Storm week

Just thought I would share some of the images and talk about the clean up operation that has been going on out on the golf course this week. 

Arriving at the club on Monday morning knowing the weather forecast was predicting a storm, I knew we would be in for a rough day following the heavy over night rain (25mm). The winds at 6am were strong but not exceptional then between 6.30- 9 am the wind speed really picked up with gusts over 80mph. 

This caused a lot of damage to the trees. The main reason being the trees were still full of leaf and the ground conditions very wet following over 100mm of rain this month. 

On our first inspection the damage seemed to be just a couple of small limbs but as the day went on we found more and more damaged trees some had come down and others with dangerous hanging branches. 

Below are some of the photos

Split oak tree behind the 5th green

Poplar trees down (left of the 6th). Another one had to be felled as it was cracked all the way up (see picture below, rear tree).

Silver birches also suffered

And more oak damage

Once the storm had past the clean up operation started. Firstly we assessed the damage to the trees. 

We then prioritised the trees that needed to be made safe and down to ground level.

Followed by trees that needed climbing to cut the canopy's to make them safe.

 Then followed the large debris that needed chainsawing to be moved

 lastly the debris. 

We had help with the climbing and the more technical fells from the clubs trees surgeons 'Woodland Tree Surgery ltd'. I would like to thank them for there speedy response to help us get the course open. The rest of the chainsaw work and clearing was carried out in house. The greenstaff have worked tirelessly to get the course open and tidied up. I would like to thank them also. 

Below is a map of the course. The red areas mark where we lost trees and the yellow marks areas of bad debris.

Hopefully the weather will improve now, this will allow us to get back out cutting the course and we can get back to completing the construction work on the 3rd,4th and 5th tees.  

 

Bunkers

I m sorry it's been a while but things have  been very busy out on the course lately and I also held back from blogging as I had the greens forum in September and I wanted something to say and for the members to turn up :-) 

I wanted to talk about some of the challenges faced in the last year or even couple of months at the forum but will talk about them through our blog over the coming days. We will talk about what we are doing or have done to over come these and move on. 

The bunkers 

These are always a talking point at every club and we have a few issues to deal with ours. Some of the issues are down to the old style design, some Mother Nature and some animal with the odd golfer adding there bit now and then. The bunkers are the second highest maintenance drain on the greenstaffs man hours only behind the greens by a fraction.

This year we have re designed and modernised six new bunkers. I ve spoken about these before but when you compare how they have performed compared to the old ones, you can see why we need to move forward.

The bunkers this year have been receiving constant attention (like every year). 

Firstly we re shaped some if the bases, giving them a smooth finish so the ball would run back to the middle rather than sitting on old ledges. 

Next we topped up the sand levels in all the bunkers (see picture below). Did you know that the average bunker loses a ton of sand a year through play, wind blow, animal damage and in our case the clay soil cracking when dry allowing the sand to filter through like a sand timer! 

The bunkers were then given a good edge using edging irons. This is very time consuming but gives a fantastic finish. 

During the playing season the bunkers are edged with strimmers.

This is then spread evenly around the bunkers, keeping consistent levels.

Then just when we think the bunkers are looking ok this normally happens. Heavy rain which washes the sands off the banks. This also exposes the stones that maybe along the edges (this does not happen on the new bunkers as the revetted face doesn't allow this to happen).

Following heavy rain, we renovate the sand up and move it again back onto the faces and other low areas.

Now a quick look at the everyday set up of the bunkers - stones and weeds are removed as the bunkers get raked.

The sand depths are also checked.

Fox damage is repaired when required

The sand levels are again checked normally moving from the backs if the bunkers as golfers tend to only pull the rake. This causes more sand to build up along the back edge (this happens at every golf club in the world :-) 

We also repair foot prints from golfers who show no respect to other golfers.

So I ve given you a quick guide to the everyday work that goes into the bunkers. 

So what else are we doing with them? 

For example on the new bunkers we are trailing flat raking the edges. This leaves them smooth around the edge meaning the ball should run back into the middle and firming up the edges at the same time. We have also noted that doing this we have had less wash out following heavy rain. 

  So why does there seem to be less sand in the bunkers in the summer?

