Late August and Tee aerifying

We started aerifying tees this week. It is earlier than we normally do them due to the busy tee sheet this time of year but we are losing a bunch of help in September this year so we thought we would get a jump. It went well where we did two boxes on holes 1-6 mostly the forward tees on Wednesday. This allowed us to then do the back tees on ladies day and disturb them less. Next week we will try to finish them and then prep for the holiday weekend and greens will be done the following Tuesday 9/4. After that we will begin to tackle approaches and weak rough and fairways areas. This process is necessary to vent the soil, remove thatch and also relieve compaction. The addition of topdressing will help reduce thatch also and smooth these surfaces. In the case of approaches the topdressing will firm them up and make the shot landing there more predictable. This time I decided to try something different and use solid tines to avoid the headache of cleaning up the cores. To aid in thatch removal which we lost by solid tining we decided to verticut them. This process is also referred to as vertical mowing. It uses a series of blades similar to a circular saw in a cartridge like a greens mower unit. The pictures below show some of the process:

Will aerifying

Kevin verticutting

Verticut unit

Lots of debris removed. some thatch some just grass

The rest of the process is to then blow off any debris, mow the tee, spread seed, topdressing sand and drag those into the canopy of turf and holes and slits then water. We will add some fertilizer and continue to water them well to promote seed germination. Approximately a week later they should look normal and the roots will be diving into those holes promoting a healthy plant and strong fall.

Mike blowing off debris not caught in bucket

also had another irrigation leak. this time on two collar

nice sized rock on the 5 blue tee. benefit of aerifying to find these before they get hit with a club