For the last 28 years Timarron has been aerifying the the course 3 times per year- typically in April, June, and August. This needs to be done in the summer months to allow for the bermudagrass to recover quickly. The goals is to have the putting greens recover 21 days after opening up from aerification.
We average around 40,000 rounds in a year; so in the last 28 years over 1 million golfers have played the course. This amount of traffic creates huge soil compaction issues. Aerification helps to loosen the soil so we can have healthy turfgrass and good playing surfaces.
The putting greens now have 4-8 inches of organic matter that has built up on top of the original sand construction. This organic matter holds excess water and creates soft spongy greens. The photos below show the challenges of working with a soil that holds excess water-standing water on green, mower tire tracks, mower scalping/gouging, and shallow rooted/weak turf. Also included is a lab report with recommendations.
SOFT, SPONGY GREENS THAT HOLD EXCESS WATER WILL BE INCONSISTANT AND VERY CHALLENGING TO CREATE GREAT PUTTING SURFACES.
The solution to this issue is to make the organic matter drain water better. This is done by creating deep sand channels that break through the excess organic matter with sand injection and deep aerification. This will be a long term process and every aerification event is an opportunity to add additional deep sand channels to help improve the drainage.
