Putting Green Closure at Practice Area

This was a post from last summer.  I have heard some chatter as to why we close the putting green during the summer stress.  I thought this was a good reminder.  Please read below.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words so......the bottom picture was from 2011.  I think it is a place we don't want to go back to.

I know some of you are wondering why a green that looks perfectly healthy would be closed to play. Well we are trying to be proactive in minimizing the stress level to that green this summer. Once plants show the signs of stress, it is typically too late for them to recover fully. So when dealing with plant health it is better to be on the proactive side of management then the curative side.

The facts are this green is purely undersized to be the main putting green for our club. If its role was to only hit a few practice putts and then head out to the course it would be fine. However it's current usage is such where golfers will spend much longer sessions on it. Thereby increasing traffic stress to levels that the green cannot handle in the summer months. In a perfect world the 10,000 square foot green would be at the practice area and the 3,500 square foot green would be at the clubhouse. Our world is not perfect. I would ask our membership to bear that thought in mind throughout the year. As I stated earlier even though turf might not show symptoms of a problem doesn't mean it is not under stress from a problem.