Patrick Wilkinson, general manager at Diamondback Golf Club, discusses the management team’s thought process in launching the club’s greens replacement process.
After going through a full evaluation of our opportunity and what we could do, we decided to go ahead and shut down the golf course and put in brand-new Sunday Bermuda greens. We had Jensen Ultra Dwarf before, and we had three greens that went down. So the question we faced was, do we just try to grow three greens in with a different type of grass, or do we go ahead, bite the bullet and make a change to Sunday Bermuda? We decided to go with Sunday, and we did so as part of our three-year golf course renovation plans.
Once the prior greens surface was removed and properly prepped for the new surface, the turf company on this project sprigged the greens. They shook the sprigs out, just like putting out pine straw, and spread them out nice and evenly. Then we hit them once with water, followed by applying a little more top dressing on the top of them, watering the greens again, and then using a tractor to cut and roll them into the surface, creasing the sprigs into the sand. We then came back with a little more water. We rolled them down, and now we water them for two weeks and watch them grow.
As we do that, we’ll make sure that if we do catch a rain storm, we don’t have any clumping up of the grass where we had spread the sprigs. We’re going to have a lot of other renovation work going on around the property while this is happening, but we’re going to have to water continuously, from daylight to dark every day. And hopefully in about 14 days we’re going to make our first pass with the mower, and start trimming these greens, and getting ready to reopen in about four to five weeks.
We’re in the ideal growing condition. This is the perfect temperature to grow Bermuda grass. Everything grows great and fast at this time of year, and I think our guests will be very impressed with what they see when they get back!