"The warm season bent-grass of the South".
John,
I've helped manage "Champion" Bermudagrass for the last 3 years in South-Central Texas. Let me just get this off my chest first,
"What a pain in the ass".
Ok, I feel better.
The ultra-dwarf's are difficult and require the utmost attention. They're a stoliniferous turfgrass, meaning they do not have a deep rootzone, eventhough I have found some roots at 5-7 inches. They are definitely not heat/drought tolerant. At 95 degrees, these boyz can turn at the drop of a dime and make your butt tighter than Dick's hatband.
They do require low mowing but disease pressure (bermudagrass decline + another one that I cant remember the name off the top of my head, but is a strain of the previously mentioned) WILL kick in if your shaving them at a 1/10 to 1/8. The problem with the low mowing definitely rears its ugly face when the scalping starts. This comes from the "puffiness" or thatch build up over the growing season. Sure your going to be verticutting, spiking, aerifing, and all that good stuff, but what I'm fixen to tell you will hurt. Get the biggest damn tines on that aerifier you can put on, and start punching the heck out of them boyz. Next year were going to 5/8" tines and tearing some ___ up. The reason: we want to take out as much biomass out of the greens as possible. Yes, the membership had a coronary when hearing that, but there are increased benefits; less thatch, better incorporation of topdressing into the holes, and taking out more surface area of old leaf tissue and initiating new growth. We have even had to get a new aerifier (Aercore 1500 John Deere) to be able to get a better aerification. Actually, we have had to buy alot more equipment for these silly boyz.
So to answer your question somewhat, because I don't know your location, Yes start taking it out as soon as possible. This is dependent upon soil temperature-time of year. I'm located in Bryan-College Station, 90 or so mile north-west of Houston. We will wait until after Easter for sure to start aerifing because of the time frame of "freek" freezes. So around the end of April soil and dirt start flying! Just to add a quick note, we did put 3/4 inch tines on our nursery green when testing the new machine, and damn It looked better than catfish and budweiser on a Saturday night. We saw a much quicker responce of new growth and this was done the 1st of October, go figure! I don't think we'll ever use the 3/4 tines though due to something called "hanging". So overall it depends on your location because your course is its own environment and I couldn't compare yours to mine.
Don did make one of the most important comments though. It definitely comes down to fertility. You have to lean-the-green with the nutrients. We do not fertilize the overseed whats-soever. This reduces the big "flash" of growth in the spring coming out of, well what we call semi-dormancy. We control the feeding during this time so we dont get an over zelous jump in growth which contributes to the puffiness factor. Side note, our overseeding rate was 6lbs / 1000ft. Reason; we dont want to fight the poa trivialis in the spring-summer time. We just want coverage.
Overall, any smart agronomist would not tell you what exactly to do over the internet. I don't know what your course micro-macro environment is. What kind of greens, airflow, shade, water, etc. is. We are going in this direction because we have gone thru this learning curve with the ultradwarf and we are getting closer each year. I will say though, that we are seeing a definite decline of turfgrass quality each subsequent year.
Finally, I would say to get behind your super. He's the one fighting this battle, and it does take time because simply put, I don't believe the research came out in a timely basis in which it should have! The super's are the ones doing it as is, and in the field. Remember, one cure does not fit all.
SR.