Our Work Through July

July 28, 2019

Good Afternoon

It’s been a busy few weeks since my last update, we’ve had our club championship weekend, ladies captains day, seniors charity day and we hosted the PGA east region pro am. All came together well for each and I’d like to thank the guys for all their hard work towards each event and beyond, smashed it!

The weather has been keeping us on our toes ranging from drought conditions in 38 degree heat to heavy rain and flooding (that was just the last 72 hours!!) but we’ve managed to use the weather to our advantage when we could. Since having our new sprayers delivered we’ve been about to get back on top of our wetting agent and feeding programs on the greens and other playing areas. The wetting agent is a great product that helps us make the best use of the water we have available, especially at this time of year when the plant needs as much help as possible to stay hydrated, the wetter helps hold the moisture in the area the plant needs it for longer (it’s does a lot more also depending on the version applied but this is the basic description of it) but the wetter needs to be watered in to be most effective so when we know the rain is coming you will see us out on the sprayer getting the product out. We mix a seaweed product in with it as the wetter helps get the seaweed straight to the roots to be taken up by the plant and helps strengthen the plant from the inside.

Using the weather to our advantage coupled with the application of a four month controlled release fertiliser back in May has meant that every time we have had some rain over the summer the fairways has bounced back, for us this is a big deal as in the past this area of the course has always struggled at this time of year.

Whilst I’m talking fairways, I recently had Peter from Headland Amenity come and take soil samples from the fairways so we can get exact measurements of all that makes up our fairways. From these results we will be able to make an informed plan as to how we are going to make the fairways more consistent all year round a present a better playing surface for what is one of the largest areas we look after on the course. I’ll post more about this plan after we have the results.

Over the last couple of weeks we have spent time moving the sand in the bunkers so that the sand is as much in the playing area as possible. We will do as much as we can to keep it in the right area but please make sure you rake after you’ve played out and push the sand instead of pulling it with you, you’d be surprised how much difference that will make.

Since taking delivery of our new Toro 1600 hand mowers we have started to hand cut tees and approaches, this has benefited the presentation of these areas and the definition between both areas and the semi rough around them. As we go forward the mowers will play an integral part in helping us improve the grasses in these areas and in turn how they will play. I will come back to this in a later post.

Each time we take delivery of a new piece of equipment we are able to improve our work programs and make to best use of that bit of kit. We as a team are excited as to what we will be able to do once it’s all delivered. Next to arrive will be the two greens triple mowers followed shortly by the fairway mowers and a trailed blower.

Something else new to arrive, very early Thursday morning, is our new sewage plant. This is a significant investment and represents a commitment to the local environment and our responsibility towards it. This will be getting installed over the next couple of weeks.

Thats about it for this one. Enjoy the course,

take care

please repair, rake, replace