Our team has been busy in June. Greens have been lightly top dressed, sod installed in various locations, and cart paths and irrigation heads edged to name a few.
A light topdressing promotes health and playabilty with upright plant growth allowing for a better quality of cut and ball roll. The application of sand also smooths the playing surface by filling imperfections or voids left behind by ball marks, foot traffic, and mechanical traffic.
Push spreading sand on #11 green
Sod was installed on several greens collars, #2 black/blue tee, #11 blue/green tee, and in the rough on #12. All of these newly sodded areas will be mowed next week. The collar and tee sod will scalp, this is a normal part of lowering the mowing height, and will quickly recover. We will continue to top dress these areas to level the surface. Remember these areas play as 'Ground Under Repair'. Take relief if your ball lands on a freshly sodded area.
Sod prep on #9 collar. This collar was sodded with Zoysiagrass to evaluate if it will perform better than Bermudagrass in this environment.
Sod on #1 collar ready to mow.
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| Cart Path edging - finished product |
I will do an entire post devoted to proper practice techniques in the future. I was on the driving range tee earlier this week and took these two photos of a bad practice routine. When divots are taken in large patches, it takes longer for the turf to recover. When practicing, please use a linear divot pattern. This simple change will allow tee divots to recover faster and provide a better surface for practice.
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| Notice both of the practice sessions have taken divots in a concentrated pattern. Recovery will take most of the golf season. |
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| Another example of a divot pattern that will recover slowly. |
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| This picture demonstrates the difference between divot patterns on the driving range tee. The linear pattern will recover fastest. |
