Mystery Solved....Now The Hard Part




In my last update I alluded to what I thought might be causing me to lose sleep and pull my last few hairs out.  Today I confirmed my suspicions that in fact the topdressing sand used with aeration is causing problems.  You can walk across any green and not see a single rock, but if you get on your hands and knees and look closely, you will feel many of them embedded in the canopy of the turf just out of sight.  I pulled the rocks in the picture out of the 12th green in about three minutes of searching a small area.  I am convinced that this is the reason we are not yet seeing the ball roll as true as it should.  We followed the tried and true aeration process to a tee and I was very happy with the outcome despite battling a rainy week to get it done.  The only variable we changed this time was the topdressing sand.  We chose a sand that was, on paper, slightly coarser than the sand we had been using.  The ISTRC lab reports indicated that this might be helpful and the spec sheet on the chosen sand was great.  However, what was on paper seems to be different than what is on our greens.  I'm not yet certain what steps can be taken to solve this challenge, but I won't stop working on it until it's fixed.

Comments

  1. I spoke with a superintendent at a course near Charlottesville and he is facing the same issue. We used the same sand and got the same results. We've used our rotary brushes to "vacuum" the surfaces and it helped a lot. I don't believe there is any lingering issue from the sand. Surfaces are putting very well now.

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  2. this is great information about, you wanna play golf, cheek before then you start play.

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