Greens Update and Staff News

 

The greens are coming on all the time although it has taken a much longer time than usual. It has been very frustrating but we are starting to see signs of the work put in earlier on.

Signs of roots reaching further into the profile after aeration.



After the cold spring and all the aeration work we did we were waiting for higher soil temperatures to kick start significant growth. We had fertilised but the ground was just too cold but now it has reached a temperature enabling it to create good growing conditions. We have fertilised again using the same 10 0 10 organic granular feed we used last time. More was used this time to try and make sure we got the most benefit of the hotter conditions.

Wear from golf around a hole one day after fertilising.

 

This fertiliser has well and truly kicked in now and we have lush growth. This does mean that we are taking plenty of grass off but the greens will be slow, especially in the afternoon. Also, having topdressed a couple of times recently, the blades on the cutting units have become blunt. This means that they do not cut as they should but rather rip the grass. This means the roll of the ball is seriously affected and the grass just stands back up, again slowing the ball down. The units are going away to be sharpened and have new bottom blades fitted which will enable a much better finish with a smoother, quicker surface.

 

The irrigation system has been used on a regular basis to keep the moisture levels required for a decent surface. However we did have a couple of issues with the irrigation system typically during a really hot spell. The water meter in the borehole had become silted up over the years which meant the amount of water being pumped back into the tank was insufficient. Therefore when the water had run out it meant the system wouldn't work. The meter has now been replaced and the flow of water is much better. We have also replaced three sprinklers on greens where they were broken which will improve efficiency.

 

The drain lines on the greens were the biggest casualty in the hot spell, especially on the first green. The right hand side of the green is extremely bad and additional wetting agent and extra watering has unfortunately not been able to solve the issue there. We will returf the worst areas with greens quality turf which has been ordered. However our supplier has also had problems with growth this year for similar reasons, i.e cold wet etc, and so they have suffered with the quality of their product. They have treated the turf and as soon as it is fit we will have ou delivery. I am searching for quicker alternatives of similar quality. The rest of the drain lines will be topdressed and overseeded with bent seed where required.

 

The area at the back of the first green was returfed in the winter because it was in such a wet poor state. This was mainly caused by the greens mower turning at the foot of the bank and causing extra stress on the turf there. Therefore we decided to decrease the the size of the green along the back edge and cut it as a full size fringe. This allows us to turn more freely and not cause as much wear. The back left area has not been cut as green for quite some time but unfortunately we never really got sufficient growth to show true definition. It has started to come on now and you can see the back edge cut of the green quite clearly.

 

The amount of staff has really curtailed what we can do on both the greens and all the little jobs needed to tidy up the course. We have only had three of us working on the course more or less since the beginning of April. However we have managed to source some quality staff to join us. Pat has already joined and has made an instant improvement to work standards and ethic, gladly working overtime. He has worked at Leyland GC and has gained lots of experience working on three different golf courses in the U.S. Monday sees the arrival of Tony who will take on the role of Deputy Head, a role he has successfully carried out for the last six years at Turton GC. We welcome them both and look forward to them helping improve the golf course standard. We will shortly have more staff news.