Elyria Country Club Greens Restorations

Matt Magarian and crew recently began here at Elyria Country Club just southwest of Cleveland and one of the better kept secrets in terms of historic golf architecture in the area. This club was designed by architect William S. Flynn, who only completed around 60 courses throughout the country. Fifteen of the greens at Elyria have been virtually untouched since it opened in 1925, and these are the ones entrusted to XGD to help them perform more like the other three, which were rebuilt to modified sand green versions over the years. It is a common query posed to us by hundreds of other similar clients in the same situation who have a few sand greens sprinkled in amongst their pushups: Will the newly restored greens by XGD behave in a similar way as the sand greens at our club? We find these enhanced pushup greens will play and manage somewhere between their previous state and your existing sand greens. Our internal subsurface drainage process will usually get you half way there, and as more organic material inevitably will build up in the sand greens and each facility stays aggressive with their cultural practices on their pushups they may even get closer to similar performance over time.

The picture below illustrates our usual fine finish work on Elyria’s ninth green as we handed it over the club last weekend:

This is going to be a typical herringbone greens drainage layout at Elyria as most all of the greens have extremely broad shoulders up both sides of the putting surfaces funneling surface water in to center of these greens. Superintendent Pat Rodgers (@prodgerseccgolf ), and assistant Ian Schlather (@ECC_Grounds)have both been really active on Twitter promoting our process in the industry, as well as utilizing social media to keep their members up to date. So give them both a follow to see how they use this exciting communication tool.

I would call the greens we have been on predominantly poa annua with a smattering of bentgrass in spots throughout the greens. The condition of the grass on the greens enables our installers to really provide the club with completely playable conditions, as Elyria just yesterday hosted a Northern Ohio PGA event during the project.

So once again, a big thank you to the club for placing their trust in our company, and if you are in the area, please stop on out to see if  XGD can help take your greens up a notch.

Cheers, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer