Reserve Club - Aerification week

      This past week the Reserve Club was closed for aerification and overseeding. This is the most anticipated week of the year for the bentgrass guys. This week is a sign of another successful summer completed. Aerification week also allows us time complete projects that have been put on the back burner in order to tend to the greens. Here is a rundown of the events that took place at the Reserve Club this past week.

• Aerified the greens.

      We aerified the greens on Tuesday, our first closed day. This will allow maximum healing time for the surfaces. The greens were cored, cleaned, rolled and topdressed. This was all completed on Tuesday.

• Overseeded the fairways, tees and green's surrounds.

      Technically, we started the overseeding process last week. We apply a growth regulator to the bermudagrass fairways to slow growth and reduce the competition towards the ryegrass.
      Wednesday we officially overseeded the fairways, tees and approaches. The fairways are overseeded with a tractor and spreader in the centers. The edges are seeded with a drop spreader. This helps us to maintain our straight line edges.
      The tees and approaches are seeded in the same fashion, however on a smaller scale. We use rotary push spreaders through the centers and push drop spreaders on the edges.
      The next step is to define our overseeded edges. We do this with a pre-emergent herbicide. The Pre-M herbicide prohibits the seed from germinating. We make this application directly to the edge of the overseeded turf. This step, along with the drop spreading, provides the clean and crisp edges to the overseed.
     

• Added sand to bunkers on 4 and 5.

      The bunkers near the greens on 4 and 5 lacked the sufficient depth required by the USGA. We simply added more sand to these bunkers to provide better playability.

• Bunker renovation on number 2.

      The bunker on number 2 has been a maintenance and playability issue since initial construction. The sand constantly washed out into the adjacent pond. This left insufficient sand in the trap on a regular basis.
      We have taken steps this past week to correct this issue for the future. As you can see in the picture below, we have installed a mound to buffer the bunker from the pond. This mound will prevent future erosion from the bunker.

       The next step was to add the four inch layer of sand to the bunker. Below is a picture of the beginning of the process.

      Here you can see the bunker after competition.  You can see the newly installed mound on the left. We sodded this mound to further prevent the bunker from washing out. We are confident these steps will drastically improve the playability of this bunker.

• Removed bermudagrass encroachment from #6 green.

      Below is a picture of the bermudagrass encroachment on # 6 green at the Reserve. Here is an post on bermudagrass encroachment from last winter.
      We took a different approach to removal this time around. The difference was the application
 of Round Up herbicide prior to aerification.
       We planned to physically remove the bermudagrass initially, however it is difficult to ensure 100% removal. Our plan was to kill the entire plant with the herbicide application and then plug the bare spots afterward. Here is a picture of the putting surface after aerification.



      On Wednesday we began the plugging process. We used 150 six inch hexagon plugs. Below you can see our associates sweeping the sand from the completed area. These areas ranged in size from one to four square feet and were dispersed throughout the green.

      We completed all of our goals that we set for our closed week. Mother nature's cooperation certainly helps when we try to squeeze so many projects into a seven day window. And again we are extremely appreciative for the ability to close each course to accomplish these tasks.