The Black sand is expected to speed up recovery despite the short days and cool nights.
You will notice the greens are quite a different color when the golf course re-opens on Friday following the four-day closure to complete the fall aeration. Due to the late season punching, a new technique was used to promote a quick healing with the short days and long cool nights. In an effort to speed up recovery, we contracted with our sand company to create “black” topdressing sand. It is the same sand we use on a regular basis, just dyed black. It is expected that the black sand will increase soil temperatures by 7-to-10 degrees F, offering a greater chance at a quick late season recovery. The tees, fairways, approaches, and rough were all aerated and all punched areas (except rough) were topdressed with sand to enhance surface drainage and create firmer playing conditions along with smoothing out slight imperfections. Many weak areas of the rough were overseeded with improved varieties of grass seed which will help promote denser turf, and better playing condition. It was a tremendous amount of work that the maintenance crew pulled off in four-days filled with great weather. Because November is a relatively late month for aerating, please be patient and understand it our goal to return to optimal conditioning as quickly as possible, but with cool nights and short days, the healing is expected to take several weeks.
View of the 8th green complex with the black sand
View from a distance of the 13th green complex with the black sand
