Photos by Frank Shafer
The first step was to have the John Deere tractor with the push spike plug attachment drive over the greens. This attachment pokes holes into the greens. Those push spikes moved up and down vertically at a good tempo.
The result is shown contrasting the plugged area and unplugged area of Green 8.
The next step was for the Cushman vehicle with a v-blade drive back and forth collecting the plugs and residual sand. There is a conveyor belt attached to the back of the v-blade. The conveyor belt moves the material into the bed of the Cushman.
After that step, they spread sand over the entire green using a vehicle called a Dakota. It has two constantly spinning fan-like spreaders on the back that sends the sand outward an onto the green.
The last step is the sweeping on the sand into the plug holes created by the push spikes. It has two constantly spinning brush rollers that spin to push the sand into the holes.
The operator would drive around and around until nearly all of the sand was pushed into the green.
They instructed us to put plenty of water on the greens so that the water can penetrate deeply and help to wash-in the remaining grains of sand.