Greens of Sand!

[Lamma]

They sanded the greens last week at my home course and it's still affecting everyone's putting. Normally the greens are pretty slick and fast but hold shots into them pretty well. But right now they're slow, straight, and even the highest softest 9 iron bounces right off them with leaving nary a mark. It's torturous.


How long does it normally take before they return to normal? Keep in mind I live in SoCal so snow and hail aren't factors.

 

[MyGolfDomain.com]

I played on just aerated greens yesterday during a weekly twilight tournament. I had 21 putts in 9 holes.

Here is the round itself

I don't expect to play on nice greens there again until next season. The greens were aerated Monday at my other men's association course. I'll be playing there tomorrow. I expect even worse greens there because they really punch those greens. It's a mountain course.

Oh well, it's football time and time to slowly end the golf season here. Still, the weather has been awesome and not all of the greens have been aerated yet. Some courses don't ever aerate here.

 

[MyGolfDomain.com]

I think in general after a few weeks of being aerated the greens play fine again. It mostly depends on how they were aerated. It can be as little as a week or take over a month.

 

[Bravo]

Lamma:

I think you may find something like this:

1) Days 1-7. Greens are pure hell. Bumpy and filled with holes.

2) Days 8-14. Somewhat better but still your ball rocks along like an American patrol driving down the streets of Iraq.

3) Days 14-21. Starting to return to normal depending upon the weather. If you have gotten some rain it will help a lot.

4) Days 21-28. Getting close.

4) Day 28+ back to normal....

 

[Lamma]

Yeah, I played this morning and while the greens are getting better they're maddeningly inconsistent. After getting used to putting noticeably harder over the past week, I actually putted two balls off two different greens today. Then I go to the next green and and my normal putting stroke sends the ball all of about 6 feet downhill on a 12 foot putt.


They've torn up the tee-boxes, around the greens, and now the fairways. They punched the fairways a few weeks back but now they're doing whatever they need to do to get them back into shape.
But the teeboxes are the worst. On most of the fairways the tees are all located in the same place which is generally the junior area.

I asked the starter when he thought the course would be "right again" and he said it'd be a good month. But that won't keep me from playing!

 

[Bravo]

This is one of the things that 'club golfers' are more aware of than those who rotate around at different facilities.

Once we on the hook for 'monthly dues' we are financially motivated to play more often, because the cost per round goes down the more we play. And the more we play the more we see of the course - and the more we monitor its condition from week to week.

I think (in warm climates like the SE U.S. and California) we likely have the same 'maintenance cycles' because our course is undergoing the same stuff yours is now. While it is not fun while they are doing it - undoubtedly it must be done to mantain good playing conditions. AND - the good public access course do the Identical maintenance...I think that perhaps players there are not as regular from week to week and are therefore less aware of the affects of the maintenance activites...

 

[Silver]

that's exactly it, B

all the courses here do the same kind of maintenance, it's just that they don't all do it on the same days, so if Fraserview has just sanded and punched, we go to McCleery because they did it 3 weeks earlier, and if it's still in shitty condition, we go to UGC because they haven't done it yet...it's almost like it's all staggered on purpose to make it work for everyone

 

[Dorkman53]

It depends on the size of the holes that are punched. Most courses use a larger hole size and the greens take longer to recover. One around here uses a much smaller diameter punch and the greens recover nearly fully within a week or so.

 

[MyGolfDomain.com]

I played a course today that was aerated recently and it is playing fine now. The smaller holes were punched. On another course that had the usual large holes punched there wasn't much of a difference after over a week in how they were playing since first punched.

 

[Bravo]

The superintendents here do two types of punching as I suspect is done everywhere.

The large holes (core aeration) is done twice a year - once in spring and once in fall. This takes a full month for recovery. The smaller aeration which is done several times a year, takes only about 5 days for full recovery...

Our greens are fully recovered from the fall core aeration now and the superintendent is busy spreading ryegrass seed on the tee boxes. This will germinate in the next 3-4 weeks and by mid-November, they will be a bright green color...