Course Update 26 September 2017

Spring…

 

We thought we would start off his update with a bit of a laugh, spring is upon us and hopefully we will have a great summer. The first part of this week has seen a dryer period with some wind which has helped dry out the course to a large extent and the entire team is the on mowers trying to get the rough cut.

As mentioned before, last week the course was closed for our spring coring/renovations. It is not a job that we particularly enjoy doing and understandably players are not pleased with us for punching holes in the greens. Unfortunately though it is critical that we continue to carry out these practices in order to keep the course in the best possible condition for the future. Please take a minute or two to watch this video from the USGA which explains coring/aeration of golf course playing surfaces very well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=863Ix8czcoY

Our coring last week presented us with some quite serious challenges. We recorded another 36mm rain on the weekend up to and on the Monday (the first day) of our planned coring. The course was obviously extremely wet and it was really difficult and dangerous work. If you can imagine trying to get machines loaded up with tons of wet sand around the course was a real challenge without causing too much damage (considering it is tough going just walking the course). We had to adapt our methods somewhat and were not able to perform a large 15mm (5/8 inch) core on the greens as we had previously planned. Instead we managed to get in a smaller coring which requires less sand. We were also unable to core the Tees and Green Surrounds and instead chose to solid tine these areas. Obviously these compromises do not deliver the same results but it is better than nothing and means that we will have to perform a substantial coring in Autumn.

And just when we thought it couldn’t get any more challenging we had a large underground pipe burst behind the 4th green on the Monday night which pumped massive amounts of water down to the 5th tee, flooded the first fairway and driving range fairway. Nothing that we can’t handle though!

                                                     Flooding from burst pipe                                                               
Burst pipe behind 4th green

We did however manage to over-seed all the greens to help improve the density of the greens and over the coming days we should hopefully see good germination. Along with this we applied a slow release Calcium soil amendment product and slow release (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium and trace elements) fertilizer. We are already seeing a good recovery which is very encouraging.

One of the side effects to the extremely wet and now windy conditions is the fact that we have not been able to spray weeds on the fairways and rough. The sprayers weigh 2400kg when loaded with chemicals and water which would obviously sink into the mud so deeply that we would not be able to get them out easily, not to mention how dangerously they might slide on most slopes. It is a frustrating dilemma to have but as soon as the ground is firm enough and not too windy we will be out spraying the weeds. We have all the product ready and waiting for the weather so let’s hope we get the opportunity very soon.

Kind Regards

Spencer and the course team.