Sod heals all things

I have said many times that the worst thing about a golf course is that you have to leave it outside.  There is so much out of the control of the Superintendent that I have to deal with, sometimes I just try to minimize the damage, be it from insects or from my own staff.  This is the time of year when I just look at Erick, my assistant, and say "Sod it."  As the days grow shorter and the time for the curtain to go up draws nearer, there is just not enough time to remedy the problems with TLC. 

Another reason that we sod certain areas is that for some strange reason, if the celebration is struggling a simple sod replacement will often cure the problem.  We could spend a lot of time and money on chemicals and fertilizers to do the same thing, but with the Celebration sometimes sod is the best answer.  I've spoken to several of the Celebration Superintendents in the area and we all seem to think it has to do with the organic layer that sod already has.  Remember, when it comes to dealing with grass you do want a certain amount of organics, you just don't want to much.  When the golf course was rebuilt in 2009, we took 100% of the organics off the golf course and started over with just sand.  Sand is great for drainage, but it doesn't hold water or nutrients very well and I think the organics already in the sod is why the sod works in areas where the old stuff was struggling.

While were out sodding areas we are also trying to fix some known problems as well. For example, #4 Red tee. This tee was greatly undersized for the amount of use it received. So while regrassing the tee, we also doubled the size of the tee



Stripping off the grass
 



Starting to remove dirt to lower tee which makes it wider

the tee after lowered 12 inches, laser leveled and grassed

It's hard to imagine but in all we will put out approximately 25,000 sq ft of sod.  It's small bunker faces, cart path edges, green slopes, weak tees, curfew injection tears, nematode damage and everything in between.  We are very fortunate that 95% of all the sod is in the roughs.  All of the short grass areas of the course are in very good condition.