Course Aerification is Complete, Greens Today

Yesterday we finished up the aerification of everything but the two greens we slated.  These two greens - 11 and 13 -- are going to be aerified first thing in the morning and should be finished well before play reaches them.  As with 12's green, these two additional greens should be considered as a two putt under local aerification rules.

Hand Pushing Plugs on 13's Green

Plug repair is still continuing in full force and some additional sod repair will be done on 11 & 15 (maybe a touch on 13) due to the time to recovery these areas would be longer than the members would desire, but would happen.  Any additional plug repair will continue until we are completely fixed ... and we are getting there. 

Working Areas on Back of 15's Green

Later today we will also being foliar applying fertilizer and the growth regulator Primo to our fairways.  This will promote lateral growth and retard vertical growth thus reducing the clippings.  Speaking of applications on Friday we will be addressing the algae issue on some of the back nine greens by applying Daconil Ultrex.  An additional application will be applied next week.  This algae development is a product of the percolation issues that we have been addressing with drill & fill, along with aerifications.  This way will take a few more years to get to our goal but short of making USGA spec greens at a cost of $30 - 35K per green it is our only option for now.

I have been talking to other superintendents in the Valley and almost all faced transition issues this year worst than some in the past mainly due to last year's issues with overseed.  As always some are better, and some are worst depending way too many factors to list ... but we all are addressing the problem as quickly as possible while remaining in the budget guidelines.. 

Just as with Realtors with the housing slump ... tactics change with any given problem but any new tactic takes time to see gains until fruition.  Nothing happens over night and for us tomorrow will be four weeks since we aerified using 5/8" tines on two-inch centers along with 1" drill bits on 6-inch centers that led to our immediate transition of the greens.  Very, very aggressive but very necessary given our poorly percolating push-up greens.