Course Update 7/31/21

 Greens were lightly topdressed again this week as part of our Men's Invitational prep to help firm up and smooth the putting surfaces.  We also pulled out our old spiker to create slits in the putting surface to break up any remaining black algae and help incorporate the sand into the thatch.  The spiker is a ground-driven attachment mounted on an old bunker rake that's been re-purposed specifically for this task.

Greens were topdressed first then spiked to create slits for the sand to work into the thatch.

Here's a closeup of one of the spiker blades.  There are 10 spikes per blade that penetrate up to 1" deep.  The blades are ground-driven which means they only rotate when in contact with the ground and the attachment has two sets of lead weights on top of it to get maximum penetration.

Here's a putting surface after topdressing and spiking.

After spiking the greens are dragged with a special coco fiber mat to get the sand off the surface and into the thatch where it's most beneficial.  The right half of the picture shows where the green has been dragged compared to the left half that has not been dragged yet.

We also addressed a couple areas on Lakes 5 fairway that needed to be sodded before the Men's Invitational.  This spot was caused by a sprayer malfunction that kept the booms going after the sprayer had stopped moving.

Here's the same area with sod harvested from our small nursery below Grove 1 tees.