Preparing for The Player's Championship

An incredible amount of work goes into preparing a golf course for a major PGA tournament.  Tom Vlach and his staff at TPC Sawgrass did an outstanding job documenting the preparations for this years Player's Championship on their blog.  If you ever wonder what all goes into preparing a golf course for a big event, I would encourage you to click on the link below and check it out.  Tom and his staff had the course in phenomenal condition, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows him.  I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work under him for the 7 plus years that I did when he was here at Greystone!

http://www.tpcsawgrassagronomy.com/

Bradley Johnson Memorial Golf Tournament

The Legacy Course hosted the Bradley Johnson Memorial Golf Tournament on April 11 and 12.  The golf tournament, now in its sixth year, is put on by the Bradley Johnson Memorial Foundation (http://www.bradleyjohnsonmemorialfoundation.org/index.html) which assists with the funding of the tournament and providing scholarships.  The tournament and foundation pay tribute to former Spain Park High School golfer Bradley Johnson.  Johnson was a very talented golfer who was killed in an automobile accident in 2006 when he was 17.  One of his many career highlights was finishing runner-up in the 2005 U.S. Junior Amateur. 

The 2012 installment featured 15 of the state's top golf teams.  Conner Smith of Spain park took the individual title with a 3 under par 141 in the two-day tournament, while the Spain Park team won the fourth Bradley Johnson Memorial Tournament in six years with an 18 stroke margin over second place Vestavia Hills.



The winning team from Spain Park High School



Teams on the practice range.




Greens Update

The greens are recovering very well from aerification.  The picture below was taken on Thursday morning.  They are still a little bumpy and only rolling in the 8 1/2 to 9 range, but they are making huge strides every day.  We will continue to work the height of cut down as they progress.

Spring Greens Aerification

We began our spring greens aerification on March 5, one week ago today.  We were blessed with good weather for most of the week and things went very well.  As we do most years, we tweaked the process a little this year...

We started out by core aerifying with .5" inside diameter tines on a 1.60" by 1.87" spacing, which allowed us to remove approximately 6.59% of the surface area of the greens.

  a green immediately after core aerification and cleanup

Following the core cleanup, we topdressed the greens very heavy and brushed them one time with a pull behind brush.  After that we aerified again, with .5" solid tines this time, on a 2" by 2.5" spacing, which impacted approximately 3.93% of the surface area.  We were able to achieve over 4.5" of depth with the solid tines, which allowed us to create channels 2" deeper into the greens profile than we did with the coring tines.  The picture above was taken following the solid tine aerification.

Following the solid tine aerification, we used shop brooms to filter the sand down into the channels that were created.  Filling the channels with sand helps the soil retain air space, which is important in the movement of air, water, and gases in the soil profile.

After we finished hand-brooming greens, we made a pass over them with the pull behind brush to help even the sand on the surface.  We are very pleased with the finished product!

Twenty Eleven Video

The Twenty Eleven video made its debut at the annual Greystone Employee Luncheon yesterday to rave reviews! Here it is for all to see... Enjoy!