Monday, the practice tee was aerated with 3/4" hollow tines on a very close hole spacing. Once the plugs have a chance to dry, we will run a drag mat (pulled by a utility cart) over the plugs, which separates the soil from the aeration plugs, leaving the grass and roots from each plug on the surface. This material is light weight and easy to blow off the surface. Once this organic material is removed and cleaned up, we will start aggressively topdressing the tee, working the sand into the holes after each application of sand. The sand not only fills the aeration holes, but it also levels the depressions on the tee that are created from divots during 8 months of consistent use each season. In total, over 25 tons of sand will be applied to the tee in the coming week.
About six years ago, you may recall we changed our maintenance practices on the tee. Rather than filling divots with sand (a common practice in the golf maintenance world), we switched to an organic compost mix that creates a better substrate for germinating seed. Unfortunately sand dries out too fast which prevents the seed from germinating quickly and consistently. Over the course of a couple months, if we aren't growing-in old divots, we are in danger of running out of turf on the tee, resulting in mandatory use of artificial mats. This was the case a few times in the past. There were a couple years in the early 2000's that we ran out of turf by late August/ early September. After all, our tee is very undersized at a half acre (approximately 25,000ft2). By industry standards, a Club the size of Highlands CC doing 13,000-15,000 rounds of golf in an 8 month period, would need a tee that is 1.25 acres in size or larger in order to have an adequate amount of turf to last the season. Regardless, because we are using a compost mix to fill divots, it is even more important that we apply an excessive amount of sand during the off season to be sure we maintain good drainage characteristics on the tee that only sand can provide.
On another interesting side note, you may recall in 2002 when we re-sodded half of the practice tee with Zoysiagrass. Since golfers don't remove large divots from warm season grasses like they do on cool season grasses, the turf recovers much faster without even requiring seed. While the experiment was successful in terms of divot recovery, there were two aspects of the experiment that failed. First, the turf didn't match anything found on the golf course. Members rightly felt they weren't benefiting by practicing on an entirely different turf compared to what's on the golf course fairways. Second, due to the climate in Highlands, it was only green for about three months of the year. The experiment was short lived because in 2003, the tee was sodded back to Creeping Bentgrass.