Verticutting Greens

You may have noticed we verticut and sanded the greens last week to remove organic matter. This process is similar to thatching your home lawn and is needed to thin and smooth the putting greens by removing thatch. By topdressing right after the sand helps dillute more thatch and fill small depressions from ball marks, footprints and other surface imperfections.

Thatch is a layer of dead and living roots, shoots and leaf blades right below the surface. To much thatch will cause bumpy and soft surfaces that do not receive balls well and impede water penetration.

It is a time consuming process with many steps.

1. Mow the green with good reels.
2. Verticut with thatching reels while collecting the organic matter and dumping it into a waiting cart. The mower baskets are emptied every other pass or they overflow with material.
3. Loose material is blown off the greens.
4. Mow the greens twice to remove more loose material and cut straggler blades off.
5. Apply a light layer of sand.
6. Roll the green with vibratory rollers to mover the sand material into the green.
7. Water and wait for healing.

A freshly verticut and blown green. The green is then cut twice before sand is applied.

A muddy Cushman cart full of organic material removed from only two greens.

Although the lines in the green are visible for a few weeks ball roll is only affected for a day or two and greens are smoother and faster immediatly after sanding. The downfall is the sand is sticky in the morning for the first few days so it sticks to balls until the dew burns off.

You may remember we used to verticut 9 holes three Mondays in a row but found that interfered with putting for three weeks so now we verticut all three 9's in one day to increase course quality for all players. 

Although it seems we preform these agronomic practices just as the greens reach perfection, these projects are why they reach perfection! Thank you for your support.