The Toro Student Greenkeeper of the year!!

For those of you who didn't yet know I felt this blog was essential to write. 

We as a club have had many successes over the years both on and off the course. I believe staff development is something we wanted to address when I first joined the club and one that has been fully supported by Adrian, the Greens Commitee and Board. 

We wanted to be known as a Greenkeeping training club. One which develops its staff to the highest level. This in turn will attract greenkeepers in the future who want to develop and ones who are passionate about their careers. 

The staff we have in our greenshed are every bit that. There have been awards, personal achievements, specialist training in certain areas not only to develop them but to add value to the club budgets. I am very proud of the team we have and this year that pride went to a whole new level. 

Kevin O'Neill our deputy, (someone who has played a major role in the above) was firstly awarded a scholarship towards his training, then completed his college course in record time and to such a high quality that the college lecturer Andy Wight told me he "had never seen work so good" (I would also like to add that work on the notes on the college website are already from our very own Lee Brady). 

Kev was then nominated by the college for the Regional Finals. This award is one of the highest you can achieve in Greenkeeping as a student, if not the highest. Former winners have included Murray Long at Sunningdale and Euan Grant from Turnberry. Kev being nominated meant he was already the best out of the 150 students at Oaklands!

The regional interviews took place in Hemel Hempstead. This was an interview based round. Kev was nervous but enjoyed this and a week later received the letter saying he won and was in the National Final. A first in Muswell Hills history. 

The National finial comprised of six greenkeepers from all over the United Kingdom Including guys from Purdis Heath and St Andrews to name a few. They spent two days at BIGGA (greenkeepers HQ), they had open discussions on Greenkeeping 'hot' topics and then a interview with a PowerPoint presentation ( kev gave a practice run to our staff before leaving and I must say it was superb). This was followed by an essay. There was some socialising in the evenings to help lighten the mood and the winner was announced on the Tuesday evening.

The winner is normally announced around 5pm ish. I found myself staring at my phone for what felt like hours waiting for Kev to let me know his fate!! 

Then a text came through saying "And the winner is ....me!"

HE WON!!!!!!!! Legend!! 

Pictures started to appear on social media within minutes and then he called for a quick chat. He was very humble but he deserved this for such a long time and I m so happy for him.  

Kev will head to America next year for a six-week study course at the University of Massachusetts and will also visit the Golf Industry Show in San Antonio all courtesy of Toro. He will also get the chance to explore Toro’s Californian base. This year's final had a celebratory air as a special event was held to mark 25 years of the competition.

That day I received over 100 e mails plus texts and tweets with a lot more since to congratulate kev from greenkeepers all over the country, just showing how big this award is! 

Following the final the finalists, judges and BIGGA Commitee went out for a celebratory meal but for 'our Kev' it all seemed to catch up on him :-)

Kev will leave us for the states in January and return back in March. This may leave us short staffed but it's a once in a lifetime achievement and we support him all the way (we could be under snow at that point, let's hope not). He will return with new ideas and I am looking forward to hearing these and seeing how we can implement some. 

In the coming months many magazines will do articles. I will place these in the clubhouse. 

Below is the link to the press realase :-

 http://www.bigga.org.uk/about-us/news/kevin-oneillhe-year-2014/00595.html

To finish I would just like to say, congratulations Kev, enjoy it and I told you... Class is permanent! 

Matt 

Willow damaged during storm

Update

One of our Willow trees on the 8th has been removed for safety reasons. 

On Monday the 18th August we had a thunder storm resulting with damage being caused to the Willow to the left of the 8th. It was thought that a large limb had come down due to the high winds. On closer inspection the tree had been hit by lightning as there was a cork screw shape crack through the entire main trunk. We asked Chris Hill from Woodland Trees (certified Arbor.A) to inspect the tree. Chris reported that he felt the tree was unsafe as it was top heavy and wouldn't survive high winds. The greens Commitee made the decision to remove it safely before it fell. The tree was due to be removed as part of the five year plan but it has been carried out earlier in the schedule than first thought due to Mother Nature. The tree has now been removed and the area will be repaired. 

 

Course Maintenance - The necessary evil

Course maintenance weeks are not the most appreciated weeks in the golfing calendar but without this work the decline in the green surfaces would be noticeable. This week we just completed our works and I just thought I would blog a quick update. For the greenstaff it’s been a busy week. They worked late to get the major works completed by Wednesday on the greens to help aid recovery but it has been worth it and the weather was kind(ish).

Greens

The work on the greens got completed the 20 mm tine(250mm depth) is the biggest tine we have used on the green to date. See picture below:

Aeration is so important for many reasons most I have mentioned previous blogs.

These will include decompaction, improved drainage, improved root development all leading the better putting surfaces. I know most people will say, they don't understand why we do it when the greens have been good... The only way they are good is because we carry the work out at the correct time. 

This is mainly to allow us to get more dressing in, which in turn will see the surfaces infiltration improve during the winter months and help dilute the thatch layer. We ended up putting 45- 50 tonnes of sand dressing down so far and will need to apply a couple more in the coming weeks to fill any holes and improve the levels. This was followed by dragging matting the sand in to the holes.

We then followed the verti drain with the Pro core with a 12mm tine going in over 100mm deep.

We then applied more sand to fill all holes up applyinganother application of sand at 20 tonnes.

 

 

This was then followed by a deep scarification and then cleared. The greens were then over seeded with bent grass species and fertiliser 4.3.4

 

We then gave the greens a light top dressing a brush and roll to help smooth them out.

 

The benefits

Above you can see how the sand has gone down the profile and the top view. Doing this yearly will and is having a great effect in the winter months.

