Weeks of May 9th and 16th

Punching and Collecting Cores on 15 Apron

This past week was good weather wise but pretty average production wise. Most new employees are trained up and we can now begin to take the more experienced staff away from routine maintenance and start to use their skills to finish off or get started on some of the projects I would like to get wrapped up before the end of May.
Starting on last Friday, we aerated and top dressed all the collars and aprons. I attended a seminar a few years back where an agronomist from the USGA suggested incorporating the collars and aprons into the same aeration and top dressing program as regular greens. The idea is to extend the greens playing characteristics to immediate area and allow players the option to take advantage of those characteristics as they approached a green. This year we are also doing it to help the light, air, and water reach past the matted, dead turf from this past winter and give the existing turf as well as the seed bank within the soil a helping hand in growing and filling in the funky spots.

We will use the cores generated from this aeration as a seed bed for filling in the sides of the recently renovated cart paths. We will mix in a healthy quantity of perennial rye grass seed (quick to germinate and able to withstand traffic stress) with the cores to help get turf established next to cart paths. Sodding the little strips next to the path, especially now with cart traffic and summer coming may be a waste of sod. The cores are composed of the ever ubiquitous Poa annua and as such are able to grow in areas that other grass may have a hard time getting established. One request to players is to try to limit traffic on these area until they have filled in. We don't have enough ropes and stakes to block off all the area; besides to much of that stuff always makes a golf course looks cluttered and messy.

Core Bordering the
Cart Path on 10 Fwy