Winter weather disruption

As you can see from the chart below we have recently had some significant rainfall and stormy weather which has hindered what we have been able to achieve during this winter period so far.

We had planned to finish off some of the winter work in areas that had been started, such as the 1st and 14th holes. However, with all this rainfall flooding the golf course we have not been able to work on those areas for fear of causing further compaction and making more of a mess than is absolutely necessary.

 

 

Rather than the rainfall be fairly consistent, as you can see we have had three main rainfall timeframes all lasting approximately 9 days totalling 203mm. This has had a serious effect on ground conditions and playability. After a week or so of drying weather the heavens reopen and bring us back to square one. This has meant course closures and/or the use of temporary greens at times, but I’m sure now you can understand why.

 

 

 

As well as the rainfall, we have had significant damage from Storm Doris, which caused several pine trees to fall, split or lean to an extent that were deemed unsafe. These trees have been chopped up but, due to the ground conditions being what they are, we have left them in situ for a short period until we can remove them via trailer or chipper. Hopefully the rest of March is kinder to us so that we can continue our preparations ready for the new season ahead.

New Year

Firstly may I wish all the readers a very Happy New Year as we look forward to another busy year at Bolton Old Links Golf Club. We are always trying to maintain the golf course to its full potential regardless of the time of year and we are carrying on with our winter programme which is focussed mainly on repairing GUR areas around the course and installing extra drainage in other areas.

 

This work is ongoing and will continue during periods of decent weather. We have laid fresh turf in various areas to improve quality of presentation and grass species. The 11th fairway GUR areas have been dug up, levelled and returfed. Any decent turf that could be salvaged will be used in other areas so it is not wasted. It would be very beneficial if all golfers could keep off the newly laid turf areas so that it has the best chance possible to establish over the winter. Please take notice of the ropes and keep to the driest possible areas.

 

The majority of the drainage work carried out on the first hole has been soiled and turfed too. Further drainage work needs to be carried out to finish the whole area but the worst areas are now complete. Again, please try and spread your wear when playing the golf course.

 

The greens are holding up well in general over the winter so far with the weather remaining fairly settled. There certainly has not been the same amount of rainfall as this time last year. We are continuing to aerate the greens when we can either by spiking or slitting so that the surfaces can breathe and any root growth has the maximum amount of air possible to grow into.

 

We have been using the handmowers when needed to cut the greens which give a decent ball roll and increased presentation. We will continue to monitor the health of the greens during this cold period and if there is a need to give any a rest, this will take place for the benefit of the greens in the long run. Please do your best to repair a pitchmark on the greens as this will help us to provide better surfaces in the winter period.

 

We have to be careful that during periods of frost we look after the greens as much as possible. Any sudden thaws after heavy frosts can lead to root shear and detrimental turf health and so temporary greens may have to be used for a short period to allow the frost to fully leave the ground. This is being monitored on a daily basis with all the staff involved in the process.

 

When the weather is too poor for us to carry on with the winter programme then there are other tasks that we can be getting on with. This includes sharpening the mower blades, sanding down and painting markers and posts.

 

So as you can see there is plenty going on at the moment as we now look forward to a nice warm spring and a healthy golf course. All the best for the new year.

Course Update-Winter Work

The weather recently has been very dry in the main and so the golf course has benefited with the team trying to keep presentation levels as high as possible. However it doesn't take much rain to change things around and in the last week or so we had had plenty. As I write this the course is shut as it has been flooded by another 10mm of rain, which just raises the water table even more, having had 30mm over the last week or so.

 

We are trying to take advantage of any dry periods to carry out important drainage tasks around the golf course. We have already started work on several holes, including 1st, 10th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th and 18th holes.

 

We have installed extra drainage on the right hand side of the 1st and 14th holes. On the 1st we discovered a very deep culvert up near the pond area that was blocked completely with tree roots. Having located the large pipe which runs from the pond to the ditch, we have installed drainage and stone from the culvert to the large pipe.

 

On the 14th we have dug trenches through the worst of the wet area on the right hand side. This has been added to the existing drainage. On the left hand side of the 14th the ditch has been dug out deeper and wider to take an extra volume of water away.

 

Areas of the ditches on the 10th, 13th and 18th have been dug out so that a greater water flow can take place. We have cleared away blockages in culverts we have found which will help to free water movement on the course. On the 13th we have also trimmed the trees and bushes on the left of the ditch right away so that ball retrieval will be much easier for the golfers.

