Aeration Plans

This week we will be aerating greens using two different machines and topdressing with sand to fill the holes.  We will begin first thing Monday morning and hope to complete the process and have things cleaned up by the end of the day Wednesday.  However, there are always potential hiccups so we build in an extra day just in case.  Rain is not expected so Thursday, if all else goes well, will not be needed for aeration and we can open for play.  

Topdressing with sand is the first step.  We then use our tractor with the deep tine aerator to put 7" deep holes that are spaced roughly 4" apart.  Following that we use our small aerator to create 3" deep holes that are spaced roughly 2.5" apart.  Both these steps use tines that are 1/2" in diameter.  We then brush the sand into the holes doing our best to fill them completely to the top.   Temperatures are supposed to reach the 90s which is not ideal for brushing sand into aeration holes.  We may have to stop a little early each day to avoid damaging the greens in the heat.  We will roll, fertilize with potassium and dolomitic lime, and water to wrap things up.  

It should be noted that we have made major changes to our aeration strategy.  For years we relied on the feedback received from both the USGA and the ISTRC lab.  3 to 4 aggressive aerations involving pulling cores with 5/8" tines was a standard recommendation based on the lab tests and widely accepted best practices in the industry.  As the years have passed we've adopted a strategy based on growing evidence that there are less invasive ways to accomplish the goal.  The aeration that we will be performing this week is aggressive, but not as disruptive to playability as our "old" method.  This will be the only "major" disruption to the putting surfaces this year.  We will periodically use "mini" tines prior to summer and again in the fall, but those procedures will not disturb the putting surfaces.  They will require a day or two of patience for us to do the work but putting will be unaffected when you return.  In short, we've lengthened the season of "good" putting quality by up to 6 weeks with our new strategy.  It's still too early to say that this method is going to hold up, but for now we are encouraged from the results over the past 2.5 years.  

While most of our team will be focused on aeration related tasks, at least one will be focused on applying fertilizer and weed prevention to the fairways.  This is an impossible task to complete in play.  It will take us at least two full days with one machine and one person.  We have delayed this task in order to do it when we are closed for aeration.  

Thanks again for all your support and patience.  We will keep the golf shop notified of our progress and notify everyone we expect to be completed.  We should know by mid day Tuesday.