Captains Cross Country plus a few days

Sorry I have not blogged for over a week but things are getting pretty busy on all fronts. I will try and give a quick recap of the last week or so. 

Last week was the captains cross country tournament. This is great fun, the course was set up all over the place, with holes like the 13th tee to 6th green and to make things even better teeing off out of bunkers and playing to some dodgy pins (that I wish I could use for a medal!!!)

Here's the flag on the bank on the front of the 7th green. 

And the 16th was interesting to...

The morning of the cross country we had over 1/2 inch of rain meaning the course was wet when we arrived but the guys worked hard, pumping, moving water and reinstating the bunkers. 

Above 18th green when we arrived. Below 18th two hours later.

Another process that I feel I should mention as its not really seen by the golfers but we are carrying out up to four times a week is 'Rolling' or 'Vibe rolling' or 'Ironing'. All of these mean the same thing. This process means we roll the greens with vibrating rollers or irons. this smooths the green making them putt truer, it also increases speed and can help reduce disease pressure and seed head numbers (that's something I have just been reading about from the states). 

We are vibe rolling a lot, especially now we are in the summer months. This is carried out behind the greens mower and normally takes around 3 hours to do but it is worth the extra man hours.

The one down side to rolling is compaction but as part of our plan, we will test the greens using a compaction metre and aerate them when required. Sometimes this will be just a little venting using sarel rollers once a week. 

Above is a photo of Kris out vibe rolling greens.

Other works have also been getting carried out including some major divotting on the tees. This will help keep better coverage on our small tees and the pigeons fed! Please see photo below as the pigeons love to steel some of our seed. 

We have also been adding more soil and seed to the last few areas damaged during the winter 

The greens have also been Verti cut and top dressed. See below a picture of the dressing on the 1st.

And then brushed in ( see photo 12th green)

The bunkers have been edged again

The Willow trees and other trees have been getting lifted around the course to improve the look and air flow across the course.

The willow hair cuts have been carried out by Martin and Norbert but we could always use Llamas in the future (please see photo below, sorry, I saw this at a farm outing and nearly hired him and had to put on the blog...brilliant)

Lifting the trees behind the 7th green / 8th tee.

And the lower suckers have also been removed. 

This task would normally be carried out by Mother Nature i.e. rabbits or deer eating the lower leaves and suckers but due to the location of the course with no deer or rabbit life this job falls to the greenstaff to keep the trees in a healthy state. 

I m sure your all playing a bit more at the moment but I must say I m excited as the  best weather is still to come... I hope:)

Thanks 

Matt

The Senior Club Championship Part 2

Like I have said in the previous blogs. Please see below some of the pictures from the weekend. I can feel the summer is coming at last and we have the best months of golf a head of us.

15th

11th

Putting green

Shadows on the 10th green

The new bunkers on the 4th look fantastic and have settle in, giving that natural modern look. 

The bunker at 14th is tough but what an improvement. This and the surrounding area, have settled into the course and not only improved the visual look but the playing performance. 

And finally a thank you as none of these improvements would have been possible without the memberships support and finance. 

Thank you 

The Senior Club Championship week

I thought I would just upload some pictures from the week we have just had, rather than me going on and on again:)

At the beginning of the week the hedges around the clubhouse got a little trim.

The long rough areas got cut down (finally), this machine is not as good as our and it did take a couple of cuts to get this down ready for a little bit of summer growth.

We sprayed for weeds in the roughs and paid attention to pick up all the little areas the sprayer could get to before. The reason we waited to spray the weeds in the roughs was because this was a weed and feed. I didn't want to feed the roughs while we were having trouble with the mowers. 

Some of the areas sprayed worked rather  quickly! 

Irrigation leaks around the course were also fixed. 

And a broken bridge was repaired with new sleepers and covered over before play even started (17th). 

Machinery Maintenance

Another very busy week for the greenstaff with more and more man hours going into cutting for example the greens are being cut at least 10 times a week at the moment and vibe rolled to improve smoothness. 

I wanted to blog about some important jobs carried out regularly that would not get seen by the players (until the end product). One of them is the amount of work that goes into setting machines up. 