 

An area of much comment and discussion was the bomb hole on the 15th. This area used to be cut regularly with the rough mower but over the last 18 months or so it has become increasingly more difficult to maintain the area. It became wetter and wetter and eventually we were unable to do anything with it as it filled up with water.

 

The decision was made to dig in the area to inspect what the issue was and develop a plan to move forward. The bottom of the pit had a very poor sward after remaining wet for so long and therefore we decided to strip off this area. When we started to remove it we uncovered a deep culvert which started to take all the water away. Moving forward this will be inspected further to make sure it is constantly flowing correctly. If we feel extra drainage is needed then this will be added. Then the area will be made good again with fresh soil and turf.

 

As you can see we are keeping busy with projects as well as trying to keep the course as tidy as possible. Further updates will follow when more works are completed. Please look on the club's twitter feed for pictures of the above work.

 

 

Course Update

The Autumn weather is definitely moving in now with darker mornings and colder temperatures. We seemed to have mostly skipped summer this year with constant rainfall and not too many dry spells. Still, the staff continue to work hard to try and present the golf course as best as they can.

As well as the weather, the machinery has had another hard season and on occasions it has let us down from time to time. I will write a separate blog about the machinery shortly. On a busy course such as this one, it is paramount that all the machinery is up to date and working correctly.

The greens have stood up reasonably well to all the bad weather and have stayed relatively firm. However the constant rain does take its toll and they can only take so much before playability is affected. All the greens today have been fed with an organic granular feed. This will provide a nice colour up as well as keep them ticking along nicely as we head towards the off season.

The aeration policy is still vastly important and the greens were recently spiked with the Procore to allow the surface to breathe. This task will remain a constant through the Autumn period so that we can keep the greens as healthy and as free draining as possible.

 

As we look towards Autumn and Winter we will soon be starting the winter work programme. A separate blog will detail this.

 

 

Greens Renovation

We have talked in the past about the importance of regular aeration work on the surfaces, especially the greens. This year it has been very difficult with the weather to establish consistently high quality putting surfaces but the work must be done to continue to achieve improved results. After a very wet winter and a late, cold spring the greens were slow to get going and so the decision was made not to core in the maintenance window in August.

Although coring was not undertaken this time, we still managed to achieve a lot in a small window. The Air2G2 machine was hired in to blast air into the profile deep down, lower than we currently spike down to. This breaks up any pan in the soil profile, allowing air, water and roots to reach further down. It also is a fantastic machine as it creates very little surface disruption.

A few days after the Air2 we started to Vertidrain the greens. This machine is our own and it can spike down to about 12 inches. We used half inch tines and spiked down to 10 inches so that the toxic air could escape and fresh oxygen could enter the profile. It works like you would stand on your back garden with a pitchfork to relieve compaction (you all do that don’t you!?)

The greens were then topdressed and approximately one ton per green was applied to the surfaces.

After this the Procore was then used to spike the greens to a depth of 4 inches using 8mm tines.

 

We use this machine to drive sand into the profile and also to help close up the Vertidrain holes.

We then went across the greens brushing with the Sweep and Fill brush, making sure the topdressing was brushed into the surface. As we have not cored we are not intending to totally fill any holes on the greens, just give them a dressing. Typically the weather turned as we started to dress the greens so some of the dressing was very wet, however the sweep and fill brush coped very well.

 

Finally the greens were cut and then ironed to help with smoothness. The process was reasonably straightforward and was completed with the minimum of disruption, although you can see by the pictures the kind of machinery needed to keep the greens in the best possible condition.

Recovery is well underway and the greens will be back to normal in no time. An organic granular fertiliser has been applied since to aid the recovery and to give the greens a gentle feed for the next month or so. Next week the weather looks to be a lot warmer so the recovery time should be very minimal. Although we won't look to core the greens until after the season finishes, more aeration work will continue throughout the season on a little and often basis.

Course Update End of June

The weather continues to cause problems as we try and present the golf course to its maximum potential. Having had some different machinery problems solved, including the fairway mower and tractor/rough mower, we are trying to cut all areas of the course despite the heavy rainfall.

 

Obviously it would be a lot more beneficial if we could cut the course in dry conditions but the almost daily rainfall is causing a headache. The growth is strong, the grass is wet and that ultimately leads to a lot of grass clippings being left, especially on areas where we do not box off the clippings, such as fairways and rough.

