I know it is a little early to start talking about August, but a few questions have been raised about the neccessity of aerifying the golf course in the the last week of August. Why in the middle of the season? What about the outings to follow? Why are the greens being aerified three times this year?
We are scheduled to aerify greens, tees and fairways on August 27th. This is consistent with the timing in the past few years, nothing has changed. The last few weeks in August and the first few weeks in September are the best times to aerify in this region. The summer stress is diminishing, but the temps are still up and we still have longer days to expidite recovery. If we moved aerification to a later date, we run the risk of the cores not drying out because of the shorter days and the cooler temps. And if the cores don't dry out, we can't drag them in and clean off the surfaces. We would then be left wtih a muddy mess and a very long recovery period.
Every function and outing is important to us. We try our best to look at all scenarios when deciding to aerify. As far as the outings and members functions that follow aerification, most notably the Member Guest Day on Septmber 13 and the Member Appreciation Day on September 16, we will be in good shape by then. It has been my experience that the holes are completely healed within 21 days and after 14 days, they look and play resonable. In the eyes of golfers, there is never a good time to aerify. It always seems that when the golf course is just reaching its peak, we punch holes in everything. We will have some great course conditions this year, it won't be just the week leading up to August 27th that will good. Also, without the proper aerification, it would never peak.
As far as to why we are aerifying greens three times a year, this has to do with our soil structure. We have poor water infiltration rates and a lack of air space in the soil. In other words, we are behind the 8 ball with our soils and we need to catch up. With out the proper drainage and air movement, roots will die back and the greens will suffer. In the interest of the short term and long term health of the greens, we must aerfify three times a year. Again, this is consistent with what has been done in the recent past.
