The Sand Man comeith, better get ready!

Hopefully everyone has heard me stand on my soap box and shout about the need to sand the greens all the time.  Well, this time I going digital with my message.  The bi-weekly sanding of the putting surface is an absolute necessity to maintaining superior playability.  The sand does a variety of things for us like filling in any surface blemishes such as ball marks or scuffs from shoes.  The sand even helps speed up the greens due to the decrease is ball roll resistance from the grass leaves.  Most importantly though, the continual sanding helps dilute the every growing organic material layer under the grass called the mat layer.  Some mat layer is wanted as this is what make the greens "receptive," but now that we have enough mat layer we want to make sure we are managing its growth appropriately. 

To help the sand work its way into the grass canopy more effectively, the day we are going to sand we also groom the greens.  Grooming is a very mild version of verti-cutting.  In the picture you can see faint grooves or lines from the grooming.  These lines act like channels for the sand to settle into as my staff is trying to incorporate the sand into the turf canopy.

The grooming is great way of opening up the canopy for the sand, but it also has another intended purpose.  I use the grooming to also help control the grain of the grass.  Grain is the tendency of the grass to lay over in a certain direction.  The way we do this is by continually grooming the grass in different directions.  Here's how it works.  Think a green like a clock face.  I will assign the mowers a specific direction to mow across the face of the clock.  For example, one day we will mow from 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock and the next day we mow from 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock.  So in golf maintenance terms we say "Today we are cutting 10-4" or 8-2 or 6-12 or 3-9.  The direction of the cut is always changing to help control the grain of the grass.  Another way I like to control the grain is to mow the same pass twice, down and back on the same line.  This really works best for controlling grain when using the groomers.

here's and example of double cutting, down and back on the same pass

In this picture you can see Omar making his first pass while cutting 13 green, notice the position of the flag stick.

In this picture notice how Omar is cutting the same line, just in the opposite direction.  Again notice the location of the flag stick.

In doing the grooming this way, a slightly more aggressive approach is taken while we are still actively growing.  Again, its all about ball roll and playability and this practice is aimed at removing some of the thick, prostrate leaves that create extra ball roll resistance.  Ideally what is wanted is the ball to roll across the tips of a very dense, thin bladed leaf and not across the length of a coarse, prostrate leaf.

On hole 11 in the front of the green I'm sure everyone has seen how thin it is.  I took this picture today at 9 a.m. just to show you how the change in seasons affect grass health.  Notice how the shadow envelopes the entire area that is weak.  The shadow is from the trees on 12 tee.  The shadow is not the only reason why the grass is weak, but it definitely isn't helping the grass recover.  In the summer, there is no shade problems on this green, but as the sun becomes lower on the horizon due to winter setting in this sort of issue pops up on different areas.  The red lines on the green are for my mowers to know to not cut the area under stress.  The mowers will lift up the green's mower to allow the grass's leaves to grow a little bit longer.

In the picture below notice how Jose is walking with the mower's cutting head raised up once he crosses the red lines.  I call this red line trick on greens a "false collar cut."  The concept with the false collar is to allow the grass on the putting surface to grow up a little higher so that it can collect a little bit more sunlight.  Remember, plant leaves are like tiny solar panels...they are turning sunlight into energy.  The principle is the same and the larger the solar panel the more energy that can be produced.  In grass guy terms, the longer the grass leaf...the healthier the plant.  This is why problems almost always show up on greens first since they have the shortest leaf surface.  In this picture you can also see the shadow at the back of the green.  There is no visible stress related turf issues in the back, can anyone guess why?  The answer has to do with traffic flow on and off of the green.  The majority of the golfers enter and exit in the front right of the green.  The related foot traffic coupled with the shade on an already stressed part of the green equals thin turf. 

When it comes to bermuda grass's sunlight requirement, its all about duration.  Bermuda grass likes to have at least 8 hours of intense sunlight to thrive.  There's an old wives tale about the morning sun being better than afternoon sun, but realistically it doesn't matter when the grass gets the sun just as long as it gets enough sun.  Now that the days are getting shorter as we go deeper into winter, any shade on an already stressed out part of the putting surface just worsens the problem.