Captains Qualifier week

Normally looking at the diary to see the words 'Captains qualifier' brings great joy as you know the golf season is getting underway. This year however, I had a look of disbelief, 'How can the weather patterns still be all over the place at the end of April'? I asked myself.

The temperatures have been great during the day but very low at night, holding back the growth. (See the image below which shows the temperatures for the week a head and you will see the night temps drop.) I really thought spring had started but we are still getting frosts (see photo from Sunday morning). The trees have only just started to bloom this week but this is a good sign. We know the optimum date for growth is always the 19th May and has been for many years but at least we are getting something.

This week our main aims were to work on the greens and improve smoothness, scarify fairways, carry out woodland work on the 14th so the new bunker can be seen better, bring in all winter ropes, cut the new bunker banks, drain the practice bunker, edge bunkers, compact the new bunkers, give the course it's first summer season cut, lower the greens height again and get the new and refurbished course furniture out for the Captains. All of these were achieved but more work is required to compact the bunkers a touch more before we open them up.

The greens were sarel rolled ( vented to 2 inches), deep Verti- cut, cut, top dressed using around 8 tonnes of dressing and brushed in. These were also ironed along with lowering the height of cut to help smooth the surfaces up ready for the weekend.

The fairways and for the first time the semi rough were scarified straight up and down and debris blown from these areas. This is labour intensive, it takes two guys 4 days to complete but it really will help the playing surfaces and now we can weed, feed, soil and seed them to improve the coverage.

The ropes and pins were removed from the course and the new bunkers got there first cut. Another interesting task was to water (flood) the new bunkers to help compact the new sand. This really did seem to work and will be done again.

We were able to cut the course and get the white markers out along with the rest of the refurbished markers, new hole cups (metal) and new flags that are brighter (easier to see) and fly better (to show wind direction).

Lastly, one funny thing that did happen this week was the run away trolley at the the 7th. This ended up ( power caddie, clubs and everything) in the ditch near the tee. I can hear you say that's not funny and it's not but while Kev our deputy was trying to fish the clubs out if the water the words 'a bear is coming for you Kev' were heard. Then like a flash the lady Captains dog 'Oscar' arrived trying to save Kev because he thought he was in trouble, this scaring the wits out if Kev. It was a comical moment (Please see photo below)!!

I think spring may have arrived!

I don't want to tempt fate but I think Spring might have arrived? The temperatures are up with sunshine and showers meaning things are starting to grow (I m smiling as I write this).

This week we were very busy on the course. The greens height of cut was lowered towards our summer height but not all the way as frosts were expected over the weekend (and arrived on sat morning). We also groomed the surfaces to help smooth them out. From next week we will start top dressing greens more frequently.

All the playing surfaces were fertilised plus the start of the daily cutting.
Work on the new bunkers got under way, this included fly mowing and edging. We also sprayed the bases off with a total weed killer to stop grass contaminating the bases ahead of the sand being applied ( you may have seen the blue lines in the bunker bases indicating the areas sprayed).
The sand has been added to the new bunkers but these will be left for a couple of weeks to bed in before we open them up. We ended up having to add extra drainage into the 3rd bunker and will now wait for the area to dry before finishing off the sanding.
We cut the new collars out for the first time, so now we are starting to see the shapes of the new surrounds and they look great.

Turfing of the drainage areas has been again on going this week. We have turf cut areas out, shaped with soil, added seaweed and zeolite to help root development/moisture retention and then turfed. The main areas turfed this week were the right of the 2nd green and left of the 3rd.

In other areas of the course, we worked on clearing scrub and debris following the high winds. The surrounds were scarified and cleared. We will start to scarify fairways over the next two weeks. This will be followed with a weed and feed. Once all these are complete we will be asking for help to divot the fairways at the Divot comp on the 6th May.

Another busy week completed by the greenstaff but there is still a lot to do over the coming weeks as the season gets going... AT LAST!!!

It's that time again...

The good news is we are coming out of the winter dormancy but the bad news is as the soil temperatures slowly raise we can end up with greens that are slightly bumpy at times.

