I often get asked why are you aerating, the turf was perfect? The answer is simple: how do you think it got to be perfect? Worrying about how the greens will putt for a few days is short view thinking. Every tournament you see on TV has spent many months if not years preparing the course for a weeks worth of play. Think about that for a minute. Extra aerifications, rebuilding of tees, bunkers etc all in preparation for a weeks worth of play. You might be thinking OK Matt but that's for Professionals. Right but grass is grass. It needs certain things to be healthy.
The long view is that as we get into the fall and better growing weather it is important to give the turf the stuff it needs to recover from summer. We are growing cool season grasses. That means it is under a lot of stress when the weather is closer to warm season locations. A good example of the difference is crabgrass is a warm season plant and loves a summer like this one. One of the things we can do to help turf recover is poke holes in the ground to relieve compaction and give the roots a void to grow into. Turf is not unlike any other growing plant it needs a strong root system to be healthy and aerification is our best method to promoting a healthy root system.
If we did not have to aerate we certainly would not go through the arduous task just to upset golfers and get complaints. It is a necessary part to having healthy turf.
We did a small tine aeration on greens this week. Some greens came out a bit bumpy but they will smooth out soon. We will do bigger holes with a heavy topdressing in October. We will begin doing tees and collars next week assuming the weather cooperates.
So as you play the course over the next few weeks, or any course for that matter, don't get caught up in the short view of how the turf might be playing but instead think about how good that turf will be after the process.
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