"Punching the Greens"

Ask any golfer what "punching the greens" are and most of the time the response will be something along the lines of "It's when the maintenance staff goes out and messes up the greens and then throws sand all over them!"

Well, I can sympathize with the frustration that "punching the greens" or aerification, as turf professionals call it, create for golfers. After all I am a golfer as well and love smooth rolling greens as much as you do. But it is because of aerification that we have healthy smooth greens. Most of the turf problems we have been fixing on greens this summer are in one way or another related to either improper or infrequent aerification. On average the typical golf course in this part of the country will core aerify greens twice per year. Twice is usually sufficient to remove and exchange old soil that has become contaminated with thatch and organic material. Since the end of April when I got here at Capital City we have aerified the greens six times in an effort to fix the soil! Anyone reading this that may not have played at Capital City Country Club this summer might think "Wow the greens must be in terrible shape with all that "punching" going on." However as most that have played here know, just the opposite is true. As we replace the old soil with new, the greens become more healthy and as they become more healthy, they recover faster.

In the photo are the four different aerification tines we have used this year at Capital City Country Club. Starting from the right is a solid tine or sometimes called a needle tine. This tine was used in the winter and early spring months when the grass was dormant or just coming out of dormancy. The purpose of this tine is to open the top tier of the soil profile to allow for the exchange of gases and allow the soil to warm-up so the grass will begin to grow. This tine is used when the grass is not growing fast enough to repair damage to the surface caused by tines that remove a core.

As the grass begins to grow we switch to the tine to the left of the needle tine. This tine is a 1/4" side eject coring tine. This tine like the other two larger tines shown removes a column of soil. This is when we really start to improve the greens. The next tine in line is a 1/2" coring tine and the largest and the tine we just aerified with August 11th and 12th is a 5/8" coring tine.

My hope is that when members are enjoying much improved and healthy putting surfaces and it's time to "punch the greens" again, and someone asks what's that, the response will be "Oh, that's when they remove old soil. But in a week or so the greens will be better than they are now."