Sodding the old tennis courts

Here are some pictures of us sodding the old tennis courts.  This was a very bad sore eye for our club.  This will make it much more pleasant.  We can have some good Bocce ball games, Croquet or even a chipping area.  We will not open the area until next spring.

 Ready for sod

 We used big roll sod.  1300 yds. total

 Installing sod

 One roll would cover 3.5 ft. wide and about 80 ft. long

 almost complete

 Finished hand watering

Sprinkler set up to water

Aerification update

This is one week after aerifying the putting green.  Holes are almost completely healed.  We waited one week before mowing the greens.  We have been mowing daily since Wednesday.

Fall Aerification

     Another aerification has come and gone.  I would like to thank my crew for a job well done.  This is not a popular cultural practice but is necessary to have good quality greens.  We actually started this job 3 weeks out from our actual aerification date.  That's when we started vertcutting greens.  Verticut helps eliminate grain in the turf surface.  Bentgrass spreads by stolens.  Stolens are horizontal growth that grows above the ground surface.  If you get too much horizontal growth it is called grain.   You want upright growth for good putting surface.  Verticutting cuts these horizontal growing stems and leaves and pulls the material out.  The turf responses by sending up a new leaf were the stem or leaf is cut.  The new leaf grows straight up which eliminates or reduces the amount of grain giving you true rolling putt.  We verticutted 3 times in 3 different direction before we aerified our greens.

      Aerification is a labor intensive practice.  It takes everyone on our crew to get this job done quickly and efficiently.  Aerification does 2 major things for us.  1.  Bentgrass is a big thatch producer.  Thatch is material just above the soil surface that is composed of dead and dying leaves crowns and roots.  All grasses produce thatch, a little is good too much is bad.  Too much thatch can cause hydrophobic soils, give pathogens a place to live, cause the greens to get spongy or soft which gives you poor ball roll and a green not able to accept a proper hit golf shot.   2.  Just as the name implies air.  Turfgrass receives air from the root system.  By punching holes into the root zone of the turf this give a channel for air and water to move.    We top dress our greens with sand and brush it into the holes.  This fills the aeration holes and keeps the channel open to prolong the air movement into the root zone.   In about 7 to 10 days the holes fill in.  Aerification rejuvenates the greens they will respond with a flush of growth.

     I know for a short time greens are a little rough and unsightly but in about 2 weeks you will hardly notice what has taken place.  Below are some pictures of the process.

 Dan Verticutting #7 green 

Notice the lines verticut on right.  It pull up a lot of grass

 Aerating #18 green

 This is our core collector Rob made with parts in shop.  This pulls all cores to one end of the green.  We then shovel cores into cart.  This saved the staff 3 hours each day of  pushing cores off greens before we could pick them up. 

 Cleaning off  green

 After we clear green we blow any remaining debris off

 Applying sand

 #16 green after sand has been applied.

 Nick is brushing sand into aerification holes.

 Finished

We fill holes through out golf course with cores we pull off greens.

Tree Roots

Here is a link to the USGA about how tree roots affect golf.  http://www.usga.org/course_care/regional_updates/regional_reports/midcontinent/Tree-Roots-Are-Far-More-Extensive-(And-Problematic)-Than-Most-Realize---September-2014/
I have had to replace part of two drains this season due to tree roots clogging up the drain tile.  First one was 15 green now we have same problem on 6 green/bunker drain.  Roots entering drains is just one problem, tree roots compete with turf for the same nutrients and water.  When water is not plentiful trees win out over turf, the turf will start to go dormant.

Bunker Work

After 1.5 inches of rain our sand bunker took a beating.  With poor construction and drains silted over.  It takes quite a few man hours to get bunkers back in shape.  It took 4 people 6 hours to fix bunkers on front 9.  We will finish the back nine tomorrow.  Below is a few before and after pictures of our work.

 Left bunker # 2

 

 Notice all the mud on top of sand.  This is caused by bunker edges eroding away when we get big rain events.

 

 #2 finished

 

 #5 bunker  We have to shovel sand back up to high points in bunkers.

 

 #5

 

# 5 finished