One of the top end courses in my area (The Orchards) took a unique way to aeration. One week they aerate only HALF the green (left half or right half, all the way from front to back), then keep the pin in the non-aerated area until the green heals.

Once the one side heals, they do the other half, and move the pins to that area of the green. At worst, you're only hitting 1 putt through the stuff, but the money maker short putts, you don't have to deal with it.

I thought it was the BEST idea I've seen.

they must have their own aeration equipment.

most courses in our area rent it or just borrow it from each other, so that's not always a possibility.

kudos to the super at that course though, i wish it was always that easy.

When I played in PA a few weeks ago only 3 greens were aerated the first day. @ days later they did 3 more. He splits it up over 6 weeks so people dont get upset about all or half of it ruining the round. Thought it was a good idea.

acutally that only works if you have very large greens and have nothing but scratch golfers playing your place, not everyone hits it on the correct side of the green every time... this also has lead to inconsistencies in the greens dealing with the total healing time for the green doubling and also having one side at proper playing conditions much ahead of the other... you also have to aerate your greens a lot earlier in the year than you normally would because of the time issue...

there's no right/wrong way to aerate greens