New Sand in Bunkers

We have ordered new sand for all the bunkers at both Huron Hills and Leslie Park. We are almost finished spreading the sand in the bunkers at Huron and will soon begin the bunkers at Leslie.

One of the worst bunkers was the fairway bunker on #12 at Huron Hills. It did not look like it was filled with sand, but rocks and soil. We scrapped all of the previous "sand" out and replaced it entirely with new bunker sand. This will hopefully improve, not only the play-ability of the hole, but the drainage in the bunker, as well.

The base is on the left in this picture, while the new sand is being spread out from the left.

The entrance point to the bunker.

A view from the signature "island" in the bunker.

Number 10 green at Leslie Park on the morning of the first day of the All-City Championship.

Deep Tine Aerification

On Tuesday, April 10th, a contractor from the company Deep Roots came and aerified the greens at Leslie Park. This aerification was different from the aerifiying that we do in the fall in that he uses solid tines that reach down 14 inches. In the fall, we use our own equipment to aerify with hollow tines to a depth of about 4 inches. The hollow tines allow us to remove soil and organic matter from the soil profile and replace it with sand. This reduces the build-up of thatch and compaction. The much longer tine from Deep Roots enables us to reach deeper into the green and decrease the stratification of the soil. While we were going to be spreading sand, we decided to hollow-tine aerify the collars and outside edge of the greens. This area often gets neglected in the fall due to the fact that we are trying to do as many of the greens as we can in one day. It also gets a lot of wear due to the mowers turning when they do the clean-up pass around the green.

 This is a picture of the topdresser putting down sand on #10 green.

A picture of the outside pass on #8 green. (The deep tine holes are hard to see.)

#5 green, where the holes were not quite filled. The outside pass is toward the bottom of the picture. You can see the deep tine holes better here.

A profile of the hollow tine holes on #8 green.

November 2011 Weather Summary

I noticed an interesting phenomenon this morning while checking the course. In 90% of the bunkers, the snow had melted except over the underground drainage lines. This allowed me to get a visual on where these lines are located. The nice thing about that is it could allow me to find the beginnings of the drainage lines. When constructing bunkers, the drain lines will often have a "clean-out" at the beginning of the line. These "clean-outs" allow someone to easily flush the sand and silt that accumulates in the drainage over time. This may improve the speed at which these bunkers drain rain away.

Here you can see the herringbone pattern of drains in the bunker on #14.

A similar pattern on #12

On #7, I painted a yellow line on the snow to help me trace the drain to the end.

Speaking of rain, we received 4.77 inches of it in November. This brings our yearly total here at Leslie Park Golf Course to 39.42 inches. We had 10 days with over a trace of rain and 8 days with over a tenth of an inch. We had 2 days with over an inch of rain. Those days were the 22nd and 29th.

The high temperature for the month of November, 2011,was 66.4 (The 8th of November) and the lowest temperature recorded was 18.1 on the 18th. It got below freezing on 7 of the 30 days, but the daily high was always above 32 degrees.

The highest wind gust was 42 mph (Nov 9th.)

Why do we aerate?

I have gotten more than a few questions on the reasons behind aeration of the greens and, to a lesser extent, the tees and fairways.  The following video does a great job of explaining the reasons.



The main takeaways from this video are:

1) Relieve compaction.

2) Reduce organic matter build-up.

3) Provide passageways for water and oxygen to move through the soil.

The sand top dressing also has the added benefit of smoothing the putting surface.

Aerification of greens

We have completed the aerification of the greens.  Leslie Park did the front 9 greens on Tuesday, September 14th and the back 9 on Wednesday.  If you are curious about the process we use, you can check some of the videos and pictures that I have.

First is the aerator, a Toro Procore 648.  It is self-propelled, 48 inches wide and has 30 3/8 inch tines.  The speed we use puts the tines down every 2 inches.  Here is the machine in action.

Here are the plugs that result

We then blow the plugs into the center of the green to make picking up the plugs easier.



We then pick up the plugs.  We pile the plugs up in our storage area and keep the pile turned over so the grass doesn't grow.  In the spring, we will use the material as we would use topsoil.



Here is a close of the green after we have picked up the plugs.



We then take a greens mower with special cutting units called "verticutters" installed.  These special units vertically mow the grass and basically cut grooves in the playing surface.  This stops the grass from growing along the ground and creates a  more upright plant.  This increases the speed the ball will roll along the green.

Here is a close up of the vericut units.

And a picture of the green after verticutting.

We then spread sand on the green with a machine called a topdresser.  The sand replaces the plugs that we have taken off. 

A picture of the green after the sand is put down.

We then use a large brush to move the sand into the holes.

After we are all done, the holes should be filled and the green should look like this.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I wonder how many words video has saved me?

Topdressing Greens

This week, we began topdressing the greens.  This means that we put a light coat of sand on the top of the playing surface and then drag it into the turf canopy. This achieves two things: 1) it smooths out any bumps or dips that might be on the green and 2) it dilutes any thatch that might be on the green.

Smoothing the green out makes the greens "faster" and a ball will roll further when putted.  It will also make the ball roll more "true", meaning that the ball will roll where you intend it to go.

Thatch is a build-up of organic matter between the soil and the grass leaves.  Thatch is mostly comprised of decaying stolons and rhizomes and not leaf blades.  Despite popular misconception, removing the grass after cutting has no effect on thatch build-up.  A little thatch is a good thing for the grass, as it will protect the crown of the plant from traffic, ie, being stepped on. Too much thatch, however, will harbor insect and fungal pests as well as prevent water from reaching the soil.

Before topdressing, we also ran a verticutting unit over the greens before putting down the sand.  This is a rotating blade that digs down into the thatch and brings up some of that organic matter, as well as cuts any grass blade that might be laying over.  Because of this, we can incorperate some of the sand into the thatch layer and we can also eliminate any grain that develops on the playing surface.

After putting down the sand, we drag a brush over the green to work the sand into the turf.  After we are done, the green will be slightly "slower" than normal, but once the grass starts to grow back through the sand, it will be back to normal and hopefully, even faster.