TOP DRESSING..........IN THE RAIN

The weather has not exactly cooperated as much as we would have liked for the aerification of greens. Normally our plan is to aerify, and top dress 9 greens on Monday, and the other 9 on Tuesday. With 2 inches of rain over the weekend, and the cloud and drizzle experienced yesterday, and again this morning, the whole process has been slower and a little messier than it would under ideal conditions. But we continued on with the process knowing this would be better than closing the course for two more days when the weather improves.
Because we could not get the sand top dressing started yesterday morning due to the weather, we kept the aerification going and finished aerifying all 19 greens by the end of the day. After lunch yesterday the weather improved slightly and we did get started the top dressing but did not get too far. Even though the rain continues to threaten we started the top dressing first thing today and are currently hopeful the weather holds so we can get the majority of the sand down today.

This is the machine which applies the top dressing. We can get the sand applied without too much problem even when things are a little damp. The challenge comes when we try to brush the sand into the holes. Wet sand is sticky and is not easy to work with! After we drag a brush around knocking most of the sand into the open holes, we then use a tool called a level lawn.


This tool levels out the green by knocking the sand into low spots. The entire green surface is gone over with the level lawns.

Lines of heavier sand visible here are because these areas are low so more sand is left behind than on the areas around it. There is no question this process makes putting very bump in the short term. In 7 to 10 days the greens should be completely healed.

In the mean time, thank you all for your patients and cooperation!