Monday 30 April 2012

Drying up

At last it looks like the weather is turning to more drier, favourable conditions. The course is however still closed, with Wednesday looking the earliest it will be open, providing no further rain falls. It is still very wet, nearly 6 inches of rain has fallen in April. Only this afternoon have we began to think about taking the mowers on to the course to try and cut some grass since last Wednesday. We are however very limited to where we can go due to the ground conditions. We started to cut the greens with the hand mower this morning, as it is still too soft for the triple mowers to run across the greens.
 11th green
8th green
Whilst the greens were being cut the rest of the team pushed water off the wettest greens and attended to drainage issues around the course. Then bunker edging was finished off on 1-18 holes, we started divoting fairways and the surround mower was set up for grooming for tomorrow.
Holes 21-24 are now flooded, the water has come up around 3 foot above normal level due to the River Derwent rising after the significant rain recently. The water level may increase further over the next couple of days until the River subsides to its normal height.


Friday 27 April 2012

Course closed

Another 27mm of rain has fallen since my last post, keeping the course well and truly closed. The drainage system on the golf course is removing water to its full potential, however the amount of water on the course will take time to work its way into the ditches and ponds. Here's some pictures from this afternoon.
 5th fairway
 Start of 10th fairway
 10th fairway
 17th
18th fairway
Where the greenstaff installed extensive drainage a couple of years ago, is drier and much improved, however as you can see it not just localised flooding.
Drained 16th fairway
The greenstaff have continued with edging and flymoing bunkers, staining clubhouse furniture, and divoting tees.



Thursday 26 April 2012

Blog reaches 2000 hits!

Once again thank you to all followers and people that take time to read about the course maintenance at Malton and Norton Golf Club.

Monsoon season!

As already highlighted on this blog there has been a lot of rain that has fallen on the golf course in the last 3 weeks, 103mm to be exact. Today the course was closed due to the storms that passed over night and throughout today, looking at the sheer volume of water on the course and the forecast it looks like the course will remain closed tomorrow also.
 The 6th green
The 12th green
When conditions are dry enough we have been cutting where possible, continuing with bunker edging and flymoing bunker faces.


Monday 23 April 2012

Flooding of the Derwent River

Holes 21 - 24 have been closed for a couple of days now and after even more rain this weekend the River Derwent has began to rise on the golf course. Our lakes on the course are fed from the near by river. They back up until they start to burst their banks. In 2004 the River Derwent rose around 10ft above normal level, this isn't quite as serious but has disrupted course maintenance and play on the low lying holes.


Today we also cut greens, sprayed carbendazim for worm control, serviced the surround mower and continued with edging bunkers.

Friday 20 April 2012

Will it stop raining?

This week has seen very wet weather nearly every day, around 35mm in total has fallen over the space of 4 days. Yesterday the course was closed due to the sheer volume of water on the course. All the drainage we installed recently was at full capacity removing water from the course. With no rain for the start of today the course just needed time (and a little help from the greenstaff) and at 10 am the course reopened. When ground conditions allowed we continued cutting where possible to prepare the course for weekend play. Mark cut amongst the new copses at 7th and 9th.
Holes 21 - 24 are currently waterlogged so we have had to cut out a temporary green on the 24th fairway until conditions improve. Holes 21 - 24 are constantly under treat from flooding as they are situated next to the River Derwent which rises very quickly following prolonged rainfall. Fortunately it does fall as quick as it rises so we hope to get the holes back in play next week.

The greens dried fairly quickly so Scott put another application of Seaweed, iron sulphate and 15-0-0 fertiliser (N @ 2.5 kg/Ha) on the greens. We apply a mix like this to the greens every 3 weeks to keep them healthy, without overfeeding them which would encourage excess growth.

We also moved holes, cut tees, cut tee sides, flymo'd bank sides, fertilised bunker faces and poor tees and cut fairways
11th fairway

Wednesday 18 April 2012

More rain!

This week has seen yet more rain, just as the golfing season is trying to get into full swing, the weather is determind to slow down progress of course playability. We are continuing to cut when growth is sufficient, however the cold temperatures means slow recovery is apparent in most places. Todays first jobs were to brush greens, cut greens and roll to maintain trueness in these softer conditions.
 14th green
 7th green- foreground, 2nd green background
 11th green - rolling
7th green
Mid morning we then continued edging bunkers and redistributing sand on 1-9 holes
 4th greenside under renovation
4th greenside renovated
3rd greenside after renovation

We also started cutting tees and teesides after the tees had been divoted and some areas had been seeded after our winter work.

Monday 16 April 2012

Today we gave the greens a light verticut to remove some of the lateral growth which forms as the bents in the greens start growing. Verticutting will ensure the sward remains dense, consistent and helps with the trueness of the surface. After verticutting they were cut at 4mm (bench setting). We also tidied the ditch running across 10, 13 and 14, by strimming, edging, and removing debris from the water. All divots taken from the 10th section have been filled. An open drain has been fitted to the front right semi rough near the 24th green, where water stands after flooding and heavy rain. This will help keep the turf reasonably dry around the green. Later in the week we will start to edge the bunkers on the course.

Wednesday 11 April 2012

What a difference a day makes !

Last week brought torrential rain and cold weather, this week isn't much better, but at least the rain has seen the course pick up a bit. With moderate growth in most places we are starting to see what Malton and Norton Golf Club can be like once more. After a couple of days of cutting to tidy areas up we can see a bit of definition and how the course is going to 'shape' up this season.

We are still along way off summer conditions but all the Green staff have worked tirelessly to help improve the course this winter and throughout spring, the team we have are a credit to the club.



Other than the regular cutting tasks the staff have been topping up paths and tracks with fresh stone.

