Drill and Fill

Friday, March 08, 2013

This week has been an overall success considering the amount of precipitation we received on Wednesday.  Our team, along with Harmon Turf Services, was able to complete the drill and fill as well as the .55" core aeration on Monday and Tuesday.  Low areas and drainage swales on greens were drill and filled twice to promote dry, healthy conditions.  The process was performed in different directions than last fall to minimize hitting the same holes.  Harmon used four machines this year which greatly sped up the process.  Harmon drilled 520,000 1" holes and backfilled them with 50 tons of sand.  Our team put 4,680,000 .55" aeration holes in the greens and backfilled them and topdressed with an additional 30 tons of sand. Our team will continue to put holes in low areas that hold water and back fill them with good sand.  On Tuesday, our team was able to put down soil amendments that the rain and snow helped incorporate into the greens.  It will take a while for the greens to recover but temperatures look great for growth starting tomorrow.  We will be allowing the greens to grow, unregulated, to fill the holes in as quickly as possible.

 Needless to say, with over 5 million holes and 80 tons of sand, the greens will be bumpy and sandy for at least the next few weeks.  We anticipate being completely healed over by the middle of April (warm weather dependent.)

In low areas that hold water or high traffic areas, our team is adding more holes in a tighter spacing.  These holes are 3/4" in diameter vs. the drill and fill holes that are 1" in diameter.  We use two identical templates.  The first one is used to drill the holes and remove the existing material.  Mr. Welles was kind enough to lend us a hand.

The next template is then placed over the holes and kiln dried sand is brushed into the holes.  It works quickly and efficiently.  We are able to put 2000 holes over 640 square feet into a green every hour.  This process introduces new sand as well as increases bulk density because more sand is put into the greens than is removed.  This leads to firmer, drier surfaces.

The downside to the rain and snow on Wednesday was that it did not allow us to perform the Graden process.  The golf course received 2.6 inches of precipitation and is very, very wet.  Another process will be substituted later this month to accommodate.  The Graden is a very aggressive process and pushing it much later would greatly delay recovery.  The other process, DryJect, will be detailed in the future and will be much less invasive. We will be using this process in the fall instead of a typical aeration or drill and fill.  This will virtually eliminate any disruption to our Fall golf schedule.

We have a very busy March planned outside of recovering from the drill and fill.  In March we will install TurfBreeze fans on holes 3, 6, 10, 11, and 13; install a SubAir unit at #11 green, DryJect greens, grind the stumps from our winter tree work, install a synthetic walk path to #1 green, and install drainage.  Our drainage goals this year include the entrance and exit to #3 fairway, and the approaches on holes 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15.  Drainage work will push over into April.  We focus on the most in-play areas when making any decision regarding drainage.

It looks like Spring is right around the corner and with Day Light Saving Time this weekend, I expect to see a much busier golf course.  Please bear with us on the greens as we are working to heal them over as quickly as possible from the drill and fill process.   We greatly appreciate these closed days to perform vital agronomic practices that lead to the long term health of the turf.  The golf course will be open for normal play tomorrow, Saturday March 9.

Have a great weekend,

Jordan Booth
jbooth@willowoakscc.org