Down Royal Park Golf Course have taken another step to ensure temporary greens are the stuff of fiction.
The most recent objective of their Greens Maintenance Program is to reduce the levels of ‘thatch’ that accumulate just under the surface of the greens.
Thatch is either dead or dying grass that has either not been collected by grass boxes or simply dies off the plant and sits within the sward of the green.
Thatch acts as a sponge and holds water at the surface. That leads to the plant developing shallower roots, producing a soft spongy playing surface.
With a Greens’ Maintenance Program of aeration whereby greens are hollow cored, verti-cut, vertidrained and top dressed the spongy thatch is reduced and is replaced with free draining sand. This over time changes the profile of the soil structure and allows for firmer, truer and more disease resistant greens.
The hollow cored holes have sand worked into them allowing water to pass down deeper into the ground.