Everybody is Aerifying!!!

Except us of course. As the golf course slowly melts off we are beginning to see more and more turf throughout the course and mostly healthy. It seems everyone that I have spoken to recently on the front range is aerifying greens and ready to get the season going.

This is the view from behind the first green (one of my favorites on the property). This green looks great. It is very soft in the front right portion of the green, which is no surprise. This area is the low point in the green and is very susceptible to traffic damage when it is this soft.
With the intense snow melt you may notice many areas with standing water in fairways and rough. With the river and the water table climbing it will be interesting to see how much, if any flooding were to exist this year.
I certainly do not expect to see much by mid-May with our snowfall, however we all know winter is not over in Vail. But sunny days still do appear and are welcomed.

Our aerification plan is similar to years past and should be less disruptive with a solid tine approach. We will accompany it with a scarifying technique that we have not done in a few years. This will require less disruption to the surface than core aerification but we will still be able to remove some thatch and continue help with dilution. It will also get us to quicker and better putting surfaces.

Don't be fooled, pulling cores is extremely important and is done in the spring on many courses. These courses have longer seasons than we do. Now that we have the thatch at a controlled level, we can begin to reduce the aggressive thatch attack in the spring and perform our main core aerification in the fall. Throughout the season we will continue with bi-weekly topdressing applications. We will also spike the greens periodically throughout the season to open the surface and allow gas exchange into the soil profile so the plants can breathe easier.
These practices are nothing new to VGC.