Third annual 'Demo-Day' a Huge Success

A big thank you to everyone who came out to see our demonstration on verticutters and their effect on Stimpmeter readings.
 

Beto explaining how he takes a Stimpmeter reading.

Demo Day this Monday, March 18th

What is this machine doing and why is it making such a mess. Come to the putting green this Monday at 9:00 and find out what a Verticutter, Vertigroomer and Stimpmeter are..  

Getting the Greens Back in Shape

The fungus that was attacking the greens is now a distant memory. Well, almost.  Now it's time to get the Verticutter out of moth balls and start removing all that excess thatch in the greens. Once a week we are verticutting the greens in two directions. We will continue verticutting until we get back to greens that are fast (11' to 12' on the Stimpmeter), smooth, firm and consistant.


Francisco on the  Verticutter

2011 in Review

Measuring Green Speed With a Stimpmeter

     During the summer of 2010 it became obvious that we needed to make some  changes to our greens management practices here at The Villages. The greens had become soft and puffy with unacceptable putting quality. After talking to the USGA, fellow Golf Course Superintendents and several suppliers, I came up with a game plan on how to make the greens smoother, faster, firmer and more consistent.  Here is a list of the changes we implemented during the summer of 2011:

1. The biggest change we made was in how we verticut the greens. We set the verticutter blades much deeper into the green than ever before. (7/32” below the green’s surface) We verticut the greens twice a week for a total of 16 times. We were planning to apply light sand topdressings after the verticutting, but found that the verticutting brought sufficient sand up to the green’s surface that we were able to blow off the thatch and drag the sand back into the green’s surface for a nice light topdressing.
2. We lowered the green’s ‘height of cut’ by 1/100”. We also started mowing the greens with hand greens mowers five days a week, instead of only once.
3. We changed our green’s small tine aerifications from hollow to solid tines. It isn’t possible to get sand into a small aerification holes. I made this change because I felt that removing a plug and not filling the hole with sand was contributing to softer greens.
4. In 2010 we switched from Unipar to the smaller  #30 topdressing sand for all light topdressings. We will continue to use Unipar to fill the holes with the large tine aerification in April.
5. This past summer we also began working with a new vendor who specializes in greens maintenance products. We began using several of his products, including fertilizers, growth regulators and a soil wetting agent. I feel that this change has helped keep our greens healthier than in past years while maintaining good turf color and reduced excessive turf growth.

Fortunately, all the changes seem to have paid off. I think the consensus of the golfers this year has been very positive. Stimpmeter readings for the months of August and September have gone from an average of 10’ in 2009 to 10’6” in 2010 to 11’7” in 2011.

           

     

     

      

Meet the Team

Francisco

Francisco  has been on the golf course maintenance team since 1993. Although he can operate all the equipment on the golf course, he is most often seen during the summer spot watering the front-9 fairways. Here he is operating the 'verticutter' on the 18th green.

Smooth Greens

Verticutting the 13th Green

It's been a little over two weeks since the greens were aerified and heavily topdressed. (250,000 pounds!)The greens have pretty well healed, so it's now time to start getting them smoothed out. Today we verticut them. We will verticut them again this Friday, next Monday and next Friday. The greens should get progressively smoother and faster with each verticutting.

Firming up the Greens

Removing Thatch from the Putting Green with a 'Graden' Verticutter

Thanks to everyone who came out to our second demonstration of the year. The 'Graden' heavy duty verticutter is a relatively new piece of equipment on the market. The machine slices 1" to 1 1/2" deep, removing a tremendous amount of thatch (old dead roots) from the green. At the same time, the machine fills these slits with sand. High levels of thatch contribute to soft, spongy greens. Removing this thatch and replacing it with sand greatly increases the firmness of the greens.