The week has gone by and the West greens renovation occupied much our efforts, particularly earlier in the week.  It was very successful but certainly very hectic to get everything completed in the two day time frame and the greens are certainly looking forward to the predicted rainfall, as are the rest of the courses.  We use scarifier units that are mounted on the greens mowers rather than walk behinds as they are much quicker and allow for multiple passes with the debris going into the grass catchers rather than needing to be swept between each pass.  The older back 9 greens were scarified in up to six directions and the front 9 just 5 times.  The finer de-thatcher units then covered the greens twice and they were then mown down to normal height.  The greens were then aerated with 8mm diameter tines and fertilised with an 8:0:16 slow release fertiliser and sanded with a humate and gypsum laden sand which is rubbed in to the surface.  On Thursday morning the greens were then liquid fertilised with a high nitrogen based fertiliser to get the required recovery growth happening.  TifEagle is not a very fast growing grass once established so the post renovation time is expected to be a little different from the old bentgrass or 328 days where there is lots of leaf.  

An interesting note from the renovation is that we used 225 litres of diesel fuel during the operation in addition to the hard work of the staff who make it all happen.

The photo below is of 6W green before the sand was applied so a very different look to the old bentgrass days that's for sure.  A couple of members out on Wednesday actually commented that the greens were pretty good to putt on!!  

 

6W green late Monday.

 

 

A relatively quiet play day on Thursday allowed the opportunity to get the River course fairways fertilised and 4 tonne was applied to the fairways on the day.  The West fairways were done a couple of weeks ago and even with no rain have greened considerably so if we get some of the expected rainfall I would expect a great response across the fairways as well as the rest of the courses which are as dry as I've seen them in parts.  The water table has really dropped this week so a nice recharge will be welcome.  Obviously with the moisture from the rainfall and the usual heat the roughs will start growing so apologies in advance as we try and keep up with the growth over the next few weeks.