Time to firm up those tees and approaches!

Last week we had a couple of dry days so we aerated our approaches. This is the area in front of the green that extends out about 10-15 yards into the fairway. When the hole is cut on the front of a green, many players will hit short of the green and try to bounce the ball up to the hole. The approaches must be firm or a shot will hit and stop there. The past several years our approaches have been getting kind of spongy, so we borrowed a deep tine aerator from our Toro dealer and went to work.

The aerator tines are almost one inch wide and penetrate into the soil eight inches. We then went over the same area with our fairway aerator which had 3/4" tines set at a four inch depth.  We picked up those cores and then heavily sanded the approach.  

We let the sand dry out as much as possible before we drug it so we could get it to fill in the aeration holes. The photo below shows the depth of the deep tine aeration holes, about eight inches deep. The screwdriver I used to check the depth is also shown.

We plan on aerating again when we do the entire course in April and September, but we will add a fourth aeration to both tees and approaches in October. This should make a big difference in firming up both of these high traffic areas. When you hit a shot in to the approach this summer, the ball will bounce up off this firmer surface and wind up right next to the hole.