Grounds Maintenance Update - Spring
Spring 2021 Aerification
First couple weeks are in the books. It's been nice having the members out there for the last few weeks while the weather has been cooperating. The 4+” of snow came and went pretty quickly, and didn’t saturate too much of the golf course. Things have dried down nicely since, and the turf really liked the natural fertilizer the snow brought with it.
Next week, we will execute two aerifcation processes at once, in order to kill two birds with one stone and keep the large equipment off the greens for the summer. Last month, we talked about some of the great results we have seen from the drilling last year. We are doing the same processes next week to keep building off that, and to continue to facilitate drainage off the surfaces of the greens. We will follow the drill with a traditional aerification to deal directly with the root zone, and get some really important nutrients and sand down deep where it can get to work all year. We will also use this opportunity to continue to introduce top of the line bentgrasses to the greens to aid in our long-term conversion.
Some other projects we will complete while the golf course is closed:
Sod farms are up and running and cutting good sod, so we have quite a bit coming this week to achieve instant gratification. Select areas of the clubhouse lawns, the driving range area, and the old chipping area will be sodded with Kentucky Bluegrass, or “rough” and will be rooting in no time.
You may have noticed the paint on the putting green outlining the new chipping area. We wanted to get the practice area away from the barn construction, and eventual events. The new area, once totally grown in to appropriate height, will be a more accurate representation of approach shots on the golf course, and provide more room and variety for you to warm up.
We will also complete our herbicide applications in the rough. These applications are very difficult to make with play on the golf course, so this is the perfect week for us to get this application out of the way. A quiet golf course with no traffic will guarantee a proper application and not track to areas we don’t want to spray herbicides on.
That’s enough of that for now. We can talk about holes, sand, seed, and fertilizer all day. We’d be happy to discuss aerification and early season applications to anyone that will listen, so feel free to wave Brian, Steve, or myself down next time you’re out there.
I would also like to thank all the members who have been out since our soft open earlier this month. We appreciate the patience and understanding with the new GPS system on the carts. It has really shown itself in a positive way early this season, and is a key to our success through the summer.
See you next Thursday,
Jake Ronchi GCS, BNGC
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