This picture was taken (22/08/14). The greens will take around 10 days to recover (if we get the right temperatures) but the benefits out way the pain.  

Tees and Aprons

The tees and aprons have been solid tined with a pro core and the verti drain at 3 and 5 inches. They are very dry underneath so this will help to get water into the profile. The aprons were fertilised last week.

In the coming weeks:

Next week we will top dress, over seeded and fertilise the teesand aprons.

Surrounds – Solid tine to 4 inches and then scarify. After we will over seed any wear areas with rye grass and fertilise if required.

Fairways – It is intended to scarify fairways in September and clear them after due to the dry conditions.

Other news​

On Monday we had to suspend play and work due to thunder and lightning. We then carried on finishing the front greens (9, 1, and 3). On Tuesday morning we found a large limb had broken off the willow left of the 8th. I asked Chris Hill the tree surgeon come and take a look at the tree. He informed me the tree must have been hit by lightning or the storm as it was broken in cork screw fashion from the top down. This was one of the trees we had discussed to be removed as part of the design plans but I think mother nature may have beaten us to it!

I hope this update helps you understand what's been going on this last week. 

The traditional british summer...almost

Firstly I would like to apologise for lack of blog updates lately. The summer has been a very busy period for all of us at the club. I will endeavour to be back to my blogging self from now on. 

In this blog I will just give an overview of what's been happening lately out on the golf course. 

This summer we have seen an almost normal (if that still exists) summer. This has been a mix of lots of sunny days with high tempratures and high periods of rain. 

Interestingly we have had more thunderstorms this year than I can remember and with the thunder comes higher levels of nitrogen in the rain. Normally rain brings 0.25kg of Nitrogen per hectare per inch of rain but when it thunders this figure goes up to 1.25kg N per ha, per inch. This is a huge increase and what we see out on the golf course is new life, new growth! 

Below shows our growth rates so far this year. You will see how high it's been since June with the mix in the weather but we also started off out of the blocks.

This has meant a lot of cutting and applications of growth regulator to help keep the course in good condition. 

What still amazes me about London clay (our soil type) is just how quickly it dries out. We can go from this :

To having to do this within a few days

And we have even needed to get out early to try and keep some areas (the ones we can reach) alive with H2O. See below. 

From extreme heat to thundery showers has meant a lot of our time has either been spent adding water or repairing rain damage. 

The story of our summer is nearly over. I can't believe finals day is this weekend. It's been one of many highs and great things achieved. The South England ladies county, county matches, winning club teams, successful tournaments, swing for sammy making over £100,000! increased membership, staff success and improved playing surfaces. I can't wait for the next summer to come as we have alot of work planned in between. This work will build on this year and raise the bar again.  

I will be blogging some more to catch up over the coming days.

Matt 

South England County's week

We had the pleasure of hosting the South of England County's week for the ladies from the 9th-13th of June. 

The tournament is held between 5 different countys. All playing 36 holes a day match play apart from the one rest day respectfully.

This was a great way for the club to show what a great club it is. The members who volunteered by welcoming, ball spotting and running the halfway house for all the county's top players was fantastic to see. 

The welcome they got in the clubhouse and the catering was great and well recieved, with lots of comments about how friendly the club is. The guys in the pro shop ran the range like true professionals. Even managing to clear the practice balls before we needed to cut in the afternoons between play. 

The greenkeepers story

We, the greenstaff loved hosting a tournament week. An England golf tournament is always something to get excited about. 

It also gave us something to work towards right from the beginning of the year. At that point we planned the fertiliser applications as best we could all the way back to the start of the season to make sure growth rates were not exaggerated during the week of the competition. We also planned to finish jobs off around the course and not take to much extra work on so as not to have works half finished around the course. 

We wanted to show the course in good condition and something the members could be proud of. 

The greenstaff started off by working extra hours in the weeks running up to the competition to get on top of the course going into the week. One thing we have to plan for is that no detail work using equipment like strimmers or flymos as the noise is very loud to be used during these events. 

All the staff came in for a full course set up on Sunday night. We were joined by Andy Hart a greenkeeper from Old Fold Manor GC, who volunteered to help us as we were one man short of being able to get the course fully cut. I would like to thank him for his help. It was appreciated. 

The rest of the week by doing split shifts of work. 

In the mornings we cut and rolled (ironed) greens

We adjusted the amounts of cuts daily depending on the green speeds to try and keep them consistent. 

We changed holes daily. This was done daily mainly so the team with the rest day would not be at a disadvantage against the teams that played the day before. Daily pin charts were produced. 

The bunkers were raked daily

We also divoted the tees daily and cut aprons

One issue we did have to deal with was the pollen from the poplar trees on the greens needed to be cleared constantly as finding your ball on the green could have been an issue :-) 

In the afternoon we cut and rolled the greens (again) and got the course cut.

We had some tournament support machines in (FOC) for the week from Toro. They were good enough to lend us a fairway mower (quicker than our second one) and rough mower. This allowed us to get the fairways and rough cut in record time along with our machinery for tees, semi rough, surrounds and tee banks.

The course presentation stayed high all week with the extra mowers! 

We also spent time keeping the moisture levels correct by hand watering areas that required that little but extra

We even let Adam Clark our new greenkeeper (who's not a bad golfer) have a putt ;-) just to give us his point of view (along with David Wilton the clubs pro). 

And finally here's a picture of the team, who worked so hard, I was very proud by the level of professionalism and dedication they showed during the week. It was great being part of something different and something the club could be proud of. 

Just an insight to our week. 

Matt