Continuing the Grow-in

Everyday, the new greens are improving. The roots continue to develop and lengthen and the damaged areas on top get less and less. As the progress continues, the maintenance activities I previously described will be happening this week, weather permitting. The plan is to aerate the new greens with solid tines on Tuesday. This will help to keep the air exchange working and help the roots grow deeper. At the same time, we will incorporate a good organic fertilizer to feed the soil that will provide a long lasting nutrient source. Then, we apply a good sand topdressing to both fill the holes and smooth the surface followed by a good brushing to raise the leaf blades off the surface to get a better cut. We will continue with weekly topdressing and another aerification in a few weeks. After that, we will wait until the heat of summer passes before doing it again.

The goal of this grow-in is to actually build a new putting surface over tho top of the newly sodded surfaces. I have noticed that after we lowered the cutting height to .200 inches that some minor scalping began to occur. This tells that there too many imperfections to go lower to our normal height of .140 inches. We will continue to add sand to allow the process to work. Sometimes, we have to wait for the turf to do it's thing and not push too quickly because that is when damage occurs and we actually go backwards with progress.

The update to green 7 is that all of the surface has been filled with sod where there once were gaps. All of the surrounds we be sodded this week and it will begin to look like a green. All the sod seems will be hand sanded to help with the lateral growth. We have some additional sod from our nursery that we will installon those couple of spots on greens 4 & 12 and the remainder to be used on greens 7. If we have to, we may purchase some additional sod but will wait and see. We will also seed the areas on 7 when we aerate this week and try to establish more grass in those areas.

Patience is the key at this point in the grow-in. Too much, too fast can be devastating.

Happy 15th!

It will be a happy 15th on the 16th! We will be opening up the 15th green for play. You will notice the green to putt a bit slower and a tad bumpy, but it has developed enough to handle traffic. Greens 4 and 12 will be open by Memorial Day Weekend and should be able to with stand the traffic. The maintenance procedure on these 4 greens will continue until they reach the consistency of the other greens. So far, we have mowed and rolled a few times, and have top dressed them once. We will continue to mow, roll, verticut regularly along with weekly topdressings and we will also aerify these greens with very small tines to ensure good water infiltration and air exchange. All of these procedures will help smooth out the surfaces. Along the way, we will be lowering the height of cut from .250" to our established height at .140". Lowering too fast will have an adverse effect on the turf and prevent scalping. We will be diligent with our efforts and strive to get these greens in great shape for your golfing enjoyment. Weather will dictate some delays in meeting our goals but patience is golden.

As for green 7, we got hurt by not getting water to it soon enough. On Saturday 4/27, we had snow covering the course. By Tuesday, temps climbed to 85. Wilt was evident on Monday evening and we spent the entire day Tuesday until 7:30pm before we got water to the green. We probably missed having these greens the same as the others by 12 hours. Needless to say, there is more work to prep this green for play. Some areas survived very nicely. There are other areas that look pretty bleak from the cart path but a close look shows green shoots a some new rooting. Some of these areas will survive but there are a few strips that will have to be replaced. We do have some sod from our nursery green that is in excellent shape and will use it all up if need be. If we need to purchase more sod, we will do that.

So enjoy the new greens courtesy of Mr. Frandsen and be patient for #7 to be ready.