Hollow coring greens

We've just got through that dreaded time of year - hollow coring & topdressing greens. It's never an enjoyable process for green keepers or golfers. However, it is essential for healthy turf and to ensure that the greens are more playable, drain better and have better root systems.

I found a diagram that illustrates this process better below:

The cores or plugs that are removed contain thatch (dead grass shoots/roots) that act as a sponge to hold water and don't allow grass roots to get through easily. This thatch layer builds up over time (if neglected) and makes greens slower to putt on. Plus, it is perfect for disease outbreaks.

Therefore we replace bad (thatch) with good (sand) and this channel that is created is perfect for root growth, drainage (rain passes down the sand channel easily) and to allow roots to access oxygen, water and nutrients more easily.

Over the last 2 years, we have been continually replacing the bad with the good. It should come as no surprise that the greens are now drier, firmer, faster and look so much better. 

The core holes are perfect to overseed with quality grass seed and what we are now seeing is a better composition of finer grasses in our greens. 

This is better for putting, mowing, resistance to disease and in time, will be cheaper to maintain because the finer grasses (bent and fescue grasses) use less nutrients and water so the bottom line is improved.

We expect that next year, only a few greens will require hollow tining. Only the putting green, 4th, 6th and 9th still give us a bit of hassle now. 

Admittedly, the 8th green is a whole different proposition but dealing with this green is a huge financial outlay and can only be addressed if the necessary funds are available.

In the meantime, thank you for your patience. The greens should be recovering fairly quickly now and we hope to have them more playable very soon.