Battle of 1000 slices; victory for the good guys

This past week's closure is now officially gone, and the healing process is underway. The residual scars of the millions of holes and slice lines are still there, but in a few weeks you won't be able to notice. Greener pastures ahead. 

Since we just bombarded the course with millions of holes and all but the most hardened, die-hard loyalists have ran for whatever "decent" course they can find on the reciprocal list, I am utilizing the extra time on the even slower summer tee sheet to do some extra work this week. Since the majority of our concentration has been on the short cut grass, it is time to do something for the roughs. 

Ever look at Donald Trump and wonder just how long his comb-over hair really is? I mean it's got to be 5-6 inches from base to tip if you stood it straight up. Yet, because it's laying down it doesn't seem that long. Well, that same sort of comb-over hair do is how the the roughs get as well. Right now we are cutting them at 3/4 of an inch but if you actually combed the grass straight up its almost 2 inches tall. 

So I rented this turf comb to stand up the grass to prep it for a little trim. 

Notice the difference between the right and left. Want to guess which one we ran the turf comb through? 

Once we stand the turf up we come in and mow it multiple times in multiple directions....over and over and over and over again. 

You can see the difference in just one pass of the mower on the right side. Lots of leggy grass stems removed and getting closer to a true height of cut. 

The goal is to produce a tightened, high density turf that is standing straight up. This will help hold the ball up, as well as make it easier to get a golf club through the turf without chopping out a large beaver pelt type divot. It's a slow process but the end results will be worth it.