Glen Eagle Maintenance (7/18/25)

 The second week of the closure has flown by. Despite the tropical moisture that has been over Florida this week, we have had another productive week and are on track for having the course reopened next Tuesday.

A couple of maintenance practices I want to highlight as we open next week.

The first is the scalping of the collars. We were very aggressive in removing the buildup of sand and thatch in the collars where they abut the greens. We took a sod cutter and set it low enough to scrape the top off the turf but high enough not to remove the rhizomes (below ground stems) and roots. This process will improve playability around the greens and allow water to flow off the greens instead of pooling on the greens during heavy rain events.

Bermudagrass turf is made up of several layers. In general terms these layers are: roots, rhizomes (below ground stems), mat (accumulated, broken down thatch just above the soil), thatch (clippings and unbroken down plant parts in the turf canopy), stolons (above the ground stems), and leaf tissue.

We essentially took off everything down to the rhizomes. Here are some pictures of the process…

This final picture shows how much growth has occurred in the last 9 days. It is almost hard to tell where the collar starts and the green begins. If you look closely you can see the sand line between the green and the collar.

With 4 more days until we are open I do expect some thin collar areas but every day the they are growing exponentially so they will be full very soon.

I also wanted to show you a before and after of the fairway topdressing. It is truly amazing how quickly the turf absorbs the amount of sand we put out last week.

#9 Fairway after topdressing

#9 Fairway on Thursday - sand is all but gone!

Here is the maintenance staff hard at work this week…

A quick PSA. I will be headed to NY for a vacation on Wednesday of next week returning the following Friday so I won’t be posting for a couple weeks. Please check back for updates in 3 weeks.

I look forward to seeing everyone on the course, and as always, if you have any questions, flag me down or shoot me an email. I always enjoy talking turf!