Course Update 8/8/19

Aerification season is underway and all 29 greens were DryJected this week.  This year we moved aerification of greens and fairways to the week after Men's Invitational to take advantage of "summertime weather" for faster healing and recovery, a full complement of staff to complete aerification while keeping the other courses open for play, and we are trying to avoid likely weather delays in October that occurred the last two years.  Another advantage to aerifying now is that once the playing surfaces heal, golfers won't experience any disruption for the remainder of the summer and well into fall.  More clubs in our area are moving their aerification practices to early August for the same reasons.

You may be wondering why we don't DryJect more often and stop pulling cores.  The answer is that DryJect is just another "tool" we use to help manage the organic matter (thatch) in the greens.  The process injects sand to dilute the thatch, but does not actually remove anything like traditional core aerification does.  We've found that DryJecting heals considerably faster compared to core aerification and is the best process for this time of year, while still accomplishing our goal of diluting the thatch.  Later this fall we plan to pull cores to physically remove the thatch and topdress to fill the holes.  The healing process in late fall is relatively slow, but open holes during the winter helps water drain from the putting surface, limiting the amount of ice buildup and potential for winter injury.

Click Here To Learn More About DryJect And How It Works

As mentioned above, core aerification of fairways was also scheduled this week, but was postponed due to a threat of thunderstorms for several days.  The process has been rescheduled for Monday, 8/12 thru Wednesday, 8/14, with 9 holes closed each day.

DryJecting the practice green.  The staff uses the yellow buckets to scoop dry sand from our large utility vehicles then dumps it into the hopper on the DryJect machine.  The machine connects to our irrigation system through a 1" diameter hose to receive 120 psi necessary for the injection process.

Here is the DryJect machine in action.  A little sand remains on the putting surface around each injection hole but 90% is in the rootzone where it is most beneficial.

We drag the greens once they dry out to work any remaining sand into the turf which further dilutes the thatch.  After dragging, the greens are rolled to smooth out any tire tracks which also helps firm up the putting surface.

This is Grove #8 green taken Saturday morning.   This green was DryJected Tuesday and has been rolled two days and mowed two days since completing the process.  Most of the holes will be fully healed in the next few days given our current weather.

This was taken while changing cups a day after DryJecting and illustrates the results of the process.  The light colored column of sand towards the top of the picture is a recent DryJect hole.  It penetrates through the dark colored organic matter and into the original greens mix approximately 4.5" deep.  During the injection process the high pressure water will penetrate down as well as sideways depending on the density of the of the rootzone.