Poa Managment/Ballmark Removal

Maintaining bentgrass greens can have unique challenges, which has required us to adapt in order to provide the best playing surface possible. Two of these challanges are the encroachment of Poa sp. on the greens,which  is actually a weed, and ballmarks that don't heal with the cooler weather. So we sent a team of 4 guys to go around with 3/4" inch probes to remove ballmarks and Poa from the greens, and then they repaired the areas using icepicks.  

In the center of this photo is Poa annua encroaching on the green, which we plugged out. 

Here is an example of a ballmark that was plugged out.

This is what it looks like after the area has been plugged.

This is the final result after the area has been mended with an Icepick.

Here is a good example showing the process. Two guys would be resposible for plugging the areas out, while two more guys followed behind them repairing the areas.

Guys at work.

NCGA Area of Emphasis-Daily Maintenance Operations: Greens Mowing.

Providing the best play surface possible is our goal at TPC Stonebrae. Some of the keys to maintaining a quality and healthy putting surface is the quality of cut, and  frequency. Which is why we prefer to walk mow greens 6 days a week, and only triplex one day when we are short staff. One thing we do here which I've never experienced before is using brushes on the walkmowers, which we will usually use 3-4 days a week. The benefit of the brushes is to stand up the bentgrass to increase the quality of cut and to promote upright growth, which helps with other cultural practices such as topdressing.



This is a font look at the brush system that our mechanic John Cunnigham has created.



This is an overhead look at the brushes on the basket.

Here is a side view of the brush attachment, which can easily be removed.

This is how much grass we got making about 10 passes in a couple directions.

This is a video to give you an example of how the brush attachment works.