Chipping Green/Nursery Green Renovation

For many years now our trusted and faithful nursery green has served us well when needing to repair damaged areas on the golf course but it has past its point of usefulness and needs to be replaced. 

Our first step was to cut and remove the existing turfgrass from the nursery green.  We also realized that the 2,000 square foot green was not large enough for our golf course needs so we expanded the area to almost 4,000 square feet.

 The good 419 sod which was removed from the expansion area was taken to areas on the golf course which needed some fresher sod.

 Once the usable sod was removed we scraped off the old surface that had been cut with the sod cutter and hauled it away.

 New sand was brought in to the area and packed and floated to raise the expanded area up to the slope that we need for both drainage and mowing capabilities.

 The newly, expanded chipping/nursery green after it has been packed and the preplant fertilizer applied.  Ready for sprigging.

 Our great friends from Champion Turf Farms came over to the golf course Saturday afternoon after they were done planting the new Champion ultradwarf bermudagrass greens at The Honors Course and planted the chipping green.  I can't say enough about the help and advice we have received from Morris and Mike Brown and Tom Green of Champion over the years. 

 The sprigging process took about 15 minutes for the seven Champion employees to spread the new sprigs on the surface.  Very quick but very efficient. 

As with most things in life, new procedures and techniques come along that are supposed to be better than before.  When we first planted our Champion greens back in 2003 we covered the sprigs with topdressing sand immediately after the sprigs were placed on the ground.  A new thought process has come to pass where covers are used to protect the sprigs from washing in heavy rains or irrigation and to increase the heating of the soil and thus encourage greater rooting and growth of the new greens.  So we are giving this method a shot and have decided to use our winter cover for this green as our protection for the sprigs.  Time will tell if this is a good plan but it sounds very good in theory.

The green will take about 5-6 weeks before it is ready for use and it is our hope that we never have to use it for repairs on the course again.