First Aerification Week Completed

I'm happy to report that the Golf Maintenance Department team has complete our first aerification week without a hitch.  I think we would all agree that we need rain desperately, but during aerification week it is best if the weather is hot and dry!  The reason being, much like everything else in life, is that it is much harder to clean the place up than it is to make the mess.  For us, when "the mess" dries out it becomes really easy to clean up because the grass plugs and debris do n ot stick together.  We are able to break up the plugs and separate the dirt and sand from the organic plugs.  The process of separating the sand from the organics makes it easier to cleanup because it removes a lot of the weight of the debris. So hot and dry is good when aerifying!

Our first priority of the week was to verti-cut the and aerify the greens.  This time, instead of verti-cutting the greens once we verti-cut them twice in and "X" pattern.  Since it was our first aggressive maintenance of the year I wanted to take the opportunity to try and eliminate as much thatch in the upper profile as possible.   This is the business side of the machine. Notice the teeth are lined up vertical, like a roto-tiller. The teeth penetrate 1/8" into the turf canopy to just get at the dead material building up on the surface. They are not digging deep.



Here is a picture of the green's verti-cutter hard at work.  All of the material the verti-cutter digs out is cleaned off.


The next step after verti-cutting is to clean off the debris. Most of the time we will just mow behind the first machine, but because there was so much stuff removed we just used a big blower and blew the stuff into the roughs.


After verti-cutting the greens and cleaning them up, it was time to aerify the putting surface. We use hollow tines to pull cores out of the green.



After the putting surface is aerified, all of the cores are removed. The aerification process serves two functions, remove compaction and remove organics in the soil profile. Here is a picture of the green's upper profile area. The darker area at the top is the organics that have built up over time and what needs to be controlled. You want some of this but not too much, which can lead to a lot of problems. This is what the hollow tines of the aerifier pull out. My goal through the course of the aerification season is to remove 30-45% of this material each year which should maintain a good balance of playability and agronomics.


Here the green has been aerified and it is time to remove the cores. Removing the old cores is a labor intensive job as it is all done by hand.


Core removal is a simple process. The staff uses these floating level lawn tools and slides them along the putting surface and pushes the cores to the outside edges of the greens. Once the green is cleaned off the crew scoops up the cores, puts them into carts, and hauls the material off.


The same process done to the greens (verti-cutting, aerification, and sanding) was done to the tees, approaches, and fairways. The only difference is that it was more aggressive due to the infrequency of the process. Here is a picture of the fairway verti-cutting on #1. Notice how much material is shooting out the back of the machine!


You go from the swirled look of the grain


Here's what all that grain looks like once removed. In this picture I wanted to give you and idea of how much material was removed so I put my radio next to the debris generated. My radio is ten inches tall from the base to the top of the antenna. Pay close attention to how many stems are in the picture (all the brown stuff), and how little actual green stuff (leaf tissue) there is. All of the stems come from the grass laying over which creates the grain in the fairways.


To demonstrate the grain I shot this small video. Notice how in one direction some material is removed and then on the return pass on the same line a whole lot more is removed. The difference is due to the grass laying over in a specific direction. Going with the grain yields little results, but going against the grain yields much more.


After we make the mess, its time to clean it all up with the turf vacuum to get ready to sand all of the playing surfaces.


You have heard me talk about sanding greens and have seen the postings I do, but what I haven't talked about much is the need to continually sand the tees, approaches, and fairways. The sand is what keeps the surfaces firm. Think of when you go to the beach and the waves wash up on the shore then all of the sudden they are gone, the water just seems to get sucked into the sand but the sand still stays firm. That is similar to what we want to happen on our tees, fairways, and approaches when water is applied. Although we want the soil to hold some moisture, I'd rather it drain really well for increased playability. Remember when we opened after the renovation and on every drive you would get 25 yards of roll after the ball landed? All of the extra roll was due to the ball hitting the turf that had not built up an excess of organics in the soil. So just like the greens, the other "short grass" areas need to have a strong soil management protocol as well. That management protocol includes regimented verti-cuttings, aerifications, and topdressings.

Another reason to maintain the fairways so firm is because of the over-all design of the course. The Country Club of Naples is a classic ground game style course. Meaning our course was designed to be able to bounce or run a ball onto the green. Every green here has a very large approach that enables the player to land short and still get the ball onto the putting surface. The only hole that you have to hit over an hazard when hitting to the green is hole 15, but the approach is 25 yards long. Additionally, the firm fairways allow for extra yardage off the tee. If you got an extra 25 yards of roll on 14 holes (the par 4 & 5's) that's an extra 350 yards you didn't have to hit the ball, and that's only on your drives. So you can see that maintaining a firm fairway can be a very good thing, but it takes a continual effort to keep it. Over time if the fairways are not maintained properly for firmness they will become softer and softer.

This past week I used approximately 384 tons sand to topdress the fairways.


During our aerification process of the fairways, similar to last year, we found some of the remaining rocks that are close to the surface. The staff dug around the large boulders and then they were removed and sodded over. The great news is that we only had to remove a lot less than last year.


On a separate note, part of the summer "things to do" list is to push back the encroaching Brazilian Peppers left of 15 green. As many of you know, the bushes are half dead and look unsightly. Additionally, a lot of golf balls are sent left of the green after bouncing off of the green slopes. The plan is to clear out the invasive exotics and then grass the area.
Because the area is so overgrown, it is going to take some time to remove the dense debris. In this picture, only two bushes have been removed. Notice how huge the bush in the background being cut is. One bush is close to 30 feet across.


Another project done during the closure week was to compact the bunkers again. The bunkers have really started dry out because we do not have enough irrigation supply to irrigate the course, which also irrigates the sand and keeps it from becoming fluffy. Each one of the compacting plates is 150 pounds and vibrates at a very high frequency which makes the sand particles vibrate and become fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle.


It was a very long week, but very productive. The staff worked incredibly hard to accomplish all the needed maintenance practices. Now, let's keep rain dancing everyone!