Particularly this summer as the sands dry out the texture of the sand gets very flat but following rain the sand levels rise. 

This is caused by the moisture mixing with the different particles that make up the sand ( if you imagine flour v flour and water). The picture below shows the same amounts of sand on paper. The levels are different but the only ingredient is water. Some of the big clubs are now adding missters to there bunkers to add water every night to improve consistency. 

  

I hope this helps to explain some of the challenges that we face daily with our bunkers. If you wish to ask me any questions please feel free to ask me when you see me around the course.

Many thanks 

Matt

New signs

As part our continuing course improvement plans we have now started to add some great course furniture. This new equipment will help to improve the look, speed of play, lower maintenance  and make it more enjoyable to play the course!

Over the last couple of years we  have replaced the bins, added clocks around the course, scoops to get the balls out of the ditches, new divot boxes, new 1st tee sign and finger post, new 150 posts ,

new logo flags, new rakes and NOW to help visitors and guests find there way around the golf course, we have NEW SIGNS!!!

These new signs look great.

The first few signs are out on the course now and the rest will be done over the coming couple of weeks. 

Just a quick update on our new signs!

Thanks

Matt 

Bat Survey

The subject of bats may give you shivers but they are an essential part of the wildlife not only on the course but for London. Over the last couple of weeks there have been bat boxes in some of the trees around the course ( see above). These are not bat boxes as we would know them. They are not areas for the bats to nest or are boxes full of feeding bats. These boxes hide a much more technical way of tracking bats in the wild. 

Inside each of the boxes spread around the course was a instrument to find out how many bats we have? and what different species we have? This bat survey or nocturnal survey was carried out by the London ecology team as they try to build a picture of bat life across London. 

This works by recording frequency at certain times of night and again at dawn. Different bat species all talk to each other at different frequency's and the machine can record all of them. Then after a few days they take away the machine and plug it into the computer and it will tell them how many bats were talking at each frequency. From this they can determine the numbers. 

I can tell you that there are 18 different bat species in the U.K. With six types being reported. They are :-

•Common pipistrelle

• Soprano pipistrelle

• Nathusius pipistrelle (rare)

• Daubenton's

• Natterer's 

• Noctule

And lastly, did you ever wonder why you see bats around your gardens during the summer evenings, while your sat outside with a cold drink? The answer is bats eat Moths & Moths are attracted to the lights in the houses. They are just popping round for dinner...

Just a quick blog about bats. 

Thanks 

Matt 

Thundery end to July!

Another very busy period on the golf course. The high temperatures and low rainfall has been met with thunder storms and down pours. The much needed rain has helped the areas without irrigation to recover well. 

Interestingly the rain that fell during the thunder storms contained about 0.6kg of Nitrogen per hectare ( this is normal with thunder), with the rain falling at a pH of between 6.3 and 6.5, this then created a slight growth flush. It some ways this was welcome as it helped areas to recover but some of you would have noticed as the growth on greens from morning to evening was noticeable. We then re-applied our growth regulators to greens, tees, aprons and surrounds. This should help us maintain better growth rates over the coming weeks.

The greenstaff have worked tirelessly over the last month with over 60 hours of extra work each being carried out in July. 

I have so much to talk about this blog but I will try to keep it brief :-)

Some of you may have noticed the odd looking shoots of grass in certain areas of the course. This is the Perennial Ryegrass or Lolium Perenne as its also known. This grass species has spikelets (see photo above) from May to November that can grow between 4-40 cm. Each spikelet can produce upto 14 seeds. This is a short lived problem, we have spent many hours cutting these with strimmers to heights that we can then mow. (These tend to be hard to mow especially with cylinder mowers as the rollers on the front of the units make the shoots lay down so they are not cut and then the rear roller moves off the shoot and it springs back up again!)

Other works have included- flailing down the long roughs or brambles in amongst the trees to help the players find there ball. We thank Oliver's for our demo machine.

Clearing these areas also allows us to re claim some of the land the woodlands have/are slowy taking by encroaching year after year.

The new bins have been concreted out on the golf course. These will hopefully keep the course a bit tidier during high winds as these don't have have holes in the bottom:-) 

The new academy markers were painted and put out the course. The academy tees have now been fertilised but our hands are in the luck of the gods regarding water as these are not fitted with irrigation yet. We will be working on these over the winter to raise the standards for next year.

