Just when the greens were perfect...

Spring Aerification 2013.

Typically on the day of aerification we get started before the sun comes up in order to get everything wrapped up and ready for play as soon as possible.  This year however, the weather threw us a little curve.  Because of the freezing temps on Sunday night we were not able to get going until 8:45 and then on Tuesday some severe weather rolled through and shut the operation down for the day.  We made some tweaks to our operation (after the machine sunk into the green this past Fall) and everything went as well as possible given our weather hurdles.

The drill crew comes in and drills holes that go down about 10 inches. 

 

After the drill crew leaves the green our crew comes in and aerifies.



One man follows behind each machine and scoops up anything that is left behind.

 

The 'U'-shaped box behind the aerifier is our tweak this time.  It drags the plugs off to the side of the green.  It worked great.

#4 green.  You can see both machines and all the crew members on the green cleaning up.

The plugs are left on the edge of the green in piles that are picked up and hauled away.



Kyle wanted this picture taken to show reference. 

Next 4 different fertilizers are added so that they can fall down into the open holes.

After the fertilizers the greens are topdressed heavily with sand.

Behind the sand comes the orange brush drag. (forgot to take a picture this year)



The hand brooms.  This has been the best way to fill every hole completely.

A few little mounds are left so they are scooped up and spread lightly across the green.

Then we use a mat made of coconut fibers.  It gets the sand smoothed back out.

 

The last step is to roll the greens to smooth out any humps created during the process.

We then come back and repeat several of the steps a few more times to get everything just right.  We were able to get the front nine almost ready before the large rain storm hit on Tuesday and brought everything to a halt.  Today we got back out in some pretty cold temperatures and the process pretty close to complete.