This photo shows you a cross section of the soil below the 12th fairway. Poor drainage has resulted in a compacted black layer about 5-6" under the surface. On the center/right of the photo, you can see the white columns of sand that are from drill and fill aeration last year. In order to improve this fairway, we need to commit to more regular deep drill aeration or replace the root zone to a consistent sand that is well draining. Traditional aerification does not necessarily help this because the tines can't get as deep to break through this layer (3-4" is the maximum depth of traditional aeration). Unfortunately, the drill and fill process is something that offers benefit over time and certainly not something that will show immediate results. However, it creates a bypass for water to move through this layer. Drill and Fill aeration only impacts 1.5% of the surface at a time, making it a relatively slow process. Also, replacing the root zone mix with a good USGA spec sand would be very expensive. In order to repair just the landing area alone (4,000 square feet), would result in a $15,000 or more expense while doing the entire fairway would cost over $100,000 in just materials alone. The HCC Green Committee is studying options to bring this fairway up to the quality of our other fairways.