University Park Country Club Golf Maintenance Department

Summer practices and projects:

A bit of background:

Three years ago we had to change how we conducted our "normal" summer cultural practices. The need for this change was to facilitate the three-year plan for the bunker renovations. You may recall before we started the bunker renovations, we would close each nine holes for three weeks. During this time we would conduct all of the needed cultural practices. This time allowed the team to conduct the much needed work in-house and allowed ample time for all of the course to heal before play returned.

Fast forward to present day:

So far we have had two separate course closures. The first began on May 16th with a quick, but extremely busy three-day closure. We completed the usual summer cultural practices of verticutting, scalping, and circle mowing, to name a few. What we didn't have time to do was aerate the tees, fairways, or greens during these single day (per nine holes) closures. In addition to those cultural practices, we did introduce a new process called "drill & fill". We introduced this cultural practice in an effort to extend the life of our greens. Below you will see a brief video and several pictures of the process. This process allowed us to incorporate nearly 90 tons of sand! To put that in perspective, our normal aeration process only typically uses around 40 tons. We contracted this procedure to an out-of-state vendor, and thankfully they agreed to complete this over three days (instead of the typical one day) so that we would have 18 holes available for our members to enjoy each day of the process. The next closure was the following week with the front and the mid nines closed for two days each. This closure allowed us to aerate all the tee tops, greens, and fairways

Below you will find a few pictures of some the work completed this summer: