Now that's a workout!

We occasionally joke with golf course employees that given the exercise they get on a daily basis, we could be charging them for a gym membership.  While gyms may currently still be closed, the guys continue to get a good workout on the course.

Recently, they have been addressing areas that almost never get aerified: Sprinklers, quick coupler valves, and drain basins.  As a matter of fact, when we do our usual fairway aerification treatment, we try really hard not to hit these spots with our aerifiers--sprinklers lose a fight with an aerifier 100% of the time!

However, because these spots rarely get aerified, they can become thatchy and hydrophobic.  Yes, it's strange, but the area surrounding a sprinkler may be really dry and hard to wet. 

The answer to this problem is to use a hand aerifier around these obstacles, which allows the guys to get up close without the risk of a geyser.

Luke is in great shape, since he reports little muscle soreness even after a day of this!

A better approach

The lean team took advantage of conditions this past week, and got the approaches aerified.  This process has several steps, beginning with the actual aerification.

We then pick the plugs, blow the area, and apply topdressing sand, which is swept into the holes.

As with any aerification we do, the goals are to reduce organic matter, decrease compaction/increase pore space in the soil, thus improving water percolation and rooting.  For a little more information on the importance of this agronomic process check out the brief video from the USGA about golf course aeration:  The (W)hole Story

Tee Time

While our current staffing level isn't what we anticipated coming into the year, having the course closed has created some time savings for us.  For example, we have:

• No bunker raking
• No practice tee repair
• No divot repair
• No course setup
• No tee markers to move when mowing

We are doing our best to take advantage of this, and are tackling some jobs that we often don't have time for in the spring.   Among these is tee aerification.  

The team came together once again, and did a great job getting this done.  During these hard times, we truly appreciate the effort that these guys put forth.

We are at the point where rough mowing is now a full time task, and the other areas of the course aren't far behind.  We are racing to get as much done as possible before mowing is the primary consumer of our time.

Early Aerification

With the course currently closed, we decided to move up our spring aerification dates from May to April.  Once again, the good weather forecast we were promised ahead of time, didn't materialize, and we were dealing with dreary conditions, making cleanup and sand incorporation challenging on Monday and Tuesday.

We followed up later in the week with the Dryject, sand injection.  As always, this is truly a "heavy lift" since we hand load the four Dryject machines with over 50,000 pounds of sand.  With a smaller number of staff working, this made the workload that much greater.

Thankfully, help came in the form of our Golf Professional and General Manager.  We truly appreciate Matt and Joel lending a hand!

It always feels good to get this task out of the way.  With typical temperatures in April, 10  degrees lower than in May, the recovery process will be somewhat slower than usual, however we look forward to having the greens in great shape when the course reopens.