Legendary Maintenance

by Sarah Willnerd

DryJect® Aeration Service Helps Keep Famed East Lake Golf Club in Top Condition

Situation

Whether it’s preparing for local golf tournaments or a PGA Tour event, superintendents are constantly under pressure to make their courses look their best. As most superintendents have experienced, there’s usually little leeway given for bad weather or soil conditions among discriminating golfers. However, with the DryJect® soil aerification service, Golf Course Superintendent Ralph Kepple is able to consistently make the renowned East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia look its best no matter what the occasion.

Problem

East Lake Golf Club, which is the home course for Bobby Jones-one of the golf world’s icons, is a favorite haunt of golf aficionados. East Lake’s fame is due to historical players such as Rich Maiden and Charlie Yates and current champions, which include Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Scott Verplank, who have all played on East Lake’s greens.

In addition, East Lake has hosted over the years many notable United States Golf Association (USGA) and Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour Events. These events have included the PGA’s The Tour Championship in October 2005, Men’s and Women’s U.S. Amateur Championships, the Ryder Cup, PGA Tour Championships and many regional tournaments.

To ensure that his greens are in premium condition for these numerous golf events, Kepple often utilizes the advice of outside experts. These turf professionals include PGA Tour agronomists and DryJect, which is part of Profile Products. Today, 10 of the top 15 ranked courses in the country use the DryJect service. However, East Lake was one of the first golf courses to use the DryJect service in turf preparations when they experienced a severe drought that compromised the turf’s health. Kepple used the DryJect service on green edges where the course lacked moisture during the heat of summer. Liking the results, he decided to use it on all of East Lake’s greens.

According to Joe Betulius, Profile Products’ vice president of sales, the DryJect aerification service uses water to fracture the soil while simultaneously injecting large volumes of dry material-up to two tons per green-that allows golf course surfaces to be usable and playable in one hour. For East Lake’s course, Kepple injects Profile™ Porous Ceramic (PPC) into the deep channels created by the DryJect machine. PPC is often used by professionals to help increase soil oxygen, resist compaction, eliminate localized dry spots, drain better and facilitate healthy root systems that leave turf less prone to disease.

Solutions

East Lake scheduled two DryJect applications in 2005-one in March and another in July-with Danny Turner, an Atlanta DryJect service center operator. Each application was completed in one day. The March application was a blend of endoROOTS® mixed with high volumes of sand and PPC. EndoROOTS contains endomycorrhizae and fertilizer. The mycorrihizae colonizes on the root system of the turf and increases its ability to absorb water and nutrients, which increases the root system’s efficiency and volume. Using a blend of dried, medium size topdressing sand with PPC (approximately 80 percent sand, 20 percent PPC by volume), Kepple added EndoRoots at 10 pounds to every 400 pounds of the sand/PPC mix.

The July application was designed to create open channels into the root zone, allowing the greens to dry faster after rain events and providing gas exchange sites. This application contained high volumes of sand and PPC to increase porosity of the greens during the hottest period of the summer. Kepple felt that using the DryJect service was vital for the July application as it created less stress for the turf than core aeration.

Results

DryJect gave Kepple a way to create a channel into the soil and fill it completely to the top of the channel. Kepple said this method increased the course’s infiltration rate to the top one- to three-inch range and placed more sand in the root zone.

Kepple said another important advantage to the DryJect service is the smaller hole created and the benefits the water fracture method provides the soil.

“With a drill and fill operation, you are left with a one-inch hole in the surface that takes a very long time to grow back over,” Kepple said. “The DryJect service leaves a much smaller hole to fill. The dynamic effect of DryJect in the subsurface is much greater than traditional coring techniques even though the DryJect surface hole is so small.”

Since his initial applications last year, Kepple has continued to use DryJect and plans on intermixing a deep-tine aeration, as well. The overall effect of the DryJect service has been firmer, drier and faster growing greens with improved rooting and minimal disruption to the putting surface.

“It takes vision and confidence to be one of the first courses in the country to try a new concept like DryJect-especially when the course is one of the most admired courses in the country,” said Betulius. “However, turf professionals are finding that, by embracing new technologies like DryJect, they actually are gaining more control over their turf. These elements are the keys to creating championship surfaces.”