On Monday morning, again after a lengthy frost delay, we finished up the remaining greens and Mid-Atlantic Dryject Company started the process of dryjecting the greens. This process was outlined in last week’s blog, in which a machine provides the cultural benefit of creating additional aeration holes while filling them with sand at the same time. This practice took all day, with only the completion of #14 spilling over into Tuesday. Employees were stationed at each green using buckets to fill dry sand into the machine every pass.
Once greens were finished, the process of coring tees and approaches started. As of today we have aerified all approaches and most of tees with the exception of a few on the front due to rain storms.
On Monday afternoon, we started topdressing greens, and completed the process on Tuesday. Following topdressing, greens were push broomed to work the sand into the holes. A one ton asphalt roller was used to roll any ruts out that were created from all of the traffic from equipment on the greens during the entire week.
To round out the week on Wednesday and Thursday, we did our bulk gypsum application on tees, fairways and rough. We also finished aerifying the rough using pull behinds spoon aerifiers. Greens and tees were amended with gypsum, pro-mag and a balanced fertilizer to help with recovery. Finally, everything from benches to flagsticks were put back in place for the return of play of Friday.
All in All, with the exception of Mother Nature trying to throw a wrinkle in the game plan, it was yet again another successful Aerification. A special thanks goes out to the entire staff, who put in countless hours over the past week to make it all happen!
