Dear Spring Run Member,

As we reopen after the closure, I would like to give and update and overview of everything that went on for the past 10 days, which has been full of a long hours and hard work. My staff and I had a very successful closure and got just about everything done culturally we needed to complete. The greens were double aerified, verticut, and top dressed. The tees and collars/approaches were aerified, verticut, and top dressed as well. All the fairways and roughs were double aerified and terra raked. We were able to remove a lot of thatch and organic matter from the soil and the course is responding beautifully.

Thankfully the rain stayed away the first week and allowed us to complete all the cultural practices so we could start grooming and healing the golf course. While it is still a little rough in spots, overall we are in great shape. The greens are currently about 95% healed and appear to be very smooth. The green speeds are slow right now, and that is to be expected after a closure. The reason they are slow is that we have to raise the mowing height on the greens during aerification, because we cannot mow them daily during this process. The first time we are able to mow the greens is about 5 to 6 days after the process begins and the grass is much longer than normal. To avoid scalping and hurting the turf we raise the mowing height and then slowly work the height back down to normal mowing height over a couple weeks. We will continue to groom the greens and work the mowing heights back down to normal in a couple weeks. You may also notice that there is a heavy amount of sand on the Driving Range. Due to the consistently wet and unevenness of the driving range, we have top dressed it heavily, and are rolling it to dry, smooth, and level it out. We are letting the grass grow up and through the sand, which will provide a much nicer hitting surface in the future.

My staff and I would like to thank all the members for their patience and understanding and we look forward to getting our course healed up and playing conditions back to normal as soon as possible.

Sincerely

Benjamin S. Hanshew

Spring Run Golf Club

Superintendent