Small areas of putting green damage – less than 8 inches in diameter – are common and never welcomed. Unfortunately, natural recovery can take longer than desired and traditional plugging methods are time consuming and labor intensive. Fortunately, a cup cutter can be used to hide damage and speed recovery in most small areas of turf damage. Here’s how it’s done:
1. Place the center of a cup cutter over the edge of the damaged area. The cup cutter cylinder should be covering 50% damaged turf and 50% healthy turf.
2. Push the cup cutter into the soil as if you were cutting a cup – make sure the cup cutter is inserted deeper than the root system – and then rotate the cup cutter 180 degrees.
3. Remove the cup cutter while leaving the core in the soil. You should now see that the damaged area and healthy area have been flipped.
4. Repeat this process as many times as you’d like to make damaged areas smaller and smaller.
By rotating the damaged area with healthy turf, one larger area of damage is converted into several smaller areas that are surrounded by more healthy turf. This speeds recovery of the damaged putting green turf and makes the damaged areas less noticeable. This tip can also be used on nursery greens that have had plugs removed to speed recovery. Keep in mind that this tip should not be performed on ultradwarf bermudagrass putting greens because it will rotate the grain.
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