New Drainage 14 Tee

Last week we were closed for 2 days in a row and we took advantage of these two days to complete a drainage project on 14 Tee that was long over due.  We ran drainage from the number 1 tee box past the 2 tee box and then down to the lake.  The project was completed just like all of the drainage projects in the winter. First, the sod was stripped, then the trench was excavated with a mini-excavator, next a thin layer of gravel went into the bottom of the trench, then the slotted pipe placed onto the top of the gravel, after that the pipe is covered in gravel and the trench is filled to about 4 inches below ground level with gravel, next a layer of sand goes down on top of the gravel, and finally the sod that was removed earlier gets put back onto the top of the trench.  We had a few things working against us in this project. First, there is not much fall from the back of the number 2 tee to the front of it and it is a large tee. Therefore, we had to be very precise when digging our trench and constantly checking with the transit to make sure that we had enough fall for the water to run to the lake. Secondly, the irrigation line for 14 Tee runs directly in the lowest point of the ditch that we were running our drainage in.  This forced us to move over a few feet and run parallel to the line, trying to stay as close to the bottom of the wet area without hitting the irrigation line.

Greens Aerification 5-8-13

We aerified all of our practice greens and the nursery yesterday and the rest of the course today.  We did a little bit of a different process than we have before. In the past we have always aerified the greens, either pushed the plugs off or blown them off (if they were dry enough), top dressed heavy, brushed greens (multiple directions), rolled greens, and then put out the amendments. This time we moved the top dressing to the front of the line. So we: top dressed heavy, aerified, bushed 3 times, blew off what was left, rolled, and then put down the fertilizer. The difference was a new counter-rotating brush that we got last year.  It allows us to work the sand in much better than a traditional brush and it also broke up the plugs and worked some of that sand back into the holes therefore leaving us much less to blow off.  We used 1/4" coring tines on a 2"X2" spacing. I am posting 2 videos of the whole process.  The sound is VERY loud due to the equipment that was running during the filming. Also video quality is not the greatest due to a small memory card, but it is good enough to give you a good understanding of the process. The portion where we are brushing the green gets a little long but I wanted to show how much better the green looks with each new direction that we brush.



The first video shows the top dressing sand going down. You can see that we overlap the throws on the top dresser in order to get down enough sand. Next you see us doing 2 clean up laps with the aerifiers. We did 2 clean up laps because we did not want to cause any extra stress on all of the new sod collars that we have been installing and we also did not want the added stress of double aerification on the normal greens clean up laps, therefore the inside clean up lap is where the double up happens from pass to pass.

This video shows the brushing process and how we brush them 3 different directions. You can see less and less sand with each new direction. You then see that we use a pro force blower to blow off the thatch and turf that was separated from the plugs along with the little bit of sand that is left. And finally you see how we roll the greens to help smooth out any imperfections made by the aerifier along with any tire tracks from the carts.