Aerification

Aerification is crucial to our success at Patriots Glen National Golf Club.  With years of neglect, we need to help alleviate compaction, which helps get oxygen into the soil pore space, allows water to drain from the surface easier, and gives the roots room to grow deeper.

We started with the Greens this week.  We used small tines so the holes would close faster, however we used a greater number of tines to make up for the smaller size.  We pulled a core from the Green to remove Organic Matter which makes the Greens "spongier." Heres a photo of the aerifier pulling a core from the Green.







Some golfers get upset about aerification because it makes the putt "bouncy."  They don't realize the amount of work that goes into aerification.  If it were not so vital to the health of our golf course we would gladly not do it.

Here are some pictures of the work we did over two days to get all 19 Greens aerified.  After the Green is aerified we push the cores into piles and collect them into our Utility vehicles.  We pushed and collect over 30 tons of cores from the Greens!

After the cores are collected, we are left with just tiny holes.  We then put sand on the Greens and brush it into the holes using our Roller.  This helps smooth out of the surface of the Green while also filling each hole with fresh sand.  Its similar to how we topdress the Greens.

Heres photos of the holes open, holes filled with sand, and then the holes after two days.  I use my multi-tool as a reference which is 4" long.

Greens Drains

The rain we have had last week is a good time to finish our Greens drain exit project.  A benefit of the type of construction of our Greens is they drain water well.  We are able to apply the water we want to keep the plant alive.  This translates to firm Greens for the golfer and healthy grass for us.  For our Greens to function properly the drains need to be functional and the exits clear. 

Almost all the exits of our drains for our Greens had been either buried or clogged from years of neglect.  Last season we were able to find and open them up.  We were pulling roots and plant material that had grown up into the drains like the one picture to the right.  Some of these were more than 8 feet long!

This is a picture of our practice Green drain exit that was not only buried but also clogged with plant material.  We were able to dig around the pipe to expose the exit.  We then had to remove the roots that had grown up into it.  This released a huge amount of water that was trapped in the drain.

This season we are placing stone around the drains and marking them so we can keep them clear of any clogs.  This will ensure the drains function properly from now on.