Managing green speeds can be a bit of a tricky business for us. As a rule of thumb, we work hard to keep green speeds between 11-12 feet (stimpmeter reading) on both courses year round. This time of year is where we have to fight mother nature to slow them down to get them into that range. For the past few weeks, green speeds have been over 12 feet. This is due to the weather. We had very dry winds followed by frost nearly every day. The grass shuts down at that point, and with no growth comes really high green speeds.
To combat this, we change our pattern of mowing greens from every day to every other day. On the off days, we will use a mower set at tee height to roll over the greens to remove the dew. This gives the green a fresh, clean appearance without increasing green speeds even more.
Now that the weather is warming up a bit and we haven't had frost in several days, green speeds should return to normal and we will adjust our practices to compensate.
Hope you all had a great New Year, and that you got to enjoy the holidays at the club over the past couple of weeks.