The machines are checked over daily and put on cut, after they have been used we wash them down and re fuel ready for the next morning.

Every so often the cutting units on the machines need to be re ground with our grinders. The greens mower get the most re grinds and new bottom blades as both of these make a big difference to the playing surfaces. A sharp machine cuts cleaner, gets less disease, lasts longer and putts smoother and quicker (if required). 

Above the cylinder gets a re grind on our greens mower.

Above you can see the grinding stone making contact with the cylinder.

Once the units have had new bottom blades or old one sharpened plus a re grind of the cylinder we check the heights of cut. 

We use an accu gage bar to set the height of cut to the exact same height for each unit digitally. This is referred to as the 'bench setting' and this can be different slightly from the actual height of cut that occurs when mowing.

We then constantly check the heights of cut using a Prism gage (see above). This tool gives us the actual height of cut on the greens and from this we may need to adjust the bench height accordingly to get our optimum level. Another check carried out is the 'quality of cut' using a macroscope. This tool is used to evaluate how cleanly the greensmowers are cutting the turf. So we can adjust them or re grind them for the best possible cut.

Just a little glimpse about the set ups of the machines before they go on the golf course to do there work. 

Practice area divots

Just a little update on practice divots and how to get quicker recovery to areas. 

To maximise the use of the grass on the practice tee or short game area, please place your ball at the grassy back edge of your previous divot, removing just a small portion of grass with each swing.

Why?

(Left) Concentrating divots in one area is arguably the worst practice method because it creates large voids requiring the most time for turf recovery. (Right) Scattering divots is a popular practice habit that is frequently taught because it does not create large voids in the turf that are slow to recover, but it removes the most turf in total because a full divot is taken with every shot.

How to improve it!

STEP 1 (left) – Practice in a linear pattern by placing each new shot directly behind the previous divot. STEP 2 (right) — Leave a strip of live turf at least 4 inches wide between each line of divots. This keeps divots narrow so that lateral growth of turfgrass from both sides of the divot will lead to rapid recovery, and it also protects seedlings from desiccation and mower injury.

(All information from the USGA website)

A tough US Open

I am writing this quick blog while watching the final round at Merion for the US Open. The course looks fantastic and is playing very, very tough. I m still not sure about those wicker baskets?

 Here is a link if you wish to know more about them. http://www.usopen.com/en_US/news/articles/2013-06-10/201306101370886156484.html

The course is so tough Graeme McDowell just tweeted -

'The truck carrying the red numbers for the scoreboards was just seen leaving the car park at Merion. See you at Pinehurst lads!'  

This tweet made me laugh out loud but also made me think about everyone who played this weekend in the high winds, that was also tough. It's nice to see these top players looking like we do week in, week out. 

The green speeds at Merion have been around 12ft this week. 

The US Tour has obviously decided to test the players. The European tour on the other hand request green speeds of 10.5ft for there Tour events. Our greens were averaging between 10.6 - 10.8ft this weekend (The speed dropped a little bit first thing Sunday morning due to the heavy rain but once they dried out were back up there). Meaning we hit European Tour standards but not quite Merion.

Below is a picture of me stimping the greens on Saturday morning. (This is a great tool but acts only a guide to help the greenkeeper taylor their work schedule).

Don't worry, we won't be taking any ideas to make Muswell Hill harder ... until next Saturday for the captains cross country :) 

There is more to come in my next blog about our last week of work and some nice pictures taken on the course during the Senior Club Championship.

Poa Annua and seedheads

I thought I would do a little blog about one of our grass species Poa Annua. As some of you may know that the Poa Annua is predominantly an annual grass species (like the name suggests), but it does have perennial bio- type. At this time of year the Annual reptans seed prolifically (meaning the plant is setting   seed out for the next set of plants). 

Poa Annua does seed at low levels all year round but between May and June this increase is noticeable especially on putting green surfaces. Please see the graph below. These readings are based on a metre squared of a green.

This noticeable seed was the main reason that Wentworth rebuilt all the west course greens a couple of years ago as the greens where seeding during the tournament making hard to get green speeds and stop the ball snaking. A lot of  high profile clubs have done this but Poa is one of the toughest grass species and these clubs have to fight to keep this off their greens or plan to relay them every 7 years or so. 

