The new greens at the Players Club have had an excellent winter. We held on through the cold weather and are slowly beginning to emerge from dormancy. The emergence into spring, however, hasn't been a 100% success. We have noticed that certain areas aren't recovering quite as well as we would like. The back right of number ten hasn't sprung into spring quite as fast the rest of the greens.
The slow recovery of Mini Verde can be attributed to a couple factors. First, shade. The rear of number ten doesn't receive an adequate amount of sunlight through the spring months. Shade can be noticed on the putting surface in the mid-afternoon. The second limiting factor is concentrated foot traffic. The layout of the green's complex on number ten is less than desirable to say the least. There is only one viable parking option near the green. The placement of the bunker is such that it funnels foot traffic onto the rear of the green. Regardless of where the pin is located, 90% of golfers enter the green in the rear.
We have fertilized the weaker areas on the greens to help them recover, but number ten hasn't responded the way we hoped. We have since decided to plug and re-sod the damaged sections. These areas will heal faster by replacing the bare soil surface with fresh sod. The seams and edges should disappear within ten days and we can expect a full recovery by mid-May. Here are some pictures of the plugging process.
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| Weak area that we replaced. |
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| A "little" help from our professional staff. Notice who the boss is. |
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| Bare area removed, tilled and ready for plugs. |
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