Course Update 29 May 2018

Winter is well and truly here

Winter has most certainly made is arrival felt and with over 100mm of rain falling over the last week and this morning’s temperature reaching a chilly low of 4 degrees. The course has become really wet now and we have received well above the average rainfall so far…yet again! We have recorded 750.5mm of rain for the year so far against an average of 465mm.

Drainage and paths

The new drainage and paths on the front 9 holes are performing quite nicely so far and it is most definitely easier to get around the front 9. All those areas are growing in nicely but the colder weather now has slowed down growth.

 Clean up after the storm last month

The clean up after the huge storm last month continues at all available opportunities but the very wet ground conditions have made progress much slower. Treesafe has been cutting and removing trees when they are available but as all the tree felling companies are still extremely busy, so they are too and fit us in when they can. A huge thanks must go to our team and in particular, Dad’s Army for all their hard work so far. The end is now very much in sight and we are hoping to be back to normal in about 2 weeks time.

Greens

The greens have recovered very well from coring and are back to normal now. This week we are Verti Draining the greens to continue our regular aeration program and this will help them to drain faster from the excess rainfall. We plan to ‘dust’ the greens next week and apply Ethofumisate to control Poa.

Mowing

Mowing the rough and some fairways has been impossible over the last week and as soon as it is dry enough again we will resume mowing of those areas. All the drained areas have been fine and we have been mowing those areas. The cold snap has been a bit of a blessing in this regard as it has significantly slowed down the growth of the grass so we do not need to mow as frequently.

Drains

We have spent the last week or two trimming, clearing and inspecting drains and unblocking any where necessary. There have been a few problems but we have sorted most of them out and will fix the remaining stubborn problems over the coming weeks.

Spraying

This week the weather will be nice and calm with no rain so it will present us with the first real opportunity in about a month now so that we can spray. We will be focussing all our spray work on the paved areas of the course and around the clubhouse as well as spraying weeds in all the garden areas around the course. We should be able to get this work finished this week weather permitting.

Employee profile

Jacob Devereaux – Apprentice Greenkeeper

 

Born and bred in Auckland and a proud ‘Westie’, Jacob is a young man who loves life and is the life of the team. He is an extremely talented musician and plays in a band. Jacob has been with us for about 2 years now and has developed to a point where he is keen to make a career of green keeping despite an affinity for trees. We have recently enrolled him to study Turfgrass management further and is really enjoying learning more about what we do. Jacob is a great young man and has a very bright future ahead, please feel free to greet him and chat if you see him on the course.

Regards

Spencer and Course Maintenance Team