Now What?: Preparing #18 Green for Play in 2012

Now that the renovation of #18 green has been completed, there are many steps that remain to make the green playable.  During the next few weeks, you will see us performing several different cultural practices in an effort to help the green become as healthy as possible as we head into the winter. What we do now also has a profound imapct on how quickly we can get the green playable in the spring.

The green will be topdressed regulary to help smooth the playing surface and to protect the plant as we head into the winter months. The green has already been fertilized to promote growth and maturation and will likely be fertilized at least one more time to promote nutrient and carbohydrate storage for the winter months. Ideally, I would like to deep-tine the green with solid tines to a depth of about 12" to help even out the playing surface and create additional channels for roots to grow sometime this fall but the sod will need to be established before this occurs. In the spring, the green will continue to be topdressed regulary as well as be aerified numerous times with both solid and hollow tines.



Heavy topdressing to help smooth playing surface



It is hard not to notice the bright orange fence surrounding the green.  This is there for obvious reasons.  Excess traffic leads to excess wear-and-tear, especially on new sod.  Because of the popularity of this project and the fact that it is being viewed as the shiny new present that everyone want to play with, I have elected to put a fence around the entire green and surrounding area to minimize traffic and unnecessary stresses.  Please stay outside the fence.  Adhering to this simple request will pay dividends next spring when it comes time to open the green for play. At this point it is far to early to estimate when the green will be open for play. Rest assured that it will be opened as soon as possible, but only when the time is right.

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Fence? ...What fence?