Below is a picture of Poa seeds on a green. Please see the small yellow/white seeds.

The rest of us in the country (not including links courses) have to do our best to reduce the seed heads during this period. We at Muswell Hill have always tried to increase our Bent grass species in our greens so that there is less Poa around. Please note we are not trying to remove the Poa totally but just get a nice blend. We have been brushing,  Poa busting, verti cutting, top dressing, keeping an eye on moisture levels ( as high and low levels will increase seed productivity) and spraying chemicals to reduce the seed head numbers. I would also like to add that Poa/bent mixed greens still produce some of the best in the country, especially on courses with years of maintenance on them like Muswell Hill. 

Here is a picture of the seeds on longer areas of grass. This makes it easier to see.

The seed heads which started later than normal this year but are making up for it are well underway but I expect the seed head flush to continue for a couple of weeks especially with potentially dry weather in prospect. 

We will carry on working hard to reduce these over the coming weeks until this years seeds have gone and we can carry on with our great summer of golf ahead !

 

Spraying, topdressing and Irrigation!

This week the greenstaff concentrated on getting the course cut early in the week to allow us time to apply 'Primo' a growth retardant spray. This will help the plant to use its energy to thicken up the sward/ root systems and remain shorter for longer. We applied this product along with fertilisers to all fairways, tees, aprons, surrounds and around the trees and ditches (at higher rates). This should reduce the stress the plant is under during this dry period as well as regulating the growth allowing us more time to concentrate on other areas of the golf course.

We also Poa busted the greens on Wednesday. This acts like a groomer and helps remove some of the seed heads that are being produced by the Poa at the moment. This was then followed up with another top dressing we used around 6 tonnes of sand. This will help keep the surfaces smooth.

Above top dressing in action. Below a library picture of the Poa busters

The irrigation system has again been up and running at night due to the evaporation rates during the day. To help get the right amount of moisture we use several tools to help calculate the right amount is being applied. 

We use a moisture probe. This tells us how much moisture is in the soil. Anything below 25% means the plant will wilt, anything higher than 50% the plant is to wet and water is taking up air space in the soil particles. Our optimum level is around 30-35%.

We also look at evaporation rates. This is based on data from our weather station and weather apps but we will be adding evaporation readers soon. Below is a chart from May which shows evaporation rates. We use this plus our moisture probe to give a clear reading of how much moisture is being lost through evaporation.

We also then take into account the infiltration rates using an infiltration metre. This for example, this means I know applying an extra 4-5 mm on the sand based greens will be in soil at the right moisture content before the golfers play that green (hopefully). 

Above is an infiltration metre.

We are hoping by tweaking all the above data we can give more consistent greens but also give the plant what it requires.

Other works this week include, finishing the strimming around trees, edging and de-weeding bunkers. Spraying weeds in the hard to reach areas and tidying around the car park.

Below is picture of Lee spraying around the tree bases. This should keep the grasses and weed down. This should look better, it will speed up play as a golf will see his ball and mean the rough mower can move around with out getting to close to the tree.

The course was then fully cut at the end of the week along with all our normal jobs a head of a great weekend for the Presidents Prize.

US Open roughs

Some of you may have noticed that some of our 'Eco' roughs or long roughs have been a bit longer than normal!

We normally flail our Eco roughs at the end of the year and give the 'out of play' areas another cut in May. This normally leaves the roughs at a good length during the playing season. This allows a golfer to find there ball but also to act as nature corridors for wildlife and insects. Other 'in play' areas are cut weekly during the playing season with this mower also.

The reason we have been unable cut has been down to a machine breakdown. Our head gasket had gone and parts for this machine have been hard to come by. Mean while the rough keeps growing and I keep losing my golf balls! 

Here is picture of the zero turn going for repair

Here is the picture of our demo machine

Now we have a machine on site we will spend time next week getting all areas cut down and ready for the playing season and homes for all our wildlife including meadow grass hopper, bees, wasps, stag beetles and scarce silver lines.

Sorry for any inconvenience, we hadn't deliberately set the course up in a US Open style! 

Matt Plested