El Niguel Country Club

8 • THE DIVOT | SUMMER 2021 THE COURSE BY MATTHEW MORTON, SUPERINTENDENT I wanted to extend a thank you to our members as our grounds- keeping team appreciated all the support while the course was closed for 3ve days in June for spring maintenance. The time allowed us to accomplish many important tasks. For starters, we were able to aerify and amend soils by topdressing 40 acres of fairways and four acres of Bermuda collars. We also lightly aerated three acres of putting surfaces. The process is key to allowing water in3l- trate the soil, which helps eliminate extreme wet and dry areas around the course, ultimately providing a more consistent playing surface throughout – a big plus for all the Club's Summer events. We also took advantage of the closure to in- stall drainage and soil on the 4th fairway to help improve the heavy clay soils that have been problematic. We recycled our fairway aer- ation plugs and used the grass for the new area on the 4th hole. Last year, we corrected the swale on the 12th hole in the same fashion and saw the healing process take about 60 days to mature for carts, so we are expecting that same time- table as we move through the summer. Please keep carts o& of this area as the turf grows. Some of the other projects we worked on in- cluded removing large trees that had died o& due to bark beetle and drought; installing a new aeration on our main irrigation lake near the 17th hole; building concrete event pads on the 6th and 12th holes; and cleaning up broken cement around the Tee House. All of these projects will help improve El Niguel's course conditions for the Club's up- coming events. Thank you for all of your sup- port as we head into the Summer golf season! Looking good Spring maintenance projects lead to many improvements around the course The aerification process provides a more consistent playing surface throughout the entire golf course.

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