Vandalism

 

VANDALISM

 



Unfortunately last Monday evening we had a bout of vandalism where a motorbike was driven over four of the greens. The 3rd, 13th, 14th and 5th greens were affected. Luckily in a way only one of the greens was badly damaged with the other three only needing soil and seed and some forking to repair it.

 

5TH GREEN



 

 

 

 

The 5th green however was more widely damaged and has needed the damaged turf to be lifted and replaced. I decided to replace it with turf from the green surround at the back as this turf is the same species and should knit in much better than new bought turf.

 

 

TYRE DAMAGE CLOSE UP

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

The turf which has been relaid has been topdressed and washed in. We will try and keep it as level as possible with regular dressings. Hopefully it will settle in as soon as possible.

 



14th Drainage

14th Hole

 

Drainage on the 14th

 

We have finally been able to install drainage to the par 3 14th hole. We have used a contractor to dig trenches at 5m spacings and then pipe and stone was installed to go into the ditch which runs the length of the hole.

 

 

Pipe installation

 

An example of some of the boulders we pulled out.



 

 

We have also taken the opportunity at the same time to put another trench at the side of the green and level the surround. This area has new turf laid.

14th Greenside trench.

 

Once the pipe was installed and the gravel laid on top, we filled the trench with a sandy soil mix. A final soil and seed mix will be added to finish off the lines. The area near the green will be levelled and returfed.

 

The lines will remain GUR until further notice. More pictures to follow.



 

Himalayan Balsam

This link is a report carried out by Deputy Head Tony Wainwright with regard to the Himalayan Balsam issue at the club.

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/vi0pfvw5d4l1g8g/Himalayan%20Balsam%202013.docx

Work on fairways

We have started some renovation work on the fairways by scarifying and collecting the debris. Half of the fairways have been completed so far. Over the autumn period the fairways will also be vertidrained to the maximum possible depth and the slitter will also be used to help aerate and make improvements to their drainage capability.

Scarifying reels used on fairways

 

The scarifying machine is a three unit tractor mounted one which is fully adjustable to reach the required depth. As our fairways are very thatchy it was necessary to not go too deep as there is hardly any root depth. Further aeration will help to increase this.

 

Contractor collecting debris

 



Ten tons of thatch debris taken off fairways 3 and 6

Much more work is required to bring the fairways back to a satisfactory condition but with increased aeration through spiking and slitting they will continue to improve.



Work on tees

There has been quite a lot of work carried out on the tees in the last month to improve their playability. After the arrival of the Procore aerator the tees were all spiked using 1/2 in tines.

Procore spiking on the 12th tee

 

After the tees were spiked the worst bare areas were then heavily topdressed and overseeded with fescue.

 



Seed and Topdressing Levelled out



 

 

 

7th tee

Fertiliser was added to encourage growth and colour and with some favourable weather the tees now are looking a lot healthier. Aeration is the key to the tees' success and with the imminent purchase of a Vertidrain deep aerator they will improve further still. 

 

 





Greens Update- Irrigation

Irrigation

The greens are still growing well during this hot spell but unfortunately the irrigation system has let us down on a number of occasions. The way the system is configured means that the course is split into several sections. There has been an electrical wiring fault on the system in the section which controls the greens at the bottom of the course, i.e 3,4,5,13,14 and 15.



18th Green Irrigation working well.

Due to this problem these greens have not received the amount of  nightly water required to keep them in prime condition. Typically four of these greens have had drainage work done in the past and the drain lines are clearly visible. This is due to the lines having sand underneath them rather than the original soil like the rest of the green.

As I type the system is not yet fixed but we have narrowed down the problem and we hope to have it sorted out as soon as possible. The seventh green has also been affected due to vandals prising open the secured irrigation box and ripping out the decoder. Until it is fixed those affected greens are being manually watered first thing every morning. Some of the original sprinklers on those greens have been replaced as they were very inefficient. Two sprinklers on the first green have also been replaced.

Talking of the first green,  the turf which was ordered a while ago is now available and should be delivered on Monday. The golf calendar is very busy over the next two weeks but we will do our best to put the turf down as quickly as possible. All the drain lines on the greens affected will be topdressed and we have bent seed available to put in small areas to encourage new growth.

On a brighter note the dry conditions have worked very favourably for the bent grass in the greens. It has really come on this year and can be clearly visible in patches on the greens. This is the favoured type of grass that we would want in our greens and with balanced nutrition at an optimum the bents have chance to succeed.

 

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.