Maintenance Update 03/13/12

The bunker renovation process continued yesterday after a weekend full of always welcome rain.  The crew has finished shaping the bunkers on #1, 7 and 8.  New drain lines had to be installed in both bunkers on #8, which led to some clean-up work in and around the pipe from #8 to #7 to allow for proper drainage.  The timing to which Portland is mixed on these two holes depends on how much they dried out since the rain.  As of yesterday, the floors were still too wet to get the tillers in for mixing.  The greenside bunker on #8 had as much as 18" of sand in the bottom and up along the face, as you can see from the photo below.  Much of this lip was lowered down to the native soil line to allow for a smoother transition to the green.

 

With the warmer weather, I felt we were ready to verticut the greens and get out our first topdressing.  We spent the entire day yesterday on this project.  I thank you all for your patience in allowing me to close the course for the day to ensure we were able to adequately finish the project.  The vertical mower has blades that run vertical to the turf and are able to be set at variable depths.  Vertical mowing helps tremendously to remove old dead materal from the turf canopy, smooth the surface, and reduce grain.  The following describes our process:

• We verticut in 4 different directions.
• The material brought to the surface by the vertical mower was then blown off the green.
• Walk mowers were used to mow the greens and also help smooth the surface.
• Once the turf was completely dry, we mowed again with the tri-plex mower to pick up even more material.
• We then topdressed with sand lightly and swept the sand into the surface.
• Today, the greens will just be rolled and swept again.
• The following photo shows Mario verticutting #8.  Notice the amount of material being brought up at the cutting units.