Golf Course Construction Complete (Almost)

On Tuesday of this week, the Green Committee met with John Lafoy (our architect,) Marc Gooden (Double Eagle, our builder,) and Jay Long to review the course renovation work performed over the past month.  The Committee was extremely pleased by the design and the workmanship and with only a short list of items to complete, we signed off on the project.

What is next? We still have some drain pipes to install and we need some help from Mother Nature.  The more warm weather we get, the better it will be for our new Bermuda grass sod. The bent grass sod will do just fine in this cool fall weather, but the Bermuda will soon become dormant and will not grow in well until next spring.

The biggest change you will notice is on our fourth green.  Actually you might not notice the physical changes, but we think the change will significantly improve the performance of the green next summer.

Jay Long has long felt that the top mix layer on this green was too thick.  USGA guidelines call for 12 inches of top mix with an allowed variance of ½ an inch.  We took samples on the green and found as much as 20 inches of top mix. When there is that much top mix, a green will not experience a problem right away. Initially, drainage through the soil is satisfactory, but over time organic material that should pass through to the gravel layer builds up which causes the green to retain moisture. This inhibits root growth and bent grass cannot survive the summer.

So last week we did a mini-rebuild of the fourth green:

Venture Turf took the bent grass off the green and stored it to the side

Double Eagle removed the excess top mix.

Double Eagle re-graded the green with the help of our troops

We then put the sod back. We could salvage about half of the sod and we finished the job with new sod.

Finished product

As we removed the excess top mix, we moved from black colored mix down to whitish gray mix. The black colored mix had too much organic material built up in it and now that is gone.

ISTRC soil tests lead us to believe we have similar but less severe problems in other greens.  The solution for the other greens is an aggressive aeration program that we began this fall. We need to remove 20% of the volume of each green each year and replace it with sand.  This means more hollow core aeration with sand top dressing.  No one likes playing on aerated greens, but playing on dying grass is even worse.

Next week, an update on Hole #7.