14 and 15 greens

Turf on greens 14 and 15 has not improved and will be replaced. On Monday May 4th we will remove failed areas and replace with sod from our nursery near #2 tee. We believe this is the quickest way to get greens back to normal. We have had good luck moving Potowomut nursery turfgrass to failed greens’ areas in the past, although on a smaller scale. Greens will be playable faster using sod for repairs, versus the alternative of seeding, then waiting for seed to germinate and juvenile plants to mature going into summer.
We expect the transformation to be completed within one or two days. Play may be limited for a few days while new turfgrass roots into soil.
After the new sod is planted, sodded areas on #14 and #15 will play different from our other sixteen greens. Thanks for your patience and we will do our best to convert new sod to perfect putting surfaces!
Also next week, we are scheduled to aerate greens. However, instead of the dreaded and disruptive conventional aeration process, we will use the new Planet Air machine to only poke holes into greens’ surfaces. This machine does a wonderful job of venting soils with NO surface disruption. We will apply far less sand than usual and expect greens to return to normal by Thursday or Friday next week.
Finally, winter damaged fairway turf that continues to struggle will be aerated and seeded in coming weeks. It may take a little time to get some of these areas back, but we are confident that green grass will soon replace ice damaged fairway turf.
Thanks to everyone for your patience and understanding.

Patrick M. Gertner CGCS
Golf Course Superintendent