Seeding ballmarks

Ball marks are an unavoidable aspect of golf. No matter the region, membership, skill level or any other factor, every course has to deal with ball marks. In a perfect world every ball mark would be fixed immediately after creation, but that is never the case. The grounds department uses 2 main tactics to combat ball marks on a regular basis.

If you are interested in more information regarding the steps to fix a ball mark, please read this post from the summer of 2016. There are different ways to fix a ball mark. Sometimes, some of the information can be almost contradictory. However, as long as a golfer does not try and pry the soil straight back up to level the surface, most other tactics will end in a better result than doing nothing. Yet, ball marks are always still present, and we can’t spend our time fixing every single one.

The tiny seedlings from our sand
and seed mixture are visible
in the center of this ball mark

Our fist strategy to helping minimize the negative aspects of ball marks is through sand topdressing. Topdressing provides many benefits to the turf grass and to the playability for golfers. One of those benefits is that it helps to smooth the putting green. Ball marks are one of the low areas that sand can settle into and fill in, so that the ball mark is even with the rest of the green. When we spread the sand, the ball mark accumulates more sand than the area around it, thus filling in. We do not add seed to the sand when we are just topdressing, so healing occurs from grass around the ball mark growing inwards. The key, though, is that the sand ensures that the new grass is growing at nearly the same height as the rest of the putting green, rather than in the bottom of the ball mark.

We spend most of our time filling ball marks with our sand and seed mixture during the fall, when the weather is much more ideal for seed germination and growth. Following up on this post from last fall, we have continued to use our ball mark repair tool. This tool deposits a small amount of sand and seed into the ball mark. The sand levels the surface and the seed establishes new grass in the vacant hole.

We don’t expect the battle against ball marks to end any time soon. Luckily, we do have some techniques for contending with the issue and maintaining the best putting surfaces possible.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please be conscious to not cut corners with your golf cart. The inside edges of turns are easily worn out after repeated traffic.

See you on the course!

Joe
jvillegas@bwrc.org