Yelverton Golf Club

Greens Autumn Maintenance Procedures 2010

This year, autumn maintenance on the greens will take place over a 2 week period commencing Monday 16th August, weather permitting. The timing of these works will ensure speedy recovery from surface disturbance and effective germination from over-seeding. Early autumn maintenance will also ensure that recovery is met prior to Autumn Opens and Winter Events. Below are all the tasks we hope to carry out during this period along with the reasons and benefits:

Drill and Fill Surface Drainage: This task will be carried out by a contractor with the help of our greens staff. The procedure is to drill out holes in the profile to a depth of 31cm and back fill with a ceramic/sand mix to create multiple drainage channels. The machine used, does this in one pass with the spoil from each hole left to clear. This will be carried out on only the worst greens that suffer from poor surface drainage.

Hollow-coring: This task will be carried out as per the last two years. Hollow-coring is carried out to physically remove thatch and create channels for soil exchange (i.e. fill with sand). This will help to reduce the thatch layer by diluting it and keeping it open with the sand. This also improves surface drainage. By doing this, biological activity is stimulated to breakdown the thatch-layer further.

Scarification: This task will also be carried out to remove thatch. This is a more efficient way of removing thatch volume. The blades will scarify at a depth of 10-12mm. This too will be followed by over-seeding and top-dressing to ensure effective seed germination and establishment.

Over-seeding: Fescue and Bent seed will be applied after thatch removal to encourage population increase of fine grasses. The hollow-coring and scarifying will produce seed pockets. The seed will be applied and then brushed in.

Top-dressing: Straight sand dressing will be applied to fill hollow-core holes to improve surface drainage and frimness. Top-dressing is also applied to cover seed to encourage germination.

Sand banding: The 1st and 8th approach / front of green will be sand-banded to connect areas to existing pipe drainage. The sand band will be 18mm wide and filled with sand to encourage the movement of surface water to nearby pipe and gravel drains. These areas are notorious wet spots during winter months and need some extra drainage to move water from surface quickly. This will reduce frequency of temporary green use during wet periods.

We will endeavour to carry out these tasks with as little disturbance as possible to play. Temporary greens will be in use whilst working on specific greens. We thank you for your patience and co-operation during the implementation of these crucial works.

George Pitts
Course Manager