"Punch and Judy"

7:21 am - Friday - September 20th - LPG&RVR - 42° F, humidity 69%, wind  ZERO mph out of the east by southeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 77° F.  On this date in 2018 TLE were standing at the summit of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.....

We got the news around 8 am Thursday that we would begin 'punching' the greens at 9 am.  This is the day we think about all summer.  Punching greens is one of the hardest jobs I've ever done, and none of us really look forward to this day, but it is something which must be done annually to preserve the health, and integrity of the green complexes.  Normally, with a full crew, we can punch 3 greens per day, but we're a couple of men down this year, so our goal is two greens per day.  As I've mentioned previously there are 20 'greens' that must be punched....the 18 greens of the golf course, the putting green, and the 'sod farm' green.  It will probably take us the better part of 10 days to do them all.  For now my 4 days working, and 4 days not working schedule is on the back burner.  I'll be working Friday, a day I would have normally been off work, and then Monday through Friday next week, and a few days the next week.  That will take us into October.

So, what does 'punching the greens' entail?  The obvious part is the actual punching of the green using a motorized machine....

.....once the entire green has been punched, and all of the plugs shoveled up, and hauled away, then sand is spread over the entire green, after which we drag the green with a special screen which forces the sand into the holes....

.....shoveling up the plugs.....⇧

.....once all the holes are filled with sand we begin to scrape off the excess sand from the green surface.  Within a day, or two of sanding the greens they are fertilized, and within a few weeks they are back to normal.  With full crew we can process 3 greens per day at 2 hours per green.  With our current crew each green takes 3 hours.

The first day is always the toughest as your back gets used to all of the shoveling, and scraping, but by the 2nd, or 3rd day you get used to it, and the work becomes more routine.  As I sit here typing this morning my back is barking, but I'll take a couple of Tylenol, and get on with the job.

We finished our second green around 3:30 pm at which time I headed back to the Clubhouse to wash, and stow 12 golf carts, finished with that around 4 pm, and was home taking a long, hot shower a few minutes later.

Thanks for stopping by!