prior to play. Once the sand has dried, we will use our cocoa matt to drag the sand into both the canopy and the shallow grooming channels created by tonight's procedure. These practices in conjunction help to create a smooth, firm and healthy surface to putt on.

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...

HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

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