Post Aerification Maintenance Update

Aerification holes have healed.  The greens are slower due to the fertilizer we applied ahead of aerification, not applying plant growth regulators for 4 weeks,  and because of the mower 's cutting quality being ruined by all the sand.  Now that the sand is worked into the profile and the holes are healed, we put a freshly ground set of reels on the mower.  The quality will improve dramatically by Saturday.  We have also applied plant growth regulators again, which will limited vertical growth.

Next week we will mow with the intent to remove excess growth and grain from the turf canopies.   In order to maximize removal of excessive growth, we will not be rolling the greens until Thursday.  The reason for this is because if we roll after a mowing, we lay the turf back down until we stand it up again the next mow.  Not a problem when turf growth is limited, but to heal quickly we encouraged a lot of growth.  By skipping rolling, we will cut out more of the excess turf each day.  Once we work out excessive growth and put the rollers back on the greens, they will pop with speed the following day or two.  Peak speeds are timed for Saturday the 9^th, opening round of the Match play event.  If the weather cooperates things should be really smooth and fast, much like they were for Interclub.

A few other notes,  we removed a few trees between 9 green and 10 tee.  You can take a peek at the before and after pics I attached. These trees were diseased and would eventually die completely.  By removing them, we opened the area for a back tee for #10.  The far back tee will only be a men’s college tournament tee, because it is so close to the parking lot.  We may add a second tee if there is enough room. We plan to clean up the cart paths into the parking lot to make room for the tees and improve the look of the east parking lot.  

Finally we sliced the fairways this week with an Aerway aerator.  The purpose is to allow continued gas and water exchange into the soil.  You can take a look at the video and see we sliced 1.5 - 2 inches into the profile, but have very little surface disruption.  We hope to continue this practice throughout the summer.