Full Steam Ahead Into The Winter!

Wow, its been a long time since my last post! Time really does fly along.
Let me get straight into what I need to write, because there is such a lot to talk about.  I hope members are reasonably happy with course conditions at the moment.

Greens

The greens are really starting to come into their own at the moment. They have a good strong colour and I am pleased to say, although I am touching wood! They are reasonably disease free! This is always a worry for greenkeepers at this time of year because we get very little, if any recovery at all which leads to unsightly scars over the ensuing months until we finally get good soil temperature in the spring which then aids recovery. If you bare in mind we didn't have decent soil temperatures until June this year you should begin to see how important disease management is at this time of year. We shall continue to monitor the greens over the Christmas period and then begin to feed the soil early with a slow, temperature released granular fertiliser which should help the greens to get into the warmer spring days. That's the idea anyway!!!
So hopefully no more of this:

A picture of the 12th green with old fusarium scars during April

And much more of this:

18th Green during October

Tees

One of my remits since taking this job on was to improve the tees over the coming years. I thought about the management of them, and have changed the fertiliser schedule to suit,  we have also been hand cutting them all year which has drastically improved presentation. We have regularly (every 2 days) moved the markers and fully divoted them throughout the season, we have also changed the type of soil and seed that we put down which has proven to recover much quicker than in previous years. We have been very regimental in how far apart we put the tee markers, this is because we can keep the wear concentrated in one single spot on the tee so it is easier and quicker for staff to divot-move markers-and then move on to the next tee. I think this has worked well so we will be implementing this approach next year. 

The new teeing system, where anyone can use any tee has gone down extremely well this year, and has proved my thoughts in that it has actually helped to spread the wear over the yellows and whites with no detrimental effect whatsoever to when you play your medals. So this will be implemented again next year. We do however have some thought to put into the way you play your knockout competitions and I will be putting some ideas to Committee before the competitions start in 2014.

I know I did say in my report at the AGM that I will be trying to keep you on the proper tees all year round, but I must say they are beginning to take a bit of a battering. I shall continue to monitor this damage, and as soon as I think we are damaging the tees for next season, they will be taken off. We are obviously a very busy golf course during the winter months as well as the summer. Which again leads me to believe that this course must be presented at its best ALL THE WAY through the year to give members better VALUE FOR MONEY!

Leaves

By eck they took a while to come down!! With the seasons being a little late this year the leaves have hung around for a little while longer, and after last weeks wind it made everywhere look very messy. After what seems like ages we are finally managing to win the battle. I know its not great when you lose your balls in leaves but please bare in mind that we are a parkland golf course, and we are in Autumn! 

Bunkers

We will continue to empty the sand from the worst bunkers throught the winter. These will then be GUR until we get some sand back into them. This, as I have said in a previous blog posts, is an ongoing project, and will take a while to complete all bunkers.

Trees

Lots of work will be going on with trees very shortly. We have already started in the little woodland next to the 14th tee. I wasnt going to start here, but we have been forced to because the very high winds last Thursday blew a number of trees down in this area. After closer inspection the whole area needs to be sorted out as alot of these trees are in bad shape. They are either dead, or dying. I have deemed this area dangerous and the team are thinning the dead ones out as I write this report. There are a lot of trees that need to be sorted so expect to see a fair change up there the next time you play! On the plus side, we are going to thin them out in such a way that we can get the rough mower in there, and keep on top of the god awful Himalayan Balsam so it should look a lot prettier as you walk up to the 14th tee too.

Flood on 12th

The problem at the 12th is now getting worse as it seems the main land drain has blocked which is not allowing the flooding to disperse. We are currently looking into the best and cheapest! way to remedy this.

Golf Shoes

During the winter I would recommend using metal spikes. As the surfaces become softer and wetter soft spikes do not seem to be up to the job, especially on our astroturf paths. Also, and this is becoming a MASSIVE discussion point between greenkeepers! is the amount of damage to fine turf surfaces such as greens and tees the new 'Adidas Zero Tour' golf shoe is making. I dont want to get into the whole 'should we ban them, shouldn't we ban them' arguement, I would however kindly ask that if you care about your golf course could you please seek other alternatives especially for these upcoming winter months.

Please read more here and here

STRI Report

We have had our 3rd visit from the STRI and I think its safe to say that our agronomist is pleased with our progress, we are getting closer and closer to our organic matter target levels on the greens and plenty more of the same work should continue to improve them. A copy of the report will be put onto the website soon.

I think thats enough from me for now. I will try my best to blog a little more often. Please feel free to ask your questions or comment on this post by using the comments box below.

Leigh