 

We also do not have any large blowing or collection equipment of our own, so until we can cut the course dry, we will do our best to minimise the disruption. We will blow areas around greens and approaches but the larger areas will have to be left until dry.

 

We have had over two inches of rain just this last week and in general the course is holding up well. The greens have been aerated after a busy Festival week of competitions, and they have also been verticut and lightly dressed to improve the pace and smoothness. Next week they will be brushed to help stand up any lateral growth so we can again cut them to increase smoothness further.

 

Thanks for your patience during this wet period, hopefully summer will arrive soon!

 

Steve Hemsley

Head Greenkeeper

Course Update

This blog is just an update for everyone with regard to the golf course and what we have going on at the moment. It certainly has been an interesting few weeks to say the least.

We have been experiencing very high  levels of growth at the moment, especially on the outfield areas such as semi rough and rough, green and tee banks, ditches etc. It has been very difficult to keep up with it as the whole course has needed to be cut constantly, leaving little time for anything else (I'm sure anyone reading this who cuts their lawn knows how fast things are growing at the moment!).

The greens have been growing well as, after the heat we had a couple of weeks ago, the soil temperature was at its highest so far this year. Then we have had a spell of wet weather which has led to the flush of growth. The down side to this is that warm and wet conditions, along with warmer nights, has meant that disease is never far away from breaking out. At the start of this week we did have an outbreak of Fusarium, quite severe in fact, and so the greens and collars received an application of fungicide to deal with it. At this time of year with the growth the patches will not take long to grow out.

During this spell of weather it has been very difficult to keep a decent pace on the greens. I have spoken with other greenkeepers in the area and they have been struggling too. We have tried to hand cut where possible and iron the greens to try and increase the pace. The greens are much truer than they were which is a fine starting point and hopefully the pace will come shortly. When it is too hot it is very important to not stress out the greens too much.

Spending a lot more man hours on the greens is great to try and achieve results, however it does have a down side. It means that something elsewhere is not being done. To cut the greens using the triple takes around three hours. To hand cut takes three men around three hours each. To iron takes around three hours. As you can see hand cutting will mean six hours lost to the course elsewhere. So while we are always striving to achieve the best results on the greens, we also need to try and maintain everywhere else at the same time.

Factors which also affect our plans are staff holidays, sickness and machinery breakdowns. All of these can cause inefficiency on the course but they are all to some extent inevitable. Anyone who works in a small team knows that losing 20% of your workload for a week or two can seriously affect your efficiency. We are a team of five trying to maintain the course to the highest possible standards, which at this time of year is a full on task. It hasn't helped this week when we received 39mm of rain in about an hour. This has meant that some areas of paths have washed away down the hill.

 

The machinery that the club uses to maintain the course is of various ages and condition, ranging from brand new triple mowers to other various mowers and the tractor which are over ten years old. Therefore they sometimes can let us down and this downtime can seriously affect our ability to keep up the standards. For example, the fairway mower needed parts and we were unable to cut the fairways for over a week, leading to untidy coarse grasses developing and poor presentation. We are trying to make sure that all the machines are fighting fit for the rest of the season so that we can keep up our standards.

The acquisition of a new triple mower will really help us to provide better quality surfaces on the tees, collars and approaches. The mower is the exact same type as the recently purchased greens mower so that we will have that flexibility and consistency to improve our presentation. It has already given us an immediate impact on what we can achieve and so I fully expect the presentation of the course to improve straight away.

 

The bunkers are a constant thorn in our side when it comes to presentation. As I said earlier we are fully stretched when working on the course during the summer and unless we constantly are working on the bunkers it is easy for them to deteriorate. This is very possible during spells of  extreme weather. During the very hot period they baked and developed a very hard pan making them very hard to rake properly. Then after this week, where we have had over three inches of rain, the bunkers flood and become like concrete, again making them very hard to rake! Add to this the growth of grass around the edges and then we have the additional issue of weeds growing too.

 

We have started to sort the bunkers and this work is ongoing. With the machinery working and the new machinery now on site we are confident that the golf course will be back to its best in no time at all. We appreciate that you all want the best possible conditions to play golf and we will continue to work hard to achieve it.

 

Remember if anyone wants to ask a question with regard to the course then please email greens@boltonoldlinksgolfclub.co.uk