I thought about explaining the benefits of aerification but I suspect most of you don’t care; your only concern is how long until those greens roll true again. What I hope to project to you is our philosophy and how we are going to accomplish that as soon as possible.
As with anything in golf, there are several different ways to do things. Most golf courses prefer to aerify during the golf season in hopes the holes will disappear very quickly due to perfect summer growing conditions. This causes that special kind of anger and disgust only a true golfer can muster. Since this seems to be a major issue, we elected to punch our holes in mid October, and avoid any possible mid-season revolt.
How We Handle Aerification
Once the day has been selected, we ramp up our fertilizing so they will be fertile when we aerify. We put a set of knives in out tractor, drive in two directions slicing and dicing the greens. Then we dump an insane amount of sand on them, brush the sand into the holes (Golf Course Owner Guy’s job), roll them, and they are ready for play. Unless players see us doing it, they don’t even know it’s been done. After a few mow-ings, they are in great shape health-wise and totally recovered visually.
We have a huge advantage, our greens are already 100% sand. While aerification is normally a process that converts soil greens to sand greens over time, we are already sand. Our process is designed to relieve compaction, and allow water and air to get to the roots, making the plant stronger.
Aerification is one of the most basic turf grass necessities and although we despise playing on it, I have not found any voodoo magic to replace it. Making the process as painless as possible for our consumers, is our goal. By the time you remember which putting technique you mastered last season, our greens will be ready to test you again.
