March Course Report

How quickly things can change in a month. We have gone from feast to famine in terms of rainfall this summer. After above average rainfall in December, January we are now into our 7^th week with no rain since the end of January.

Windy weather has been a challenge this month with 3 consecutive weeks with high winds causing trees and large branches to fall as well as the debris clean-up of the golf course usually taking 1-2 days to get back on track. This has put several of our spraying/weeding programs on hold. Let’s hope autumn brings us some stable weather along with some good rain soon.

 

Greens

The greens are holding up well considering the dry conditions of late. The greens were showing some signs of fairy ring recently which is usually associated with dry weather around the end of summer. This has disappeared of its own accord. Some greens are showing signs of Anthracnose in areas of stress which affects the Poa annua, these greens will get an application of fungicide over and above our regular fungicide program. Hydrocotyle and Pennywort are also both very visable at the moment which we are working our way through spot spraying, this usually requires a follow up application to get full control. We are taking the opportunity at the moment to dust the greens when every we can with two dusts scheduled between now and Easter. In the next two weeks we will apply a granular slow release fertilizer to help any stressed areas recover following this dry period as we move into Autumn which is optimal growing conditions for Bent & Poa. The next renovation scheduled for the greens is the 7 & 8 May which we will hollow tine and top-dress the greens with 6mm tines.

Anthracnose present in the 8^th green.

Fairways

After struggling to keep up with the mowing in certain areas on fairway highlighted by the scalping we are now seeing the course at its driest in years.

Prolonged dryness really shows up the inadequacies of the irrigation system in terms of coverage and uniformity with a single row sprinkler design on the fairways.

Dryness caused by tree root encroachment onto the fairways has also be highlighted during this dry period.

 

Bunkers

Weed spraying is ongoing at this time of year with areas of the bunkers that receive irrigation prone to weed germination.

At the recent course committee meeting, the committee acknowledged ongoing issues with bunker sand inconsistency and to assist with course set up and continuous maintenance, we will be working on a new video raking instruction for bunker care shortly.

We have also identified LH 14^th green bunker as a constant bunker with soft sand conditions and we will be trialling with staff to board the bunkers, instead of raking them, to see whether this would apply a difference and preventing plugged balls in soft sand in this bunker.

 

Tees & surrounds

All tee tops and high traffic areas were fertilized with a slow release fertilizer at the start of the month.

 

Machinery

We took possession of our new fairway mower and verti-cutting heads at the start of the month. Our mechanic has been on 2 weeks holiday but now he is back we will get him to fit the verti-cutting heads on the old fairway mower and we will trial different settings on thatchy areas of fairways. The dry weather will restrict how much we do this Autumn as we want the fairways as healthy as possible going into dormancy in the next couple of months.

 

Water

Our water storage is down to 15ML which will be enough to get us through the next month even if it stays dry. We have had to manage our water usage closely in the past month and restrict what we put on the fairways to make sure we have enough for greens tees and surrounds till the end of the watering season.  

 

Staff

Jack Hitchcock has resigned after completing one year of his apprenticeship. We will wait until the new financial year to replace him. Brandon Grentell one of our senior staff is taking a leave of absence for 6 months to work at The Royal Automobile Club in England on the 36-hole golf course in Epson Downs south west of London.

 

Rainfall                        Total                                        Average          

January                        56.5mm                                   43.3mm          

February                       1mm                                        46.9mm

March                          1mm (as at 18^th)                       44.9mm

 

 

David Phillips

Course Superintendent

22 March 2018

 

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