My Back Yard Putting Green

August 2014

Since I started playing golf when I was young I have always wanted a back yard putting green, but never thought it was possible. I had tried alternatives such as lowering the height of my dads rotary mower as low as it would go and scalping the nice lush grass in early summer only to watch it die. Then I turned to an old manual reel mower, but they only cut so short and never made for a good putting surface. After working on the greens staff for 3 years and thinking over how much work it was going to take, I began a lengthy project of forming a backyard putting green only using cores from our spring aeration mixed with bent grass seed.  Before I put the cores down I sprayed roundup to kill the existing grass.  After spreading out the cores in the spring, I left them to establish throughout the summer of 2011 only using the manual reel mower too keep the height just below 1 inch. I was also waiting to purchase a Toro Flex 21 from my course which they were selling at the end of the season. So by the end of Fall 2011 I was left with this (below).

It doesn't look like much but you can see the slight colour difference from the poa and bent to the other lawn grass.

The next step was purchasing a mower, which I did over the winter and helped my mechanic rebuild the reel bearings, change the oil and transmission fluid, replace some belts and sharpen the reel and bedknife. I made the first cut in April and as you can see the difference is incredible.

2006 Toro Flex 21

Right after the first cut, the height was set at half an inch. 

Mid summer, a few brown spots but overall pretty good. 

After the first summer the turf held up pretty good. I didn't realize how exhausting it would be when I only had time after work realizing I had to get the mower out to cut and then water it. However it is worth it and has been a great learning experience.

Last fall I decided to make the green even larger and was also able to borrow an aerator from the course. This allowed me to establish more bentgrass on both the new section and the original section.

Just after aeration. 

Late fall, the new section slowly establishing. I also took out the Austrian pine, which I discussed in my first post. 

 After over seeding several times, the green has filled in very well. I had some impact from snow mould, but it just grew out. I have managed to get the height of cut down to 1/8" any lower and the mower starts to scalp over the undulations. Being built on clay with only small amounts of sand from top dressing, it doesn't have the best drainage. Besides that there haven't been any other issues so far.

August 2013

 July 2014