Our planned coring two weeks ago was completed successfully despite ‘mother natures’ best attempt to throw a spanner in the works. Unfortunately, we have lost a number of trees as a result with many more damaged. I am sure you will appreciate that it will take a little time to get it all cleaned up and for us to get back into somewhat normal maintenance routines.

Storm Damage

Firstly, we would again like to thank everyone who has helped us over the last couple of weeks! All the extra help and effort has been hugely appreciated and even I am surprised at how quickly we were able to turn it all around with all the help. At present we are working through our insurance provider to assess the damage and take care of the remaining work in the fastest and most efficient possible way. All Arborists and ‘Tree Companies’ have been really busy and we are hoping they will be able to help us on a large scale next week as they become available. We have also taken the precaution of having every single tree on the site assessed after the storm by our regular consultant arborist and he has submitted a report on the works that we need to perform on the trees to go along with a Tree Management Plan.

Coring

As mentioned earlier, coring went ahead despite the weather and was successfully completed albeit a little delayed. The playing surfaces are recovering very nicely considering it was a ‘large’ coring and we foresee the greens being back to normal in about another 2 weeks. Due to the delays some of the cleaning up and fertilizing that goes along with coring has been delayed and will be completed as soon as possible. We are in the process of fertilizing all the fairways and green surrounds with organic fertilizer this week. Despite the unfortunate smell, the product is very safe and is far safer to the environment than regular chemical fertilizers. We do apologise for the smell but that should fade over the next few days.

We are also using all available time to remove the piles of cores and use them for other purposes such as back filling the new concrete paths. This will take a couple of weeks still. There are also some patches on the fairways were the grass roots were not strong enough and during coring, patches of turf came out. Again, the coring will help us to develop better rooting in the long term. We will repair these patches properly as soon as we can.

Drainage

Fortunately, Turftech has managed to be able to install most of the drainage that we had planned for this summer with the exception of one small area on Hole 5.

· The 1st fairway is growing nicely and has almost completely recovered, we have started to process of reducing the mowing height on it.

· The 2nd fairway is progressing well since completing about 3 weeks ago and for the most part is growing in nicely. We had some quite extensive ‘wash outs’ from the 77mm rain that fell the one evening but we are repairing these as fast as we can. We hope to reopen this hole in about 2 weeks time.

· The 4th fairway is also growing nicely and the hole has been opened up to it full length again. We did have some ‘wash outs’ of the sand slits due to the heavy rain and we are trying to repair these as fast as possible too. The grass is still quite long on the first half of the fairway but as it matures we will reduce the mowing height.

4th fairway growing nicely.

A big thank you must go to the team at Turftech for installing the drainage. We are positive it will make playing the front 9 far more enjoyable in coming winter conditions.

Employee profile

Josh Presland – Team Leader and Spray Technician

 

Josh is one of the senior green keepers in our team and is extremely passionate about green keeping. He sets the bar very high for the younger, less experienced team members and is years of experience working on golf courses such as Huapai Golf Club has helped us to build a stronger team and product. Josh is a very good cricketer and can be regularly seen practicing his batting and bowling technique in the shed (with a soft ball) with his green keeping team mates after work.

Should see Josh on the course and have any questions, please feel free to ask him as he is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the course.