The weather last night and today has resulted in a postponement of the back nine greens aeration. Besides being too wet around the perimeter of the greens it would be asking a lot of my staff to work in these conditions and to get the most out of their efforts. The greens themselves, being sand based, wouldn't be too difficult to clean up but we are also aerating collars and some areas of rough close to the greens and that would result in mud. Moving equipment around with our close proximity side banks would also result in skidding and control issues.
Wednesday is the first round of Men's League playoffs so we will wait until Thursday to finish the back 9. We can then use the time tomorrow to take care of the golf course in terms of course setup, some mowing and more leaf cleanup. The high winds late Monday messed up the leaf situation and brought down a few trees.
Back to the aeration. We used a 5/8 inch hollow tine and it punches a pretty big hole in the turf. However we are removing a decent percentage of organic matter as recommended by Dave Doherty of ISTRC. Unfortunately it is difficult to completely fill the holes with enough sand in one topdressing application with the equipment at our disposal. That is why we will be topdressing the greens again after the sand has settled into the holes and the turf surface (which happened after last night's rainfall). Therefore if conditions permit the front nine greens will be topdressed again on Wednesday morning. This should help with playability. Keep in mind that the holes will not completely close up for the remainder of the golf season. The growth rate is too low in October.
Other areas of the course will also see some additional topdressing in the next week or 2 as well. This is all part of our regular topdressing program for tees, approaches and now fairways. The applications will be light and non intrusive.
If anyone has questions or concerns regarding our aeration/topdressing program this month please feel free to contact myself or our General Manager, Mr. Hudyma. Short term pain, long term gain. We've all heard that line but in this case it has significant meaning. Thank you for your patience as we complete the aeration process for 2012.
Wade
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