The greens at top courses are always top-notch, but it’s not just their speed that sets them apart. Most of the time, elite courses maintain firm putting surfaces throughout the season, even during the wet spring months. These firm greens enhance strategic shot options and provide golfers with consistent playing conditions. So why don’t all dishes manage to maintain firm greens? This is what we discussed with Mike Dachowski, director of agronomy at Shelter Harbor Golf Club, A Second Top 100 classes in Charlestown, RI

Golf Digest: Mike, sometimes when I go to really nice courses, I notice that the greens have a little layer of sand on top. What’s going on there?

Dachowski: Exactly, it’s top dressing, and it helps firm up green vegetables. At Shelter Harbor, we dress consistently throughout the growing season. Once the grass starts to grow, we top dress it weekly. This keeps the greens firmer, so we never really get too soft where we can’t roll. The top dressing consists only of sand and protects the crown of the plant, firms the surface and dilutes the thatch.

Interesting. You mention top dressing which helps roll the greens. Can you explain this a little more?

I ride way more than I cut. I usually only cut greens every other day and roll them every day. We ride seven days a week and cut greens usually four. Cutting requires a lot more work, especially if you mow by hand rather than rolling. You can create extremely consistent green mowing speeds every other day if you ride every day.

To be able to ride every day, you need firmer green vegetables. That’s why we dress weekly during the growing period, basically mid-May to mid-October, and we roll every day and get very consistent greens that way. We don’t really get those ups and downs or that growth spurt. It can rain here and play the same as when it’s dry. Our goal is simply to create consistency on a daily basis.

If you are consistent with top dressing throughout a growing season, you will dilute the thatch naturally without aerating. Or, I should say, then you don’t need to aerate as aggressively. I don’t know anyone who frequently dresses in bad greens.

There doesn’t seem to be much downside to getting dressed frequently. So what’s the problem? Why don’t all courses systematically sand their greens?

It’s expensive. It’s not cheap. This is the cost and cost of truck transportation. This is getting a little crazy.

I’ll break it down. For us, it costs $135 per ton (at the time of the conversation) and we use about 4.5 tons of sand per week. We have about 4.5 acres of putting greens at Shelter Harbor and we use about a ton of sand per acre each week. It all depends on your pace, but on average, I use around 225 tonnes of sand per year on the greens, not counting aeration. It’s just for top dressing.

Add to that, and it costs us about $30,000 a year to evenly dress our 4.5 acres of greens. You can understand why people would abandon it, but it’s one of the most important things, in my opinion.

You also need to make sure you have the right sand. Just like in bunkers, it is important to have the right sand when dressing. If you get one that’s wrong, it becomes too marbled and can soften things. Think about when you’re walking on a beach and there’s sand, for example. But if you get the right sand, it will firm up the greens.