Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Short Game Practice Area

The short game practice area is in full swing.  As you may have noticed 2 weeks ago the area was starting to look a little yellow.  The cause of this was an application of a product called RoundUp.  RoundUp is a non-selective herbicide which kills plants that it comes in contact with.  The application is a standard practice in the renovation process, which helps to kill not only the green portion of the grass plant, but also the root.  This aspect is important because some grass plants can regenerate new plants from their roots, so during the construction process the soil is moved around the site and if some viable roots remain there is a chance they could regenerate.  An undesirable example of this is rough grass (Kentucky Bluegrass/Ryegrass) growing in the short game areas that are intended to be cut down to fairway (creeping bentgrass) height.


Before the construction began we removed all of the sprinklers in the area and capped the irrigation pipe.  As you can see from the picture, the grass has been completely killed off at this point.


Here the contractor Vintage Golf is beginning to shape one of the chipping greens. 


Here they are shaping the edge of the green and bunker face on the west green complex.


The picture below shows the east green complex being fine tuned.  Green surface contours are created during the construction process that will mirror the finished grade after the greens mix is installed.  12" of greens mix will be installed inside the "shell" of the green complex.