Thursday 5 April 2012

Ice closes course

After torrential rain on Wednesday (35mm) the course was closed due to wet conditions. That night with water stood across the course, came a hard frost (-2 degrees C), freezing the puddles of water on greens, surrounds and fairways. The ground was very dry previously so most of the water soaked away quickly into drains and ditches. This morning we were left with patches of ice which would do severe damage to the turf if golfers were allowed to play, so the course remained closed till all frost and ice had gone at 10.00 am
 The 27th above
The 15th below

Tuesday 3 April 2012

Ditch cleaning

Today we finished the area to the left of the 23rd green, shaping the remainder of the soil. So we moved the excavator on to cleaning out ditches on the 22nd hole. This just involved removing the overgrown material from the bottom of the ditch to allow drainage water to run freely towards the outfall.

Rescue trials at Malton and Norton Golf Club

Firstly for those who don't know what Rescue is, it is a selective herbicide that kills Rye grass in turf. It is a relatively new product in the UK. Rye grass is a real problem on the surrounds and some fairways at M & N GC. I decided to do a few trials on the practice area last year to determined the best time in the year to use the product.
I did the first trial in July 2011, I sprayed an area 5m x 5m on fairway grade turf containing Rye grass, an area 2m x 2m in semi rough grade turf containing Rye grass and an area 10m x 6m spanning across the edge of the practice green and onto the surround. The last plot was 3m on to the edge of the green and 3m into the surround, the surround had very bad clumps of Rye grass, however the green did not contain any Rye grass. The idea behind trialling greens turf was to ascertain weather it would effect the long term health of the green if the product was used across the golf course greens. The product label does state it will effect different species of grass in different ways. Annual Meadow Grass and most Fescues are resistant to it's mode of action, however some bents are susceptible especially Highland bent. The green was seeded with a bent/ fescue mix, Manor and Denso being the bent varieties. The turf is now mostly a bent/ poa mix. All areas were sprayed at a rate of 1 l/ha using a knapsack sprayer.
After around 3 weeks all areas showed positive results and all the Rye grass was dying off . After 6 weeks the Rye grass had been removed and the remaining grass started to fill in the areas.
With the trial a success we sprayed 11 surrounds on the course and 2 fairways (the 14th and the 21st) in August. The results were very similar to the trial and 95% of the Rye grass has been removed. The worst areas for Rye grass cover were over seeded with a bent/ fescue mix to aid recovery. Nearly a year on and the results are still very positive, some of the most vigorous Rye grass has returned in small quantities but another application this year will reduce it further. Other surrounds will be sprayed this year to help improve the quality of our course.
One point of interest we have found since doing the trial on the greens turf mentioned above, is the fact is has since weakened the bent grass in the treated area. The bent didn't seem to be effected at the time of treatment, however over the winter period the bent sward has not recovered like the rest of the same green. We over seeded the practice green in October 2011 and the bent/ fescue spots where we over seeded into hollow core holes can clearly be seen in a poa dominated sward.

In both pictures it is clearly visible that the treated area is on the left and the unaffected, non treated area is on the right.

 Here is the practice green in question, the effected area is on the left of the green, 3m in from the edge and 10m from the front towards the back of the green. There is a distinct line which shows, left poa sward, right bent sward.

I am not doubting that Rescue is a fantastic product, it has worked perfectly on surrounds, fairways and semi on the course with no negative results like this. The only explanation for this result is that the application period in July can not have been suitable in this instance, either weather conditions or growth at the time have stressed the treated bent enough to kill off some of the plants. Like I stated earlier in this post it does effect some bents, the bent grass used on this particular green is not Highland bent, so we can rule that out. Manor and Denso are high up on the STRI rating list so they  are not poor species. Trials done elsewhere in the country have suggested that when bents are effected they are leaf scorched, but do grow back within a short period of time as the root system is not effected. In this instance the bent grass has died off over a longer period of time, with noticeable results after the winter weather. I will monitor this area closely and post my results in due course.

Yesterday we gave 1 - 18 greens a base feed of 4-0-8 + Fe granular fertiliser. We apply a liquid feed along with seaweed every 2-3 weeks just to keep them growing slowly, however at this time of the year I feel a base feed of a granular fertiliser helps thicken the sward. Any winter aeration work will grow out, given the right soil temperature, coupled with regular topdressing. Mark and Adam applied the fertiliser, then irrigated in to prevent blackening from the iron content. We applied the fertiliser when the greens are dewy to aid correct and even dispersal.

We also cut the tee sides with the Allen national machines, they are specifically designed to work on bank sides, here's Will on the first tee side.
Alistair has continued shaping and working the soil at the end of the 20th/23rd to create screening to the area towards the end of the range. This mounding will be seeded and planted with gorse in the coming years. The land surrounding the mound will be planted with pine trees to add to the screening and to help it settle more naturally into the surroundings.


Every week we pick up balls from the driving range, in summer we cut the range following ball removal. Around 10000 balls a week are hit on the range, it is open to everyone to use and provides an excellent facility for the members and public.

About Me

Im the Head Greenkeeper at Malton and Norton Golf Club. I began my greenkeeping career at Malton and Norton Golf Club straight from school as an Assistant Greenkeeper. Wanting to climb the greenkeeping ladder I gained my NVQ level 2 and 3 at Askham Bryan College. I continued with my education gaining a HNC in golf course management and took the position of Deputy Head Greenkeeper at Malton and Norton Golf Club in 2005.In 2008 I was promoted to the position of Head Greenkeeper, leading a team of 6 hard working and dedicated Greenkeepers. Our aim is to continue to improve the condition of the course year on year maintaining our high reputation within the area.