This is caused by our grass species. Our greens are made up of a Poa annua and Bent mixture. These two grass are very different but they can produce great greens.

One of the differences is the temperature at which they both start to grow. As the Bent grass starts to grow as soil the temperature reaches 6-8 it gets a head start over the Poa. The Poa will sit dormant until temperatures are higher, plus it requires higher levels of moisture.

We have already applied fertilisers but over the next couple of weeks we will lower the height of cut, top dress, brush, groom and Verti cut the greens to smooth this out. We will also apply a lawn sand to darken up the greens, hopefully this will help the soil temperatures raise up quicker!

If you look at the photo below you will see the Bent grasses (dark green) and the Poa (which is more yellowish). This photo was taken in the rough as this exaggerates the height differences but you will get the idea of while a ball bobbles or chatters while we wait for the temperatures to increase. This issue only lasts a few days and then we will be up and running for the year ahead.

The Masters week

The legendary singer Paula Abdul once sang 'I take-2 steps forward,I take-2 steps back' and this basically sums up this week!

The beginning of the week the course was drying out nicely, we managed to cut the entire golf course including the rough. By Wednesday it was starting to feel a bit like spring was in the air with mowers on the course and soil temperatures up to 7 degrees meaning the grass has started to grow. The course looked so much better for the cut but not quite like Augusta just yet, sometimes I wish I had their 150 greenstaff and warm weather though!

Towards the end of the week the rain came and soaked us once again bringing 20mm in 24 hours but I saw this as good news, the fertilisers we had put out on the course required a touch of rain to bring them to life and finally get the course growing following A LONG WINTER.

Also this week we had our first visit from our Agronomist Phillip Armitage. Philip works for the European Turf Specialists.
The Agronomist's job is to come to the course and take readings and samples from the greens and other playing surfaces to improve our data to aid future works. He discusses what we have been doing to the course, plans for the future and gives his advice.
The visit was very positive, Phillip was impressed with the amount of work carried out to the course considering the winter we have had. We also collected data from the greens including moisture, smoothness, firmness, compaction, light, height of cuts and cut quality. We also took samples from the soil and checked thatch levels.

All of the results were good, it was evident the amount of sand in the soil profile has improved. This means we are slowly moving away from the clay bases. After our discussions it was agreed to carry on with our maintenance plans that we have for our greens this year with a slight change to the amount of scarification required as our levels of thatch are under control.

Other works during the week- We applied fertilisers to the tees and liquid fertilisers to greens and surrounds. Sprayed the bases of the new bunkers. We also repaired bridges, re turfed the drain line at the 2nd and spotted loads of toads in the ditch crossing the 11th. So be aware it's not just your golf balls in there!!!

I hope you all enjoy the Masters and the warmer conditions over the weekend as this means the golf season has started, Yeeeesssssssss!

Please see the photos below

A cold Easter

The weather this year has been very strange with March being on average 13 degrees colder than it was in 2012. Easter was early and the same day as the clocks changed for the British summer time bringing its four day weeks (a greenkeepers nightmare normally as the grass doesn't stop growing).
With March being cold we hoped for a warm beginning to April but this hasn't happened so far especially last week when we had snow and frosts again!
I can hear you saying whats this got to do with greenkeeping? The cold is a problem for us as we are getting little or no recovery to areas due to the lack of soil temperature (1-2), meaning lack of growth. This also stops us from putting our fertilisers out, it even stops us from spraying the bases of the new bunkers so we can put the sand in them or put seed out in the worn areas ,this could sit there and become rotten or bird food.
All this means on some jobs we are behind.
The good news is the weather has been cold but sunny so golf can be played and the course has started to dry out nicely and for us, with little growth we have been able to work on other areas including pathways. These have been edged and topped up ready for the new season. A great effort from the team, I thank them for that and we will aim to finish them all ASAP.
I will finish by saying enjoy your golf in the afternoons now we have the extra light and let's hope for some warmth!