August Course Reports

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks with competitions coming thick and fast. Overall I’m very happy with how the course has been since my last report; the greens have dealt with the dry weather very well which is down to good root depth and our continuing wetting agent programme. We have also adjusted, replaced and raised all of the sprinklers around the greens and are now achieving optimum efficiency. The course as a whole is starting to show signs of the lack of rainfall over the past 2 weeks (I know I’m always moaning about the weather). The growth retardant that we have applied to the fairways to thicken the sward has meant that they are still holding on to most of the colour. The Tees are struggling a bit as the irrigation to them is not working to its maximum. This is something that we are addressing currently, all par 3’s have been adjusted and the rest are being done whenever we get a chance.

We have recently applied a light top dressing to the greens which puts us on target for our goal of 140T by the end of year. We plan to micro tine the greens with 8mm tines and do a light dress this week.  We also plan to spike the tees and approaches again.

All bare areas on the greens have been spiked, seeded and top dressed. The worst of the areas on and around the greens have had regular turf put down and the 11th green has had turf from the 5th temporary which is the closest thing to the green we have. This will hopefully speed recovery and be back in play in a few weeks.

All the hedges around the course have been cut and the hedge row all along the side of the car park up the side of the 4th, 5th and up to the stream on the 6th has been cut back to allow more space and a better defined boundary line along the 5th.

The main and overflow car park have been sprayed along with the entire surrounding area of the club house, this will stop the weeds coming back for a few months. The course is due to sprayed this includes paths, steps and tee mats. All bunker maintenance and strimming has been done again straight after the Pro Am to keep the course looking tidy. We have also sprayed a growth retardant on the areas mentioned to slow the growth which saves us time and keeps them up together for longer.

The greens have had another wetting agent and stress relief package put down. The greens also had a couple of products put down before the Pro Am which included Potassium Silicate, The silica helps strengthen cell wall tissue and improves turgidity which helps with the speed and roll of the ball. It also give a better cut as the grass stands up presenting it better to the cutting cylinder. We also, for the first time, brought the greens down to 2.6mm with a very positive outcome. This is not sustainable long term but for the bigger events of the year and years to come, with the health and root density of the greens, we are now able to do this with no adverse effects to the greens as a whole.

We are now on the build up to the Ladies County Championships with 4 weeks to go. There isn’t much more we have planned to do as I feel the course is close to its best everyday for the members, which is what we set out to do.