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A top course reveals the $30,000-a-year secret to firm-and-fast greens
Elite courses like Shelter Harbor in Rhode Island use top-dressing to achieve ideal green speeds.
The greens at top-tier courses are always top-notch, but it’s not just the speed that makes them stand out. Much of the time, elite courses maintain firm putting surfaces throughout the season, even during the wet spring months. These firm greens enhance strategic shot options and provide golfers with consistent playing conditions. So why isn’t every course able to maintain firm greens? That’s what we discussed with Mike Dachowski, the director of agronomy at Shelter Harbor Golf Club, a Second 100 Greatest course in in Charlestown, R.I.
Golf Digest: Mike, sometimes when I go to really nice courses, I notice the greens have a small layer of sand on top. What’s going on there?
Dachowski: Exactly, that’s top dressing, and it helps firm up the greens. At Shelter Harbor, we top dress consistently through growth period. Once the grass starts growing, we top dress every week. That keeps the greens firmer, so we never really get too soft where we can’t roll. The top dressing is just sand, and it protects the crown of the plant, firms the surface and dilutes the thatch.
Interesting. You mention the top dressing helping with rolling the greens. Can you explain that a little more?
I roll way more than I cut. I typically only cut the greens every other day and roll every day. We roll seven days a week and cut the greens typically four. The cutting takes way more labor, especially if you're hand-mowing compared to rolling. You can create super consistent green speeds mowing every other day if you roll every day.
To be able to roll every day, you need firmer greens. That’s why we top dress weekly during the growing period, basically from mid-May to mid-October, and we roll every day and have super consistent greens that way. We don't really get these peaks and valleys or a flush of growth. It can rain out here and play pretty similar to what it does when it’s dry. Our whole goal is just to create consistency day to day.
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If you're consistent with top dressing through a growing season, you're going to dilute the thatch naturally without aerifying. Or, I should say, you don't have to aerify as aggressively then. There's nobody I know that top dresses frequently that has bad greens.
nanonoum
There doesn’t seem to be much downside to top dressing frequently. So, what’s the catch? Why doesn’t every course consistently sand their greens?
It's expensive. It's not cheap. It's the cost of it and the cost of trucking it in. It gets a little crazy.
I’ll break it down. For us, it’s $135 a ton [at the time of conversation], and we use roughly 4.5 tons of sand per week. We have about 4.5 acres of greens at Shelter Harbor and we use about a ton of sand per acre each week. It all depends on your rate, but on average, I use about 225 tons of sand a year on the greens, not counting aerations. That’s just on top dressing.
Add that up, and it costs us about $30,000 a year to top dress consistently for our 4.5 acres of greens. You can see why people would cut it out, but it’s one of the most important things, in my opinion.
You also need to make sure you have the right sand, too. Just like in the bunkers, it’s important to have the right sand when you top dress. If you get one that's not right, it gets too marbly and can soften things. Think about when you walk on a beach and it's sand, for example. But if you get the right sand, it firms the greens up.
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