Metairie Country Club Golf Course

Summer Aerification Project

Josh Cooper

Director of Agronomy

Week 2 is in the books and substantial progress has been made thanks to the cooperation of Mother Nature. We have only received about 0.7” of rain since our last update despite an ominous forecast coming into the week.

Greens and approach Aerification

Ours greens and approach aerification wrapped up on Saturday after the fertilizer, topdressing, dragging and rolling steps were completed Friday and Saturday.

Edging

We were also able to get a good edging on the greens and approaches after the aerification process was complete.

Recovery progress

The greens have responded well to the fertilizer and are on their way to a quick recovery. Here is a snapshot of the recovery progress they have made in just 5 days. We will consistently roll the greens to regain our smoothness and in just a couple more days, we will mow them for the first time and slowly get back into our normal maintenance practices. There is no doubt the greens and approaches will be fully healed in time for the reopening.

Sunday

Thursday

Fairway Aerification

Elsewhere, the fairway core aerification has been completed. We were able to finish the vertical mowing, aerification, and cleaning processes on Tuesday, and the topdressing and dragging processes were completed on Thursday. Weather permitting, we will begin the deeper, solid tine fairway aerification with supplemental sand to be applied to all fairways by the end of the week. For those of you unfamiliar with the term “solid tine,” all that means is that we will not be removing a plug of soil, but instead simply poking a hole in the ground.

Soils

To help illustrate why we are doing what we are doing, here are some pictures of what we are cultivating out of our soils. Despite the sand capping that took place during the 2003 renovation, we no longer have a true sand cap across most of our fairways. Instead, our fairways are largely being grown on native clay, as evidenced by this photo of the plugs we have pulled.

On pretty much every fairway, we have these pockets of high clay soils such as this area on #11 where, as you can see, the clay soils prevent adequate drainage which keeps the area wet, soft, and generally unhealthy. These are the areas that force our hand on decisions such as cart path only rules. This is what makes these cultivation practices an absolute necessity. While it will take multiple years and cultivation events, with an aggressive and persistent cultivation approach, we can eventually regain our sand cap which will improve our drainage, playability, and overall turf health.

Tee box cultivation

The tee box cultivation process was completed by Friday of Week 1 and they are recovering well. We will, however, be applying more sand to the tees just as we will the fairways.

Bunker work

Our bunker work is continuing this week with the inspection of sand depths. For now, sand is being moved from thicker areas to thinner areas, and eventually, we will be adding additional sand to any thin areas left after moving as much existing sand as we can.

Spiker

Finally, we began running our Aerway spiker through our rough on Wednesday. This machine is ground driven and uses these long, star-like blades to slice into the ground and create a deep void that will alleviate compaction, allow for necessary gas exchanges within the rootzone, and improve drainage. This will be the only cultivation we perform on our rough during the closure and will heal rather quickly.

We hope everyone is enjoying the summer! We look forward to welcoming everyone back to the golf course in just a couple of short weeks. In the meantime, be on the lookout for another update next week.

Josh Cooper

Director of Agronomy

Metairie Country Club

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