We have also been busy cutting up broken branches and lifting the tree canopy's. Some of you may have noticed that some of the limbs have got lower under the weight of the leafs this year.

We have spent time lifting the branches away from the pathways to keep them clear for golfers.

All these jobs plus our normal daily cutting, machinery set ups and those dreaded bunkers, have kept us busy over the last few weeks. 

I will blog again soon as there is to much to put into one blog. I will spend a bit of time talking about the bunkers in the next blog. 

I ve been told the weather will be good again so 'enjoy your golf' in the next round of sunshine :-)

Matt 

Heat stress

Dealing with Heat stress on the turf plant is something we could have forgotten to do due to the last couple of 'summers' but its something that we have to deal with when it arrives. 

It's a bit like a golfers tan, no one wants to see those lines but you learn to deal with it and make the most of it by wearing outfits out at night showing your tanned (See below)! 

On the golf course it's no different, we try  to protect all the playing surfaces and use our irrigation system correctly and then try to show the golf course off as good as we can.

During June we only received 26mm of rain during the entire month, thats 50% down on average figures and 120mm less than last years wet June. The rain also only fell over 3 days. Ok, June was still cool with low evaporation rates but this still meant the grass plant finished the month very dry following the spring that never arrived.

At the end of June beginning of July the temperature rocketed up to the 30+ with night temperature still in the mid 20's. At this point we have only had 16 mm of rain in July and that was two thundery showers. this comes as no surprise as we were due a high pressure peak over us especially after all the low pressure troughs of the last couple of years.

Water and moisture management are so important during the kind of weather we have been experiencing. Too much surface moisture can bring disease, while not enough soil moisture will introduce drought stress on the plant.

Before the drought started we applied products like growth regulators to slow the plants metabolism down meaning less water would be required during this spell.  We also carried out sarel rolling up to three times a week (see picture below of the units) this basically just spikes the surface allowing the water to go past the thatch layer into the soil quicker.

To help us get a good balance and even penetration, we applied wetting agents as part of our monthly program. Wetting agents basically help the water penetrate into the soils and hold on within the soil structure. 

Another important job we do is to monitor our moisture readings and keep them around 30% but we raised this a little more during the intense heat to cope with the higher evaporation rates (these got to 5mm a day). 

Everyday we look at the evaporation rate v rainfall rate, look at the moisture levels v infiltration rates and then calculate how much water is required through our irrigation system. 

There are some areas on the greens that will always dry off quicker, drain lines, high spots, slopes, different soil make ups under the greens and high wear areas (walk on and off areas). In these areas moisture readings as low as 10% were recorded in these areas with areas next to it ok (see photo below)

To help combat this a lot of hand watering takes place all day and long into the night. This helps to replace the moisture deficit in the soil. 

Some people have said that using the irrigation system during the day 'is a waste of time' as the water evaporates.  This again depends on the watering you are doing. What are your requirements? Are you watering to penetrate the soil? If so don't water during the day using sprinklers as this will be lost and the sunrise and sunsets are best time to water. 

Hand watering hot spots to help moisture levels is fine during the day as you can inject alot of water to one area quickly but watering during the day to give a light spray using the irrigation, to cool the grass leaf tissue and to slow moisture loss can be a very good thing especially during some of the heat we have experienced. 

Other works vital to keeping the course alive are things like irrigation repairs, repairs to leaks, lifting pop ups and digging out any obstructions in the way of the sprinklers.

Now on to the outfield areas with no irrigation. 

The work to protect these areas starts the year before. Verti draining in the winter helps root development and allows moisture to penetrate deep into the soil structure. This can be held in the clay and be ready to be used during the summer months. 

Scarifying fairways in the autumn and spring to reduce the thatch layer, this help rain water to get to the soil quicker. Meaning more is available to help the plant. Wetting agents are sprayed during the spring and autumn to help penetration. 

And finally reducing the amount of cutting of these areas also helps, by keeping the plant longer meaning roots stay deeper and the plant will burn off slower. 

I hope this has given you a quick insight to what we do to help the course during these hot summer days to try and keep the course in good condition.