Day 22 - Fairway Renovation Work Begins

Having given the Glyphosate application enough time to effectively work, we have now begun the process of prepping the fairways for re-seeding. This process is dusty and very time consuming. In the last three days, we have only been able to prep the 15th, 14th, 6th, 12th, 7th and 11th fairways. Removing as much of the old dead tissue as possible is a critical step towards the success of the fairway project. What we hope to accomplish is the removal of as much thatch as possible in order to achieve a better seed to soil contact ratio when we slit seed in the new bentgrass variety.

The process of accomplishing this renovation will be as follows:

1. The area treated with Glyphosate is double verti-cut. This process will rip much of the dead tissue out.

2. These areas are then blown off using large tractor blowers.

3. We then mow these areas with a traditional fairway mower set down to a height of one-quarter inch. This is roughly half of the normal fairway height you play on daily.

4. Again, the fairways are blown off using the large tractor blowers

5. All of the debris must be cleaned up and removed.

6. Start over and do it a second time when the first go around is complete.



This photo is showing the mess created by mowing the fairway down to half of its old height.



Here you can see two tractor blowers trying to get all the old material to one central spot to be easily cleaned-up.