Sunlight and Air

I took a couple of pictures last Friday which clearly show the amazing power of sunlight and air.  The picture above is of the back of #2 green and if you've been a member at Tacoma for any time at all then you know just how good this area is today versus its condition in the past.  Here's another picture of this area taken from the 3rd tee.

In the last week it has rained over 5.5 inches.  That's a lot of rain but we were still able to mow this area on the back of #2.  Not only is the area firm enough to mow, the quality of the turf is as good as any area on the golf course.  Just a few years ago the back of #2 green might have been considered the worst conditioned area on the course.  So what happened? Why the dramatic turnaround?  It's pretty simple.  All we did was introduce sunlight and air to this area by strategicaly removing trees.  Starting back in 2009, we removed a couple trees behind this green and since then we have been removing more trees every other year. Today we finally have the amount of sunlight required to grow exceptional turfgrass in this area.  If you haven't been behind #2 lately, I encourage you go back there and check it out. It really is incredible what a difference it makes when you have adequate sunlight and air.  If you can't remember how bad it used to be behind #2, then go look at the area behind #3.

Here's #3 and you can see just how dense the treescape is behind that putting green. Here's a picture of the area on the back of this green.

You can see that when we attempted to mow this area, the machines rutted and scalped the turf.  Because of the lack of sunlight and air flow, this area is squishy and thin.  This is simply not okay and one of the main reasons several trees behind the third green are marked for removal.  These trees will be removed before the upcoming growing season so it's good to know that this poor turf condition is temporary and before you know it, this area behind #3 will be just as good as the area behind #2.