100 Day War Commences

The 100 day war has started! Like any major offensive, we send out the stealthy, minimally invasive units first to soften the battle field. Instead of Navy Seals and clandestine demolition units, I sent in the vertical mowers to prepare the ground for the heavy aertillary known as aerifiers. 

Operation Dig and Rip was successfully completed on the greens yesterday. The guys vertical-cut the green 4 different directions to get after the built up thatch that has accumulated over the last yr. 

The debris after 4x vertical mowing on greens

A closer view of the cleaned up surface.

The greens verti-cutters went down 1/2 inch into the putting surface, we normally verti-cut at 1/8 inch. 

The rest of the course received a light vertical mowing as well, along with a height of cut reduction. During the winter golfing season the tees, approaches, collars and fairways are mowed at 5/8 inch. This is ok temporarily to give the surface some fluffier grass to hit from, but long term it would create severe thatch and grain. So much so that it would be tough to get your club through the divot. 

Height of cut reduction

Height reduced from 5/8" to almost 3/8". 

Notice all the grass still sticking up, those are really long stems. We will be mowing the grass repeatedly to try to cut off all of those really long stems. 

Part of this week's adventure was to complete the prep work for the chipping green practice area expansion project. All of the surface area changes outside of the putting surface was completed over the weekend. The putting surface changes were completed on Monday and the putting surface was fumigated late Monday afternoon to prepare for new grass.

The green was going to be regressed with the same turf as we have on the rest of the greens, but a last minute opportunity came up that changed everything. Last Friday I was talking with a sod producer about their involvement in a field day CCN is hosting July 15th and they mentioned a new putting surface grass called "Sunday Grass" they have and are looking for places to demo it. I mentioned to them that the chipping green is being re-grassed next week and they offered to give us the grass for free if we would put it in and be a trial site for them. I spoke to Tim regarding the possibility of using the new grass and he said to go for it. So the plan is to pull the tarps off of the putting surface on Monday and prep the green for planting on Wednesday with Sunday Grass. 

Needless to say it's a long week of hard work in the hot sun. One way I keep the boys motivated is to make sure they eat a good lunch. I told them if they did their part every day I would do mine and take care of them. Today's lunch included some slow smoked BBQ pork tenderloin. Ever watch one of the tv shows about the African Safari and seen a pack of hyenas on a carcass? Now add some manners and flatware, and that's a good visual for how ravenous my crew is when they come in for lunch. We are really fortunate to have such a great group of guys working so hard for us!!!

More holes to punch, more debris to clean up. Stay tuned, more to come.