Greens Drainage

So as we enter the month of October bathed in glorious sunshine, long may it continue, the main focus on the golf course will be the upcoming Green's drainage program.
We are installing drainage into 6 green's, a big undertaking for the club & the member's but I'd like to offer a brief explanation of why we are doing the work and the benefits we will gain from the works carried out.
Last year we experienced really difficult situations on both the 4th & 14th green's with loss of sward coverage and unable to play on them.
One of the main reasons is the underlying soil's at Muswell Hill Golf Club,  namely heavy clay soil. This means the soils become very quickly saturated & unable to drain. These situations lead to a lack of oxygen  in the soil which has an impact on the air pore space & nutrient availability for which the grass plants need to thrive.
This has contributed to the loss of grass coverage on the surfaces and unable to support play.
The drainage that will go into the greens will help move the water through the soil profile quicker that will in turn help provide a  better environment in which to grow desirable grass for the putting surfaces.
The installation of these Primary drains will also allow us to install Secondary drainage in the future and further improve the drainage efficiency of the greens.
In the past we have carried out drainage works on the 16th, 9th, 3rd & 6th holes and these greens now perform amongst the best across the golf course. By carrying out the works to these greens we will have 10 greens drained that will help us to offer better surfaces throughout the year.
We are working with contractors on these project's and are planning to have the drainage installed within 3 weeks of starting the work's. This is of course based on us having the weather on our side.!!!
After this it will be a case of micro managing the greens before they reopen for play.
Target greens will be in play whilst the works are carried out. We have worked on these surfaces to try & improve them whilst the greens are out of play and by doing the drainage works now it gives us the best chance of quicker recovery and to get the greens back into play.
I'll continue to update the blog whilst we carry out the works.

Enjoy the beginning of the lovely Autumn weather.