Greetings from the Greenies!
We hope you are well and enjoying the drier and sunnier than normal weather out on the golf course.
Weather and Irrigation:As has been the case for most of the year, the last month we have seen well below the average rainfall which is great for golf! The abnormally dry weather has meant that we have had to start irrigating and hand watering the course approximately 6 weeks earlier than we would normally do. Fortunately, we do not rely on Watercare for the supply of water to our irrigation system unless there is an emergency and therefore the water we use is not treated nor Potable. The water that we do have is terribly poor quality, is not very healthy for grass either and so we have to ‘treat it’ before we can use it. The system we use for treating our irrigation water has, unfortunately, let us down and the parts from the international supplier of the system have been unreliable. We are in the progress of fixing this though and it should be fully functional within a week or two. The downside to this is that we have been forced to use very poor quality water to irrigate the golf course with over the last month or so which seems to have led to the grass not being as healthy as it should be. We have also drained the pond to the right of the 13th green recently to service the inlets and outlets, the fountains, remove waste and we have finally managed to get rid of the Koi. We will soon do the same to the other pond between hole 15 and 16.
Greens:It has been nice to see that over the last few days the greens have started to respond to the warmer weather with some great feedback about the greens (and the course in general) from the past weekend. The severe disease pressure where some Poa died from the fungal diseases Anthracnose and Leaf Spot is starting to ease off and the greens are looking healthier.
Unfortunately, the poor quality of water we have been using did not help this disease outbreak and made it more severe. While the Creeping Bent did lose colour for a while due to these stresses, it has survived nicely and is growing rapidly at the moment to fill in the spaces left by the Poa which died as a result of these diseases.
Gardens:If you have played recently you may have noticed much work being done in the gardens with mulch being placed and flowers being planted in many areas. This will continue with a regular (monthly) maintenance program and additional planting to beautify and improve the overall aesthetics of the club. Keep an eye out for all the flowers that should start emerging soon!
Fairways, Tees and Rough:All the fairways and tees have now been treated a second time to control Kikuyu and broadleaf weeds such as Daisies. The most recent combination of products seems to work very well with very few daisies visible for a which is a huge improvement from the past. We have also pre-treated all the fairways etc. to prevent Summer Grasses as well as insect damage and are confident that this will be successful. In the rough, the control of weeds is going well with plans to do another treatment in mid-summer. About 3 years ago we decreased the mowing height of the rough to improve playability however it seems that there is a desire to have the rough even shorter. This week we have once again lowered the cutting height of the rough a great deal to improve playability and speed up pace of play.
There might be some areas where the rough mowers might ‘scalp’ to tops of mounds and ‘collect’ / damage tree roots as the ground in the rough is very uneven. We are training our boys to try and avoid this and we will see how this progresses. Should you see any such damaged areas in the rough, please do not be alarmed, we will take steps to address this.
New Staff:I would like to take this opportunity to introduce to you some new team members, Karl Gorissen (Workshop and Equipment Manager) and Jordan Lai (General Worker). We are thrilled to have them join our team and the golf club. Karl has been in the industry for many years and is an extremely experienced Turf Machinery technician and has worked for many reputable golf clubs such as the Australian. Jordan has joined us recently as he is passionate about golf and the outdoors and would like to combine these passions into a new career. Jordan is very experienced in the hospitality industry and loves playing golf, fishing, gardening and spending time with his young family in his
spare time. Welcome gents!