7.21.26 Update

Unfortunately, weather delays impacted our planned aerification schedule last week. Persistent rainfall and unfavorable conditions made it difficult to complete some of the maintenance practices we had scheduled.

Rather than forcing work under poor conditions, our team adjusted the plan and accomplished as much as possible while protecting the health of the golf course.

As the course reopens for play, you should expect to see areas that are still recovering from all of these practices. This is completely normal and an expected part of the turf's healing process. Over the coming days and weeks, the turf will continue to recover, resulting in healthier, stronger playing surfaces for the remainder of the season.

You'll also see some detail work that we are playing catch up on as well as we used a bulk of our labor and resources to complete these important aerification / cultivation tasks.

We appreciate your patience and understanding as the course heals. These maintenance practices are an important investment in the long-term health and playability of the golf course, and we thank you for your continued support.

Here are some of the things we were able to accomplish during our closure:

On Greens, we pulled a 3/8" core which we then blew off using our backpack blowers.

Putting surfaces were then topdressed with sand to fill in the holes. Removing organic matter and thatch is the #1 goal here again with our aerification process. Creating these channels helps increase air / gas exchange in the soil and gives our bermuda grass roots freedom to grow into these openings. Happy strong roots helps grow healthy, strong turf.

We have a specialized brush we attach to one our Toro Utility Carts to drag the sand into the canopy / openings in the soil profile. It always looks weird driving a cart on the putting green but it's an important tool we rely on to get the job done correctly and efficiently. I love this brush as well because it helps "standup" the bermudagrass more upright, which allows us to get a better cut with our mowers and creates better ball roll.

The machine above in this video is completing a verticut on the putting surfaces. This does two important things for us after aerification. First, I like how it throws sand as it passes over the grass, which continues to help fill in the holes from pulling the cores. Second, just like the brush, these specialized vertical blades help standup the grass so when we come back to mow the greens, it gives us a better cut, producing smoother ball roll.

We will work hard to improve playability over the next couple of weeks on the putting greens but in the meantime, please expect slower greens with the occasional hop and bump as you putt towards the hole.

Tee boxes were verticut using larger, specialized blades that attach to one of our Kubota tractors.

We removed significantly more material with this machine compared to the similar type of blades we use on the putting surfaces. Tees can handle a more aggressive cut and that's important because removing this material will continue to help us firm up these surfaces.

Finishing touches on tees included a sand topdressing and we used one of our brushes to work the material into the canopy.

On fairways we used a specialized "rake" that helped stand up the bermuda grass. As you can see in the video above, the operator simply drives over the surfaces and the rakes at the back of the unit do their job.

These are cool tools because they help lift up and bring unwanted dead grass and organic matter to the surface. As we remove this material, it helps the turf breath better by creating more air space plus water / nutrients can more easily reach the soil with it out of the way.

With the grass now raked into a more upright position, we "circle mow" the fairways to encourage the grass to grow more upright. If you follow the red machines in the video above, they are making circle patterns across the fairways so they can attack the grass blades from different angles.

We typically mow straight lines for aesthetics when we are doing our routine mowing. Being able to rake and circle mow helps balance out our normal practices and helps create a more uniform playing surface.

After a week of mowing, fairways should look and play as intended.

New drainage pipe was installed to the left of #16 green. The pipe that was in the ground had failed and was no longer draining correctly. We will continue to monitor this area and add additional drain lines if needed. It's still wet in this spot currently because it's heavily shaded from the pecan tree next to the cart path plus I'm hoping it's still just leftover moisture from the 3" of rain we received last week.

On the Driving Range Tee, we used the closure time to fertilize aggressively and run extra irrigation to promote additional growth.

It's turned out to be an extensive recovery as the playing surface transitioned from our winter Annual Ryegrass overseed back to our Tif Tuff Bermudagrass. The ryegrass really held on through early June, which delayed our bermudagrass from establishing.

On the Chipping Area, we've prepped more areas to lay down new bermudagrass sod. With shade and tree competition in this area, the bermuda struggled to establish after the ryegrass died out.

To help improve pace of play and playability, rough heights were lowered from 2" down to 1.5". We will monitor feedback from membership to see how this plays and make any further adjustments from there.

Thanks for reading and for being a member,

Willie Hoppe

Director of Agronomy Shadow Hawk Golf Club

GCSAA Class A