2018 goals for HOA

The 2018 golf season is getting underway at HOA and we have high hopes for the future of our facility. We have a list of things that we would like to finish up as well as a few new plans for improving the greens and the overall play-ability of the course.

First and foremost we are going to implement a a couple new cultural practices for the greens to improve both speed, and consistency of our putting surfaces. In addition to our usual verticutting and top dressing, we will be using the verticut reels to very lightly stand the grass up on the greens. This will allow for better cut quality from our primary mowers. It will also reduce the amount of thatch build up throughout the year leading to firmer more consistent playing surfaces.

Here is an example of verticut reels and what they do to the green. A good verticut program can greatly improve green firmness and speed.

Next we plan to use the greens roller on a more consistent basis. Rolling has many positive benefits including smoothing out and firming up the surface of the greens. Rolling can also help reduce our disease pressure in the summer months.

If you have been around the river course in the last two weeks you may have seen the new sod we have put down in the bottom of number 5 fairway. As most of you know the fairway was completely covered is silt that killed most of the grass in that area. the new sod will spread throughout the year and hopefully we will have a full fairway once again.

Looking forward to the 2018 season, we will see you out there.