Monday, April 7, 2014


 No more swamp on #3, well at least the worst spots are no longer an issue.  There is such a low spot in that area of the fairway there is no way to get rid of 100% but we are happy with the results and there is no longer a swamp in middle of fairway.  We used a product called "E-Z Drain", it is a corrugated pipe with slits in it to allow water in the pipe, surrounded by shipping peanuts and enclosed with a geo-textile fabric.  This product removes the need for a pea gravel layer and only needs to be backfilled with sand and topsoil.
Hopefully you can see the soil cores in the picture above, that's right we aerated the fairways about 3 weeks ago and everything went great.  The main reasons for doing this is to reduce compaction in the soil and increase and oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange in the root zone.   This should in turn help us to grow some roots in the fairways and allow us to have healthier turf going into summer.  Another added benefit is softer fairways for your golf ball to land on, obviously when conditions get droughty this will have little impact.  We are also verticutting fairways this week as well as liming.  Verticutting will help our fairway grass to grow in as it cuts stolons and rhizomes and instigates new growth.  Our soil samples I took in the fall recommended liming.  This will raise our pH to levels that are better for growing grass.  Lime is also a soil conditioner in that it flocculates soil particles, and loosens the soil.  These processes together should give us a better playing surface and looking forward to seeing the results!